“Jingling, come and meet your new sister,” Yuanyang calls.
Sister. Sister sister sister. The word bounces in my skull, wrapped in the cottony gauze of disbelief. My mother is a younger sister. The black-and-white photographs of the two little girls—that’s who they were. My mother and my aunt. Dory and Jingling.
A four-year-old girl emerges from the dark corner where she’s been standing quietly. She chews shyly on the end of one of her braids.
“Look, Jingling,” says her father. “Your sister looks a lot like you did when you were born.”
Jingling straightens up, trying to see better.
“Can you believe you were this tiny once?” Her father grins. Sweat coats his face, making the color of his cheer shine all the brighter.
The midwife rushes into the room, giving commands, wrapping the new baby in fresh rags.
“Jingling,” says the midwife. “You’re a big sister now. You have a very important role to play. Are you ready?”
Jingling’s eyes are wide and unblinking.
“Today your life has changed. Now you have someone to take care of. The first thing you can do as a new big sister is go and prepare the kitchen so I can boil some water. Then we’ll be able to sanitize and wash everything.”
Jingling nods and disappears out the door.
Yuanyang takes the baby back and kisses the flat nose. What a magical little thing, beautiful and warm.
She is alight with happiness, but she is also thinking of her own mother holding her like this, fresh out of the womb—her mother making the decision to sell a newborn child. Yuanyang shifts the baby closer, inhaling deeply. Her new daughter smells wonderful, better than the best tea leaves on Alibung Mountain.
“They will be best friends,” says her husband, beaming. “Our two little girls.”
“Yes,” says Yuanyang, warmed by the thought. “Best friends.”
A flicker. The light changes.
In a living room I don’t recognize, Yuanyang paces in a troubled circle around the two brocade armchairs. She’s aged by a couple decades. Her hair is short and wavy; silvery strands wink in the light. The edges of her eyes starting to pouch and wrinkle.
“Please, Jingling,” says Yuanyang. “Talk to her. She is unhappy.”
This memory feels different. It takes me a second to realize: It’s from Jingling’s perspective. It’s also fuzzy—blurrier than any of the incense memories have been. The faces are hard to see clearly. There’s a sweet floral smell—the feeling of being inside Jingling’s head.
She’s grown into a young woman. Her hair arranged in a neat bun. A simple dress hanging from her shoulders, the sleeves fat and billowy.
Yuanyang sighs. “You were never this much trouble. You did everything so well. You were always so focused.”
“You shouldn’t always compare the two of us,” Jingling says quietly.
Yuanyang shakes her head. “She will listen to you. Tell her to work harder. Tell her she must understand her priorities.”
“I will,” Jingling says to mollify her mother. But she knows her little sister has a different kind of spirit, bursting with a different kind of ambition. Her sister has so much more in mind, even now, as she comes up on the end of high school. Dreams that stretch beyond being a perfect child, a perfect wife. Her sister, with the right support and intention, could be a real artist.
Jingling believes this with absolute certainty: Her sister could be successful, could be famous, could be loved by the world if only they knew who she was. The way her sister mastered entire piano sonatas and concertos with nothing at home to practice on but a broken kitchen table—that was true magic. There is something heavenly in her sister’s fingers. Something the rest of the family doesn’t understand.
“Thank you, Jingling,” says Yuanyang, her voice brimming with relief. “You always know what to do. She’ll listen to you. I’m certain of it.”
Jingling is certain, too, because she knows what she is going to tell her sister: to work hard, yes. To understand her priorities. But also to know that if her priorities are different from those wished upon her by their parents, that’s fine. If they need time—years, even—to understand those priorities, Jingling will at least be there to support her, to make Mama and Baba see that some things are worth dropping everything else for.
Everything gives out, buzzing like static. The darkness comes, then the flash, flipping to a new memory.
Outside the Zhongzheng International Airport, Jingling squeezes her little sister’s wrist. Dory is all grown up, a university girl now, and about to leave the country for the first time. Jingling can hardly believe it. Yuanyang stands behind them, her face twisted with obvious disapproval.
“You’ve got everything you need?” says Jingling.
Dory nods. “I wish you would apply for a program abroad, too. So that we could be in America at the same time.”
Jingling smiles apologetically. “But if I can get through the bulk of my thesis this summer, I’ll be able to graduate early. Save that tuition money.”
A sigh. “I know. You’re right.”
“Go study your music. Go be inspired. The summer will disappear, and soon you’ll be home again.” Jingling’s face is shining with pride for her sister. “I have a present for you.”
Dory’s eyes light up. “What is it?”
“A surprise.” Jingling draws a small box from her pocket. She watches her little sister tug at the cream-colored ribbon, slide off the top. There, shining in smooth stone, in cloudy hues of dark and pale greens: a jade cicada. So intricately carved it looks alive. Any second now it will begin to sing.
“Jingling!” Dory gasps.
“I went to six different merchants to get the perfect cicada,” says Jingling. “I know they’re your favorite.”
“It’s incredible! I’ve never seen one as beautiful as this.” The glittering chain hangs the cicada right in the center of my mother’s sternum, over her heart.
“Mama found the chain,” says Jingling, gesturing toward their mother. “See how it twists? It’s a very special one.”
Dory and their mother lock eyes for the briefest of moments. Yuanyang is the first to look away.
“Thank you,” says Dory. “I’ll wear it every single day.”
The sisters beam at each other.
“I have something for you, too,” says Dory. “We think alike.” She produces her own little box, a rich and lucky red, the top folded like origami.
Jingling grins as she undoes the lid. Pinned down against a little bed of dark velvet: a bracelet of jade ovals like little flower buds, each piece framed in gold.
She clasps the bracelet around her wrist. It looks perfect on her.
Everything is shuddering, earthquaking. The colors inverting. A staticky buzz grows into a roar so loud my ears hurt.
The lights and colors flicker on and off, on and off.
On.
Off.
66
Fall down. Slam into the floor. Cough through the cloud of ashes.
Ashes everywhere, dusting the walls, coating every surface of my room. The floor covered in mounds and swirls, all of them a dead, muted gray.
Sister. My mother has a sister. Where is she?
My grandmother pushes herself up off the bed, looking shaken.
“Waipo,” I start to say.
My mind is fuzzy and aching. What are the words that I need in order to ask my question?
Staggering to her feet, my grandmother crosses the room and lets herself out.
Strewn throughout the ashes: flame-eaten letters, leftover corners that used to be whole photographs. A singed length of string that must have tied together a bundle of envelopes. The original box from the bird, destroyed.
Almost all the incense has been smashed or burned up—I can see the snakes of gray where they fell and embered down to the very end. The few precious sticks that do remain are broken, their lengths uneven.
That net I wove from my shirts has been half consumed, and what’s left of it is charred and disintegrating. Even as I try to see what I can salvage, the fabric breaks apart in my fingers.