It didn’t seem right to discuss our parents like this, but I had to say it. “He has to leave my mother alone. She can’t get pregnant again.”
Shin’s face was pale under the bright white carbide lamp. “I already told him so when I got in this evening.”
“Will he listen to you?”
He shrugged. This conversation was just as awkward for him as for me. “I did tell him there were other options.”
“Like what? Visiting prostitutes or becoming a monk?” I stabbed a fish ball viciously out of Shin’s bowl. I didn’t care what my stepfather did as long as it kept him away from my mother.
“Like contraception.” He scowled to hide his embarrassment. “Anyway, you needn’t worry about things like that.”
“Even I know about French letters.” Or what they called the “male shield”—as though it were something valiant. “I’m sure he won’t do it, the old bastard.”
That was usually Shin’s line, not mine. Generally I avoided calling his father names. By doing so now, I’d crossed an invisible boundary.
I was never quite sure how Shin felt about his father. After all, my mother often made foolish decisions that made me feel like shaking her, but I still loved her. I suspected it might be the same way for Shin, no matter what his father did. Perhaps that was what it meant to be family—you were shackled together by obligations that you could never escape.
But instead of getting annoyed, he gave me that thoughtful stare again. “How do you know so much about things like this?”
All I really knew came from listening to the girls at work. They said that the best thing was French letters, or condoms, widely distributed since the Great War. But I couldn’t explain how I’d learned that to him.
“It comes from not having any feminine delicacy,” I said crossly.
Shin said, “If I can get him to agree, he’ll probably keep his promise.”
Yes, that stiff-necked, cold man would keep a promise. Just as he would never forgive a debt. Shin’s words set off a faint click in my head. Suddenly, I understood.
“You made a deal with him.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I’m not talking about today. I meant two years ago. When he broke your arm.”
I’d caught Shin by surprise; I could see it in his frown and how he dropped his head, staring at the soup.
“You did, didn’t you? What was it about?”
But Shin’s mouth tightened. He never would explain to me what had happened that night.
“Well, I can make a deal with him, too.”
“Don’t.” Shin caught my wrist, a swift hard movement. I flinched. Realizing himself, he slowly unpeeled his fingers. “You must never make a deal with my father. Promise me, Ji Lin.”
I didn’t say anything. There was a way to get what I wanted from my stepfather. The question was, what would he want in return?
* * *
It was very dark on the way home. The shapes of the houses as they leaned against each other, windows shuttered against the night, looked all wrong to me. When Shin returned to Singapore, I’d have no one to confide in about family troubles. It was different for him. He had someone else.
“The ring,” I said, remembering. “I need to give it back to you.”
“Keep it for now,” said Shin. He’d been very quiet since dinner; a dangerous sign because it meant he was thinking about something. “What were you doing with Robert earlier?”
“We happened to run into each other. By the way, what did you do with Pei Ling’s package?”
Shin frowned. “It was silly of you to get involved with her. I think it’s going to be troublesome.”
“I just wanted to help,” I said, dismayed. “Did you open it?”
“Of course I did! You should never keep unknown packages for people. Didn’t you think it was odd that she should seize on you, a stranger, to retrieve something for her?” He said coldly, “Your name means ‘wisdom.’ Sometimes I think you’re incredibly stupid for someone who’s supposed to be clever.”
I was furious. It wasn’t through lack of brains that I wasn’t progressing in life. “Well, your name means ‘faithfulness,’ yet you switch women all the time!”
That was a low blow, and Shin set his shoulders and walked faster, leaving me behind. I followed, fuming, though I knew that his name meant more than faithfulness. Xin also stood for integrity and loyalty, just as all the Virtues had deeper and wider meanings, and I couldn’t really complain that Shin failed in those areas. In the darkness, I thought again about what the little boy had said in my dream. There’s something a bit wrong with each of us.
