A-ma stops asking me to accompany her on healing visits. The sisters-in-law, following A-ma’s example, pretend I no longer exist. My brothers ignore my face swollen from so much crying. A-ba doesn’t even notice what’s happening to me. I feel too guilty to go to my grove for solace and solitude. I can’t talk to Ci-teh, because where would I start? And even if I could confide in her, she’s never around. These days she’s spending every free moment stealing love in the forest with Law-ba, the boy A-ma and A-ba once wanted me to marry. She’s turned into the type of girl she once accused me of being: one who discards the comforts of friendship to give her full attention to a boy.
I end up spending my days and nights under the house with the dogs, pigs, chickens, and ducks. The smell is rancid and foul, and the animals stare at me with baleful eyes. If Akha Law is correct and everything on earth is connected, then our animals are aware of my humiliation. I feel as low as a human reject. And yet life continues around me. Ci-teh’s family announces she’ll soon marry Law-ba, and the whole village enjoys a celebratory feast. I must attend the festivities, but they are heartbreaking for me. Not so long ago, A-ma and A-ba intended this joyousness for me. Soon after the banquet, all three sisters-in-law come to a head in the same cycle. The news is greeted by great rejoicing in hopes of the arrival of new grandsons; sacrifices are made to ensure good deliveries; and everyone in my family eats proper foods, because these simultaneous pregnancies are so auspicious. Joy and optimism spread through Spring Well. Even in my hiding place, I can’t avoid the sounds of pigs being bred, cats yowling that they’ve found mates, and boys and girls singing their attraction to each other from hilltop to hilltop.
“The flowers bloom at their peaks, waiting for the butterflies to come—” The first line of the love song reaches me. How unfair.
The next line belongs to the girl. It should be “The honeycombs wait for the bees to make honey,” but I can’t hear it. She must be singing away from my direction. A relief.
“A beautiful flower calls to her love—”
The male voice comes closer. I cover my ears.
“Alloo sae, ah-ee-ah-ee-o, ah-ee-ah-ee-o.”
The song tortures me. I hum a planting tune to drown out the pitiless sounds of ardor. Later, I feel the thumps of footsteps climbing the men’s veranda and remove my hands from my ears. The singing is over, at least. The bamboo floor above me squeaks and heaves as my father and brothers pace back and forth. Footsteps rattle down the stairs. Third Brother’s feet come into view.
“Girl, you’d better come.”
I go around to the women’s veranda. A-ma and the sisters-in-law are all standing when I enter the house. A-ma wears one of her impenetrable expressions.
“He’s returned,” First Sister-in-law states.
I rush to the men’s side of the house. San-pa! He looks thinner. Wiry. Older. A man now. I run into his arms. He holds me tight. His heart beats into me. He speaks over my head to the men in my family.
“I’ve Recited the Lineage for you. Your daughter and I have no matching ancestors for seven generations. Your daughter does not have seizures nor is she troubled by insanity. Neither do I have these afflictions. I went away to earn money so I can take care of her when she’s at university.”
“My daughter didn’t take the gaokao.” How is it that A-ba can so easily use against me something that he once opposed? I notice, though, the long silence from San-pa.
Finally, San-pa sputters, “I’ve come with the proper gifts for your family to seal the arrangement.”
A-ba clears his throat, but when San-pa won’t allow him a single objection, I know my future husband has forgiven me my failings as a student. But can we have a life together if I don’t tell him about our baby?
“Most important, your daughter is older than thirteen,” he goes on, gaining momentum again. “You and I both know that we could have married in the past without your permission, but I sought it anyway. I respected your wishes. Now you must respect mine. I have come to fetch a wife, and I expect your daughter to go-work-eat with me.”
Look how San-pa has changed! If only he’d spoken this forcefully sooner. We would have been sleeping and doing the intercourse in his family’s newlywed hut until our daughter’s birth.
When A-ba addresses the traditional phrase to me, “Go get married to him then,” I understand that San-pa and I have finally won. Without another word, San-pa takes my hand and together we run out of the house and into the forest. We don’t stop until we reach our special clearing. Panting—from excitement, from our running—we stare into each other’s faces. He’s dirty from his travels. And I’m . . . My hands shoot to my cheeks. I must look—and smell—dreadful. But he doesn’t seem to mind. He grabs me, and we fall together on the bed of pine needles. We don’t even take off all our clothes. He’s even thinner than I thought when I first saw him. I can feel his sinews and bones under his skin. Once the intercourse—lovely and urgent—is over, we lie together.
I’ve experienced numerous adversities in my eighteen years, but telling him about Yan-yeh is one of the hardest. He tightens his arms around me when I weep out the truth.
“I’m sorry this happened,” he says when I’m done. “I failed you, but that doesn’t mean I’ll fail our daughter. We’ll go to Menghai and get her.”
Why hadn’t I thought of this? Because my despair had forbidden me even to hope for a chance to get Yan-yeh. But is it still possible to change her from a human reject into a daughter?
“People will know she came before our wedding—”
“If we could have lived in the city near your school,” he says, his tone surprisingly sharp, “we would have avoided that problem . . .”
This reproach stings more than it should when all I should be is happy to get Yan-yeh.
“And we can’t stay on Nannuo or any nearby mountain where people might hear about us.” His brow furrows as he ponders the problem. After an uncomfortably long pause, he comes to a decision. “We should go back to Thailand. I can get work there, and she will not yet be so big. In Thailand, they will think we were already married when you gave birth, just as they already think I was born on Sheep Day. So propitious for a sheep and a pig to share a home, don’t you think?” He smiles reassuringly. “And here? By the next time we come back, you will have borne me a son. My a-ma and a-ba won’t bother counting her teeth to judge her age after they see him.”
He has taken charge of our lives as all husbands should. How I love him in that moment.
“Can we go get her right now?” I ask.
San-pa laughs and pulls me back into his arms.
* * *