In the last two months, Dagou has been making plans for an evermore-elaborate fantasy Christmas party. At night, lying awake, he tries to recall every dish his parents ever discussed and attempted: the triumphant reconstitutions of fish dishes from the other side of the world; the salted greens and crispy skins they teased from childhood memories. He remembers even the failed meals. He directs James and Ming to reconstitute these recipes and to feed their results to Tyrone, Freedy, and the most loyal customers, who critique the dishes. Dagou and James spend most visits discussing these experiments. Are they trying too hard with their cao bing? Is their bing too neurotically or timidly sliced, or too evenly stir-fried? Does it miss the crunchy and uneven bits that had graced their mother’s celebrated version?
Lately, Dagou has been seized by the idea that if only there were no hunger, humankind would be all right. He means more, he says, than hunger of the body. He believes they’re related: Hunger of spirit is hunger of body. The answer lies in the stomach.
“I’ve been writing to Katherine,” he says. “She’s going to visit me today, on her way out to the party. I’m going to grill her about the afternoon, like, five years ago, when Ma taught us to make her savory zongzi.”
Although she’s had two video visits, Katherine hasn’t gone to see Dagou in person since his conviction. James suspects they’ll be discussing more than recipes. “And Brenda?”
“She’s coming tomorrow. Christmas visit.”
Dagou’s features twist. His face is wretched, darkened.
“I can see her mind go back and forth!” he says. “She walks in thinking, I’m going to dump him, gotta dump him now! I can see the other guy. He’s an accountant. White guy, dirty blond hair, six-pack abs, met him at the Festival Foods”—James knows there is no such person—“and he’s coming by to help her with her leaky sink or make himself useful around the house, since there’s no man around. Why stick with me? Why be faithful to me, an imprisoned loser? Every visit, I know she’s going to dump me, then she walks in here and feels sorry for me. I should give her her fucking freedom back. If I was a better guy, I would. I will. Fuck if I’m going to keep her tied down.”
“She loves you, Dagou.”
“I’ve been trying to break up with her every time she walks in here.”
“You’re just low because today’s the anniversary … of what happened.”
“I’m a shit.”
To cheer up his brother, James tells the news that Alf has been discovered with the Skaers. He’s even a little fatter than before.
“Ba always said that dog was a whore.” Dagou shakes his head, but James can tell he feels better. They’ve reached the end of the visit. Katherine will be coming to see him at two o’clock. Dagou wishes James a great Christmas party. He also sends a greeting to pass along to Ming, who’s left his job in New York and is now living, with James, in what was once their father’s house.
The Life Savings
As the earth’s axis tilted away from the sun, and as the medications took effect, Ming’s inflammatory monologues eased. He’s not drinking coffee, and he’s promised not to spend more than ten minutes a day on the internet. His native arrogance has made it possible for him to gradually and scrupulously wean himself off of the psychotropic drugs, the anti-anxiety drugs, the sleep-inducing drugs, and the antidepressants. He goes to the gym and visits occasionally the talk therapist prescribed for him. But the psychosis has opened a window in his mind, and he now has extra insight that comes from an experience in another world. He’s as fierce and critical as ever, but he struggles with vivid dreams, and he doesn’t tell most of them to anyone, not even his brothers.
Ming and James used most of the bail money, plus some of James’s savings, to buy the house and restaurant back from Gu Ling Zhu Chi. It was right that the property should go back to the Chao family, Gu Ling Zhu Chi said. She’d received a visit from Winnie’s spirit before the forty-nine-day ceremony; Winnie was troubled about the will after her death. And of course the old abbess wouldn’t refuse the money to endow the Spiritual House, where their mother and their half sister had sought refuge. After sending the money to the Spiritual House, Ming wasn’t yet at ease. They had more to pay back, for the past and for the future. And so the money left over has been put into an account to pay for health benefits for Brenda, as well as for Tyrone and Freedy, who’re working part-time while they save up to start their own restaurant.
When James comes looking for him, Ming is waiting in their father’s old chair, watching a soap he secretly enjoys, set in Wyoming, about a ranching family that owns a llama, Thelma, with an IQ of 155.
James says hello, sits in Winnie’s old chair. “Did you have anything for lunch?”
This is the anniversary of Ming’s drive through the snow: of the texts from Katherine, of his unshaven muzzle in the window at the service plaza. No, he hasn’t had lunch. He stares at the TV, ignoring James, and glowering at Thelma, who’s playing a trick on her human owner, Macy, involving a mailbox and a locked gate.
But during the commercial break, he mutes the sound. The old house stands around the brothers, hushed, as the winter sun moves up the sky.
For months now, he’s been holding back on James. He’s been taking things one day at a time, biting his tongue. But on this day, the anniversary, he must speak. “I thought you were different,” he says. “I thought you were on higher ground. I told you go search the car. But instead you got distracted and went off like any one of us, off to sniff some tail. While you’re making out with Alice, Dagou cluelessly drives away with the money in the trunk and everything goes to hell.”
He stops and waits for a reply, but James doesn’t try to defend himself. Most likely he knows Ming is right.
Ming goes on. “It’s just a guess, but I’ll bet you a bundle that Dad saw Dagou brought the wrong bag to the hospital. That he knew the money was in Ma’s room, and probably even checked on it, but for some reason he decided to leave it in the room where anyone could have gotten to it. He knew about it, so why didn’t he put it somewhere else immediately? Why not put it in the house? Or in the restaurant office? For crying out loud. Fifty thousand dollars. Fifty thousand, and he lets it sit in a hospital closet.”
“Maybe he thought O-Lan would steal it if he left it in the office.”
Ming has already considered this. Leo would have known O-Lan also knew about the bag, he says. She would have learned about it from her bilingual eavesdropping. She’d be expecting it to turn up sooner or later. “So he leaves it where he assumes she won’t think to search. But he never gets a chance to retrieve it. Dies first. Not knowing that O-Lan might actually have some connection with Ma.”
James says, “Maybe he wanted her to have the money.”
“No. No way. He simply overlooked the possibility that O-Lan and Ma might have had their own relationship. That she’d feel gratitude for Ma’s decency when she was starting out. That Ma might guess who she was, but not hold it against her. That she might want to deliver food to Ma when Dagou’s being questioned. So, at some point, when she’s bringing Ma soup, she eyes the bag. Takes it right out of the hospital room and puts it into her trunk. Although of course she doesn’t leave town. Not yet. She’s watching and waiting, waiting to get that ring. She follows Katherine, back and forth. To the restaurant. To our house. She’s spying through a window when Katherine takes off the ring and puts it on the counter.”
“Why didn’t she leave town then? After she got the money and the ring?”