“Then you blamed me and everyone else for making you stay home with her. But when any of us offered to take Joy for a while, you turned us down.”
“That’s not true. I let you take her to film sets—”
“And then you wouldn’t allow me even that happiness anymore,” she says sadly. “I loved her, but she was always a burden to you. You have a daughter. I have nothing. I’ve lost everyone—my mother, my father, my child—”
“And I was raped by too many men to protect you!”
My sister nods as though she was expecting me to say this. “So now I get to hear about that sacrifice? Again?” She takes a breath. I can see she’s trying to calm down. “You’re upset. I understand that. But none of this has anything to do with what happened to Sam.”
“But of course it does! Everything between us has to do with either your illegitimate child or what the monkey people did to me.”
The muscles in May’s neck tighten and her anger roars back, matching mine. “If you really want to talk about that night, then fine, because I’ve been waiting a lot of years for this. No one asked you to go out there. Mama very clearly told you to stay with me. She wanted you to be safe. You’re the one she talked to in Sze Yup, whispering her love to you, as she always did, so I wouldn’t understand. But I understood that she loved you enough to say loving words to you and not to me.”
“You’re changing the truth, like you always do, but it won’t work. Mama loved you so much she faced those men alone. I couldn’t let her do that. I had to help her. I had to save you.” As I speak, memories of that night fill my eyes. Wherever Mama is now, is she aware of everything I sacrificed for my sister? Did Mama love me? Or had Mama in her last moments been disappointed in me one final time? But I don’t have time for these questions when my sister is standing before me, her hands on her hips, her beautiful face contorted in exasperation.
“That was one night. One night out of a lifetime! How long have you used it, Pearl? How long have you used it to keep distance between you and Sam, between you and Joy? When you were in and out of consciousness, you told me some things you obviously don’t remember. You said that Mama groaned when you stepped into the room with the soldiers. You said you thought she was upset because you weren’t protecting me. I think you were wrong. She must have been heartbroken that you weren’t saving yourself. You’re a mother. You know what I say is true.”
This hits me like a slap to my face. May’s right. If Joy and I were in the same situation ….
“You think you’ve been brave and given up so much,” May continues. I don’t hear condemnation or taunting in her voice, just relentless anguish, as though she’s the one who’s suffered. “But really you’ve been a coward: afraid, weak, and uncertain all these years. Never once have you asked what else happened in the shack that night. Never once have you thought to ask me what it was like to hold Mama in my arms as she died. Did you ever once think to ask where, how, or if she was buried? Who do you think took care of that? Who do you think got us away from that shack when the sensible thing would have been to leave you behind to die?”
I don’t like her questions. I like the answers that run through my mind even less.
“I was only eighteen years old,” May goes on. “I was pregnant and terrified. But I pushed you in the wheelbarrow. I got you to the hospital. I saved your life, Pearl, but you’re still carrying resentment and fear and blame after all these years. You believe you’ve sacrificed so much to take care of me, but your sacrifices have only been excuses. I’m the one who sacrificed to take care of you.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Is it?” She pauses briefly and then says: “Have you ever once thought what life has been like for me here? To see my daughter every day but always be kept at a distance? Or do the husband-wife thing with Vern? Think about that, Pearl. He could never be a real husband.”
“What are you saying?”
“That we never would have ended up here in this place that seems to have caused you so much misery if it hadn’t been for you.” As the fight falls from her voice, her words dig deep into me, unsettling my blood and bones. “You let one night, one terrible, tragic night, make you run and run and run. And I, as your moy moy, followed. Because I love you, and I knew you were forever damaged and would never be able to see the beauty and fortune in your life.”
I close my eyes, trying to steady myself I never want to hear her voice again. I never want to see her again. “Won’t you please just leave?” I beg.
But she comes right back at me. “Just answer me honestly. Would we be here in America if it hadn’t been for you?”
Her question thrusts into me sharp as a knife, because so much of what she’s been saying is true. But I’m still so angry and hurt that she turned Sam in that I respond with the one thing that will be most spiteful. “Absolutely not. We wouldn’t be here in America if you hadn’t done the husband-wife thing with some nameless boy! If you hadn’t made me take your baby—”
“He wasn’t nameless,” May says, her voice as soft as clouds. “It was Z.G.”
I thought I’d been hurt as much as I could and still survive. I was wrong.
“How could you? How could you hurt me that way? You know I loved Z.G.”
“Yes, I know,” she admits. “Z.G. thought it was funny—the way you stared at him during our sittings, the way you went begging to him—but I felt terrible about it.”
I stagger back. Betrayal upon betrayal upon betrayal.
“This is another of your lies.”
“Really? Joy saw it: Who had the red face of a peasant on the covers of China Reconstructs and whose face was painted with love?”
As she speaks, images from the past tumble through my mind: May resting her head against Z.G.’s heart as they danced, Z.G. painting every last strand of her hair, Z.G. placing peonies around her naked body …
“I’m sorry,” she says. “That was cruel. I know you’ve held him in your heart all these years, but that was a girlish crush from long ago. Can’t you see that? Z.G. and I…” Her voice catches. “You had a lifetime with Sam. Z.G. and I had a few weeks.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I knew you had feelings for him. That’s why I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
And like that I understand what’s been before me for the last twenty years. “Z.G. is Joy’s father.”
“Who is Z.G.?”
It’s the one voice that neither my sister nor I want to hear. I turn and there’s Joy, standing in the kitchen doorway, her eyes like black pebbles at the bottom of a bowl of narcissus. Her look—cold, expressionless, and unforgiving—tells me she’s been listening far too long. I’m devastated by Sam’s death and my sister’s version of our lives, but I feel absolute horror that my daughter has heard any of this. I take two steps toward Joy but she edges away from me.
“Who is Z.G.?” she asks again.
“He is your real father,” May answers, her voice gentle and filled with love. “And I am your real mother.”
The three of us stand in the living room like statues. I see May and me through Joy’s eyes: a mother—who has tried to teach her daughter to be filial in the Chinese way and brilliant in the American way—wearing an old nightgown, with a face red from tears, sorrow, and anger; and another mother—who has indulged her daughter with treats and exposed her to the glamour and money of Haolaiwu—looking radiant and elegant. Freed from two decades of secrets, May seems at peace, despite everything that’s happened tonight. My sister and I have fought over shoes, over who’s had the better life, and over who’s smarter and prettier, but this time I don’t have a chance. I know who will win. For so long I’ve wondered about my destiny. It wasn’t enough for me to lose my baby son and my husband. Now the tears of the greatest loss of my life roll down my cheeks.