Min Kao kissed Luli on the nose, then tucked the blanket tighter around her. “See you in the morning, Empress.”
He led Jingwei out of the room, and they crossed the hall, to their own bed. She sat first, and he joined her. She’d put up a good act, but he could see that Luli’s distress had gotten to her.
“You know what Luli asked me this morning?” he said, trying to break her out of the mood. When she didn’t answer, he continued, “She wanted to know how old she needed to be before she should get a job and help us with the family finances.”
Jingwei looked at him, her eyes questioning.
“I told her at least sixteen,” he said. “I don’t know how she even knows we have finances or what that even means. She should be worried about dolls and homework, not what it takes to survive in this foolish world.”
“We have to protect her, Min Kao,” Jingwei said with a rush of breath, as though the words escaped from her uninvited.
“I know we do.”
“But if we tell her to hide her gift, she’ll grow up to feel ashamed of it.”
He nodded. “I agree. It’s a very complicated problem. Because Lao Go doesn’t want his business talked about, he’ll most likely say nothing. But if Luli reads the wrong person, news of her abilities will spread like wildfire, and who knows how that will affect her?”
Jingwei sighed loudly. “I’m fearful that one of the whites will learn of her. In their religion, they don’t take kindly to this sort of spiritual talk. It could be dangerous.”
They’d talked about the danger before, years ago when Luli had first told them of one of her encounters. It was only after the third or fourth episode that they’d finally realized she wasn’t speaking of simple imaginary friends. They’d thought they had years before others would think anything of it, but today—she had convinced Lao Go she did indeed speak to his wife, and that scared Min Kao to no end.
The day she was born, a woman in the marketplace had claimed Luli was marked. Min Kao had pushed the prediction aside, but it turned out the old woman was right. He could only imagine the terror a Chinese soothsayer could bring to the American whites. And if anything happened to Luli, it would crush both he and Jingwei. He’d survived a lot while building a life in a new place, but it was all for Luli.
“I’ll talk to her tomorrow,” Min Kao said. “I’ll make her understand.”
4
Jingwei dressed quickly in the worn tunic and trousers, maneuvered her hair into a simple braid, then stood in front of the mirror. These days she didn’t have time to waste looking at her reflection, but it was impossible not to immediately notice the tired rings around her eyes, or the pinched look of her mouth. It had been a long night of little sleep, her mind on Luli and Lao Go.
She was so worried that the old man would have loose lips and cause them trouble. Many people in the Chinese quarter longed for a piece of the homeland they’d left behind, and if there were rumors of a soothsayer—even a child one—Jingwei had a feeling others would come calling.
At the crack of dawn, Min Kao had urged her to stay in bed, telling her he’d take her morning duties and get Luli off to school.
Jingwei examined the expensive jade bracelet that had been given to her by her sworn sister, Sun Ling. She didn’t know if they’d ever be able to bridge the emotional gulf between them. They still saw one another for Sunday dinners, as well as for brief moments during the handoffs of rescues, but it was different now.
She couldn’t quite pinpoint what had changed in their relationship, but Min Kao said it was the fact that Sun Ling tried so hard to fit into the white world. It was true that Sun Ling no longer wore Chinese fashions, and that she was fond of the foreign hairstyles and strange shoes, but deep down Sun Ling hadn’t abandoned her people, and that was the most important thing. So what was it that made them less comfortable in one another’s company?
Jingwei didn’t know, but some said that those destined to be in your life forever were attached by an invisible red thread. She believed that was true, so she vowed to never give up trying to regain the relationship they’d once had. After all, they were sworn sisters, and nothing would change that. For now, they’d continue their cloak-and-dagger work together, and perhaps one day, everything else would fall back into place.
She picked up the brush from her bureau and pulled it through her hair. Her eyes lingered on the colored bottles lined up along the scarred wood. Each bottle held its own tantalizing scent—Jingwei’s work from the last few years that she was still trying to perfect.
Luli loved to line the bottles up and play with them, taking surprising care even as a toddler not to spill one single drop, as though she believed they contained magical potions. Jingwei smiled when she thought of how fast Luli had grown. Sometimes she looked at her and wished she’d have been there from the very moment she’d taken her first breath—that she had born her from her very own body, though she couldn’t love her any more than she already did.
Jingwei longed to have another child, to experience giving birth and to present Min Kao with a son. But after the loss of her first child, her body was obviously no longer able to produce.
She needed to get over it. Her life was full of fortune. She had Luli! And the gods might not appreciate her constant pining over what she couldn’t have.
She hurried to the secret door at the back of the closet and, once through it, went down the short hall, the smell of the morning congee already filling her senses. A simple meal for simple—but grateful—people. Never once had anyone dwelling in the small space complained of the meager fare or the crowded accommodation. To them, it was a sanctuary, no matter how humble.
Most of the women were already seated in a circle, each holding their bowls in one hand as they scooped the rice porridge into their mouths with the other. They were dressed in the loose, comfortable wide-legged pants and tunics that Sun Ling provided, outfits that were the total opposite of the revealing, flamboyant clothes most of them arrived in.
“Zao,” she said, giving them the usual morning greeting. She kept conversation in Mandarin, the language of her childhood. Some of the girls were reared with Cantonese, but they all did their best to communicate, and somehow, they got by.
At her greeting, one or two smiled above the rims of their bowls, but others, still too traumatized to make eye contact, didn’t look up.
“If the delivery boy makes it by this afternoon, we’ll have bok choy and rice for dinner,” she said, hoping to cheer them. She could get the familiar Chinese cabbage at the market if she wanted to pay top price for it, but the vegetable men from the city’s outskirts made their rounds once a week, bringing overloaded carts of not only better quality, but cheaper-priced produce. It helped them save on the mounting bills of feeding so many houseguests.
The announcement got her a few nods and one smile.
“No babies today?” one girl asked. The girls knew if she didn’t show up, it meant she was busy with her other work.
“Not that I know of,” Jingwei answered.
Over the years, Jingwei had built a reputation as a sought-after midwife. She wasn’t sure if it stemmed from the memory of her own miscarriage so long ago, but she worked passionately, trying everything she could to keep the expectant mothers from feeling the guilt and sorrow that came from losing a baby.