—
Finally, dinner was over, and A P’oh was calling for the lei shi* to be distributed. Uncle Sam went out to the hall, and when he returned his hands were full of red envelopes. Minnie and Frankie both squealed as the adults laughed indulgently. Lily’s father produced several lei shi from his jacket pocket; Uncle Francis went and got his from his coat; and A P’oh instructed Frankie to bring her purse from Lily’s bedroom.
The red envelopes were handed out to all the children, Lily included: four each, stuffed with crisp new bills. The little ones got only a dollar in each envelope, but Lily received thirty-five dollars this year, with twenty coming from her parents. The money was a gift, but it also felt like a warning. It came with the expectation that Lily would do as she was told.
The lei shi marked the end of dinner, and Lily helped her mother clear the dishes away. Afterward, the men disassembled the temporary table and lit up cigarettes. Aunt Judy opened the living room windows to let out the smoke, and the sound of firecrackers popping could be heard coming from Grant Avenue.
Frankie ran to the window to peer outside, his brother and cousins close behind. “Can we go see the firecrackers, Papa?” Frankie asked.
It was the New Year, after all, so the adults agreed, and Uncle Sam, Uncle Francis, and Lily’s father put on their jackets to accompany the children down the block. They asked Lily if she wanted to come, but she shook her head and went to help her mother and aunts wash the dishes.
When they finished, and her mother and aunts put the kettle on for tea, Lily said she would go to bed. Her mother looked at her—really looked at her for the first time all day—and Lily looked away.
“Take some blankets from my room so you can sleep on the floor in your brothers’ room,” her mother said.
“I’ll help you,” Aunt Judy said, rising quickly.
They found a quilt and the old army blanket and took one of the pillows from Lily’s bed, arranging everything on the floor between her brothers’ beds. She said good night to her grandmother, who would sleep in Lily’s room during her visit. She brushed her teeth; she changed into her nightgown; she took clean clothes for tomorrow into her brothers’ room, and closed the door. The floor felt very hard beneath her, and immediately she remembered the soft give of Lana’s sofa.
She closed her eyes. She thought about the first time she had seen Lana, in the hallway of the Telegraph Club outside the bathroom, but the memory was disjointed and vague, with snatches of color and disembodied voices. It seemed so unbelievable now—the idea that she, Lily Hu, had ever snuck out of her house and gone to this homosexual club in the middle of the night. How could she ever have done such a thing? A few hours at home and the Telegraph Club seemed more like a fantasy than a real thing. This troubled her. It felt as if someone had taken an eraser to her memory—to her very self—and rubbed at it, then blown away the remains.
She tried to think back, to remember what was real. The shy look on Kath’s face as she gave her that issue of Collier’s on top of Russian Hill. The tentative softness of Kath’s lips, the first time they kissed. The heat of Kath’s breath on her neck as Lily held her in the corner of Miss Weiland’s classroom. Lily had never felt closer to anyone in her life.
It hurt to remember these things because they reminded her of Kath and her fears of what might have happened to her. But the hurt felt real—much more real than the entire afternoon of staying silent. So she lay on the hard wooden floor between her brothers’ beds and let that ache fill her.
47
Lily woke before dawn. The room was dark, and she heard her brothers breathing on either side of her, their lungs rising and falling almost in unison. When they had come back the night before, they had stood over her—she had heard them but pretended to be asleep—and whispered, Is she all right? Why was Mama so angry at her? Did she do something wrong? Shh, don’t wake her. And then Eddie tucked the blanket up beneath her chin and brushed his hand over her forehead as if he were their father checking her temperature. His touch had brought tears to her eyes, and they slid silently down her temples while he and Frankie climbed into their beds, their sheets rustling as they settled down for the night.
She didn’t want to wake them, but she remembered that the flat now contained an additional five people, and she didn’t want to be last in line for the bathroom. She got up as quietly as she could and snuck out of the room.
She could almost pretend it was a normal day. She washed up quickly and got dressed. In the kitchen, her mother was already brewing coffee and making porridge from the leftover rice.
“Will you set out the dishes?” her mother asked.
Lily went to the cabinet, wondering if their conversations would only be transactional from now on. She felt dull inside, like a tarnished silver bowl.
She heard little Minnie chirping from the other end of the flat as everyone else began to wake up, and soon the kitchen was crowded. It was Monday, but because it was New Year week and family was visiting, Lily’s parents were taking a couple of days off from work. Eddie and Frankie still had to go to school, of course, and Lily—Lily stopped short, about to butter a piece of toast, alarmed by the thought of having to go to school. With Shirley. With everyone who must already know about her and Kath.
Thankfully, there was breakfast to distract her. Eddie and Frankie tried to argue their way out of school, but failed. Minnie and Jack tried to swallow their glee at not having to go to school themselves, but also failed. After A P’oh woke up, Lily was charged with taking her a tray of porridge and tea. When she returned to the landing to pick up her book bag, her mother appeared as if she had been waiting for her and said, “You’re not going to school today.”