Don’t worry, one of the officers would usually say. I’m sure it’s nothing. Just our duty to check.
Sometimes it did turn out to be nothing. If you were well connected, if you showed the proper deference, or if perhaps you had a friend in the mayor’s office or the statehouse or, even better, the federal government, if in their background investigation it turned out you’d donated money to the right groups, or perhaps if you were willing to donate money now—well, then, perhaps you could make clear that you would never instill dangerous ideologies in your child. But so often it was not nothing. Most often, by the time the officers came: there was something. You had done something, you had said something, you had not done something, you had not said something. If you didn’t have the resources to buy your way out with money or influence, at the end of it, they took your child and put them into the back seat of a car already waiting at the curb, and then they were gone.
She’d believed it was just a handful of extreme cases, the ones that made the news—high-profile, cautionary tales. But mostly, she learned—as she found one family, then another—it happened quietly. Nothing reported at all, their removals and re-placements unannounced. The families reported nothing themselves: speaking about PACT was complaining about PACT, which would only prove their disloyalty. Most of them stayed silent, hoping that in their silence, what had been taken would be returned. People began to hold their children closer, began to bite their tongues. They shied away from discussing PACT at all, afraid they might be next. Editors and producers wielded their red pens more freely: Let’s not say that, best not to ruffle feathers. It happened so slowly that you might not even notice it at all, like the sky turning from dusk to dark. The calculation everyone made before parting their lips, before setting fingers to keys: how important was it to say? You glanced at the crib in the corner, at your child sprawled on the rug with their toys.
By the time she’d spoken with five families, she understood: it was more people than she’d realized, more people than she’d ever thought of. It had been happening all along, and she’d never known. No, she admitted to herself: she’d never chosen to know.
* * *
? ? ?
By the seventh family, she had run out of money. She had to be careful, too: passersby might not recognize her offhand, but if the police stopped her, even on the slightest of pretexts, they would demand ID, and everything would unravel. She had an unconvincing fake license, purchased in an alley for a hundred dollars—another name, a photo of another Chinese woman who looked nothing like her except the part of her hair and the wary expression on her face. But the police would run it through the system and discover the fraud immediately. After that it would happen quickly: they would arrest her for using false ID, they’d investigate further, they’d check their files for persons of interest, and it would only be a matter of time before they figured out who she really was. Margaret Miu: dozens of counts of incitement to her name, one for every anti-PACT poster and protester bearing her words. And now, liable for Marie’s death, as well.
So she moved with caution: keeping to quiet streets, careful not to attract attention. She thought of her parents, the mantra of her entire childhood: Don’t stick out. So little had changed in all that time; it was just a little more obvious now. In her head she heard her mother’s stunned voice on that last phone call, pictured her father’s face in the moment before he was pushed. Unaware of what more was to come. Hide, they would have said to her. Head down, out of sight. But she did not want to hide. Now she understood that there were so many more stories than she’d imagined. Each person she spoke to knew another, sometimes two more, or three. In her head she did the math. Too many to ignore. How could everyone not know?
* * *
? ? ?
The bus dropped her in Chinatown, and she walked up, up, up, following Third as the street numbers climbed higher. The same route that her son would take years later. As she walked, she remembered the long treks uptown, after curfew, from that crowded apartment with Domi and her ex and his sister, up to the quiet golden bubble she and Ethan shared. She remembered, still, how to avoid the corners where policemen stood, the areas where she might be conspicuous, and she skirted these, taking the long way around, looping down side streets and around corners until she was sure she was in the clear. Working her way over to Park, she found it: the red brick townhouse with huge apple-green doors. The round window set in the white arch above, like a Cyclops’s watchful eye.
Hello, she said, as the door opened. A middle-aged white man wearing a decorous navy suit and a deferential expression. Is this still the Duchess residence?
When Margaret was at last ushered through the marble-floored entryway and up the sweeping staircase, there she was. A little plumper, a little older. New wrinkles creasing from nose to chin, bracketing her mouth. Eyes tired, faintly ringed. But still the same.
Well, well, Domi said. Look who it is.
* * *
? ? ?
She had never expected to see Domi again. After the way they’d parted, after the last thing Domi had said to her: Sellout. Whore. Fuck you. She’d put Domi out of her mind, packed their time together in the smallest box she could, taped it firmly shut. Then, years later, scrolling the news while Bird napped, she’d spotted a headline: the largest gift ever given to the New York Public Library. The name beneath leaping out like a ghost from the shadows. Electronics heiress Dominique Duchess. Duchess Technologies. And a photo. Last time she’d seen her, Domi had been in a man’s leather jacket and lug-soled boots, both hand-me-downs from Margaret. The blond of her ponytail streaked dark with sweat and grime. In the photo she was impeccable in a tailored Chanel suit. Her hair was blown to pale gold, clipped short in the businesslike bob Domi had always mocked: rich man’s wife, she’d called it, after her stepmother.
Margaret scrolled through the article. New head of Duchess Technologies. Founded by her late father—inherited after his death. Groundbreaking audio components—smallest and lightest—revolutionized cell-phone technology. And the caption: Ms. Duchess, at home in her Park Avenue residence.
She remembered that house, that rare single-family, the golden numbers gleaming against the brick, the lantern above the entrance, patinaed to green, held aloft by twin swirls of iron. Snakes, Domi had said, looking up at them, I thought they were snakes, as a kid. They’d been hungry that day; she remembered her stomach growling. Her feet throbbing. The sound their spit made as it hit the sidewalk. Fuck you, Domi had screamed up at the windows, and then, as her father’s face appeared behind the glass, she’d grabbed Margaret’s hand and they’d jumped on their bikes and fled, laughing, pedaling and pedaling until their thighs ached.
So Domi called Daddy after all. Margaret clicked the browser window shut. Well, fuck you, Domi, she thought.