I’d been walking slowly, not wanting to give Shin the satisfaction of chasing after him, but when I turned the corner, he was waiting for me. Once, annoyed that I always tagged along, another boy had locked me into a disused shed. He’d run off laughing and I’d been reduced to panicked tears until Shin had come searching for me later. Recalling this, I mumbled, “I’m sorry.” He started walking again, two steps ahead. Soon he’d return to Singapore. The next time I saw him, he’d be bringing his fiancée back. I felt that painful pressure in my throat again, as though I’d swallowed a chopstick.
“I said, I’m sorry!”
Shin turned. “That’s not an apology. That’s just shouting.”
I should have known better than to accuse him of unfaithfulness. For some reason that was a sore spot with him. “Don’t be cross, Shin. I was just feeling jealous.”
“About what?” He stopped beneath the shadow of a tree, its leaves trembling in the moonlight. The darkness made it easy to say things I never would have otherwise.
“I’ve been hateful and envious about you going to medical school. And for being a boy. And getting to choose what you want.”
Shin was silent for a long moment. “Is that all?”
There was a sharp edge to his voice. I had the uneasy feeling that I’d failed some kind of test. What more should I have said? After all, he’d had one girl after another and I’d never objected before. It was too humiliating to start now.
We arrived home without exchanging another word. I felt miserable, the way I always did when Shin and I were fighting, though this time I wasn’t entirely sure what the argument was about. Within, all was dark and silent. My stepfather had gone to bed, and after checking on my sleeping mother, we made our way to the kitchen. I lit the lamp and the room filled with its warm glow. Shin still looked irritated with me, but he said, “Wait here,” and disappeared upstairs.
I had a bad feeling about this; an intuition that I might regret seeing whatever was in Pei Ling’s package. Restless, I prowled around the kitchen. As I put away the dishes, I felt the sharp prickle of being watched. Had Y. K. Wong somehow materialized inside the shophouse? Ridiculous, of course. I froze, listening to the dull thump of my pulse, the ringing silence of the house. Seizing the heavy meat cleaver, I turned to face the open doorway.
There was indeed someone standing there in the shadows. But it was only Shin. Or was it? The flickering lamplight gave him a hungry, angry look I’d never seen before. That wolflike stare, like an animal at the very edge of a campfire. For an instant, I didn’t recognize him and I was afraid.
Shin glanced at the cleaver in my hand and his mouth made a bitter twist.
“Did you think I was my father?”
It wasn’t his fault that they shared the same flesh and blood. “No … I was just startled.”
Shin walked slowly in, watching me intently.
“Has he laid a hand on you?”
“Who? Your father?” That man had barely acknowledged my existence for the past ten years.
He sat down at the kitchen table and put his head in his hands. “I was worried about you. When I was gone.”
“He couldn’t be bothered with me,” I said bitterly. My stepfather had better ways to control me. Ones that involved the foolish fondness that still lingered in my mother’s eyes, the bruises on her arms. “And anyway, if you were so concerned, you should have answered my letters.”
Shin’s eyes turned dangerously blank. “You seem to have done quite well without me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m talking about Robert. You never said anything about being on such good terms with him.”
This was so unfair that it took my breath away. “I told you we only met by chance tonight!”
Shin’s eyes traveled up my pretty dress, taking in the lip rouge and cake mascara that Hui had added when we’d been laughing and joking in her room only a few hours ago. It was an appraising, angry stare, and it made me burn hot and cold at the same time. It was useless to explain things to him, and in any case, why did I have to?
“Robert has been very kind to me,” I snapped.
“Yes,” said Shin. “With his father’s money.”
“Why should you care? After all, you ran away from here as soon as you could.”
“I didn’t run away.”
“You never even came back for holidays. You just left me. In this house.” To my horror, tears welled up in my eyes. Tears of anger, I told myself, gritting my teeth. Shin started to say something but I cut him off. “Do you really think I want to be a dressmaker? I hate it. But it’s not like they’d waste any money letting me study further.”