“Mom.” My voice is louder than I intend and her brown eyes fly open.
“Gracie?” She focuses on me and I know she sees me, really me.
“What aren’t you telling me about Xiao He? What happened that you came to Canada?”
“He said to leave the past in the past. To live my future.” She closes her eyes and I nearly shout in frustration. I let it be and look back at the photos. The photo of Sam and Fangli slips out again.
This time, Mom catches it with a quickness I would never have thought her capable of. “She grew so beautiful. I knew she would.” Her voice cracks.
“Her? Don’t you mean Sam?” I thought she kept it because Sam reminded her of her brother.
“Fangli. She didn’t change her name. Nor did he.”
I’m confused but know I’m walking through a minefield. I use my words like a stick, prodding for bombs to find a safe path. “Why would anyone change her name?” I keep my voice soft and soothing, trying to coax out the story.
“Her father was furious. A good but haughty man, so sure he’s right. That’s why my brother helped me. I wanted the baby.”
I look at the album. There’s a photo of a man and a child Mom said were relatives who owned a farm she used to go to. I always liked it because the girl looked so much like me that I used to pretend it was my sister. I hesitate, then go for it. “Mom, are you saying this is Wei Fangli?”
Her eyes fill with tears. “I knew her father would take care of her. Then I lost the other baby when I arrived alone in Canada. I had no one. It was my punishment. I couldn’t go home but I had nothing.”
I look at the album and then back at Mom. Then back at the album, which has somehow become impossibly weighty in my hands. The edge of it dips dangerously, and I catch it right before it tumbles out of my numb fingers to the floor.
“Mom.” There’s no way I understood her correctly. “This girl is Fangli?”
She reaches out and grabs my arm with a surprisingly strong grip. “Fangli. Yes.”
“The actor.” I pull out the magazine photo. “This woman here.” I jab it so hard that the page crumples under my finger.
“My Fangli.”
Is it the dementia? I try to remember what the doctors have told me. They said she would be confused…but like this? Making up a daughter? Mom fumbles for the gold chain around her neck that I’ve never seen her without. On the end dangles a jade coin, the empty center filled with gold and inscribed with the character for love. Her hands shake as she tries to take it off her neck and she finally gestures me closer, turning the pendant so I can see the reverse side.
I know those tiny characters because I practiced them until I could fake them at a moment’s notice. Fang. Li.
It’s true. My knees weaken and I half sit, half collapse on the bed, the album thumping against my thighs as I stare into Mom’s face, seeing that connection between the three of us in the slope of her nose and the shape of her eyes. She blinks and smiles at me uncertainly and that’s Fangli’s expression, right there.
My mouth is so dry that it takes me two tries to get the words out. “Mom, it’s okay.” I take her hand. My heart breaks at what she’s endured in silence all these years. No wonder she was so adamant about only living for the future.
She squeezes my hands. “Xiao He said the same thing. He said I had to think about what I wanted, that rules weren’t the only thing in life. My husband wanted the baby, too, but would never admit it. Not when the Party said one child was enough.”
I need the final confirmation. “This was your husband?”
“Wei Rong. My first. I was so scared he would find me. It was better she thought I was dead.”
Always stay under the radar. Don’t call attention to yourself. Temper your expectations. Mom must have used all her daring to take that step into the unknown to keep her baby. I look down to see my hand shaking on the edge of the album. Mom is staring out the window again, her face empty.
That photo from the magazine. I’d assumed she kept it because she thought Sam resembled her brother, but it was for Fangli. The agitation at The Pearl Lotus; that wasn’t for the acting. There’s no way I can ignore this. It’s not chance that Fangli and I look alike—we both take after our mother. We’re half sisters.
I have a sister.
I have a famous movie-star sister who thinks I don’t ever want to see her again.
***
Mom eventually goes to sleep, leaving me to deal with this info bomb.
I’m not doing well with it.
I managed to wait a few minutes after the initial revelation to press for more but she simply stopped talking and looked out the window with tears tracing down her cheeks. I used all my self-control to not take the album and quiz her about the details of every person in it while simultaneously kicking myself for not showing more interest in my family history sooner. Mom had always been so adamant about ignoring the past that I’d simply not asked, as if it was taboo. I want to demand more information, I need more data, but I don’t have the courage to force her back through memories that painful. I rub my shoulders, feeling the anger and regret at what she’d hidden deep in my bones.
I think I understand the basics. She’d been married to Fangli’s father in China and they had one child, Fangli. Then she got pregnant again, and although they both wanted the baby, the one-child policy made it impossible. According to Fangli, her dad was a Party official, and even if he wasn’t, a quick Google search showed enough benefits would be pulled from urban dwellers who had a second child to make it unfeasible.
Mom had wanted the baby, so her brother, Xiao He, had helped her leave her family and come to Canada. Obviously a big part of the story was missing, and I feared it would never get filled in. Once here, she had a miscarriage, eventually met Brad Reed, and had me. Did Dad know about the first marriage? The baby? Her other daughter? I want to shake her awake and ask but I restrain myself. This is part of my story but not all of it. I might never get all of it.
How do I tell Fangli? Then I hesitate. Is it a good idea to say anything? Maybe I’d be better to keep the secret as quiet as it has been for the last thirty years. It’s not like Fangli and I meant that much to each other—she needed someone to do a job and I needed money. A transactional relationship at best.
Right. Tell yourself that. I like Fangli, and though I don’t believe in fate, we were very comfortable with each other. We fit as if our pheromones matched.
We fit like sisters.
I turn on my laptop and press my thumb into the bruise on my heart by searching for images of Sam and Fangli. There are pages of them but I catch my breath because the first one isn’t of Fangli. It’s me, at the Chanel show. Sam is tilting toward me, a small smile playing on his face and his eyes fixed on me. I click to the page and check the comments.
if sam looked at me like that, my panties would combust
get you a man who looks at you like sam looks at fangli
samli forever
so hot
that lucky b
just missing the lip bite
exhibit A in Samli in love
I click through a few more images. Some are of us at the Xanadu. There’s a blurry shot from the first time we went out and I slipped, with Sam’s arm around me. There I am getting out at the premiere, Sam holding his hand out to take mine. Then on the red carpet, Sam a step ahead of me and looking back with admiration as I pose with one leg displayed, my hand on my hip and my head thrown back.
In each one, he’s looking at me and only me.
I’m a very good actor.
He’s not smiling at me. He’s smiling at the woman who’s supposed to be Fangli.
This is too much to think about right now. I keep watch over Mom and work on Eppy. Mom and work are the constants in my life right now, and that’s what I’ll focus on.
Thirty-Eight