LAURA ANNE CHEN

Novel | Orange County School of the Arts, Santa Ana, CA

Jewel-Steeped Hibiscus

I

I have only recently realized the meaning of the name of the place I was born.

You called it Jiujinshan, but to everyone else not living in Chinatown, it was San Francisco. When you first asked for directions through this city, the pale ghosts laughed at you because the only word you could muster was, “Jin-shan.” But they knew what you meant; many before you had already come down this path.

The character jiu refers to ‘old’; jin, ‘gold’; and shan, ‘mountain’. I don’t know why the meaning of these words never connected in my head before I became thirty years of age, but before then they just seemed to be a name. They were there, and I never questioned them. I spoke them, not realizing that in them the history of thousands chasing glory lingered. By the time you arrived, the 1849 gold rush was long gone, but now, you told me, a new life was possible—depending on where you step, where you turn. All it takes is one closed eye.

Like mother, like daughter, they say, but I don’t know how I could ever do what you did. I never made my bed nor folded my clothes; I left everything littered all over the place as if I owned the world. Every time you would get angry and shout and hurl something into the wall—a chair, the last time I can remember—the filmy white paint flaking off like scabbed skin, the wooden back post lopsided like a spine smashed by a rock, fragmented vertebrae. But only a moment afterwards you would laugh, forgetting everything and nothing and telling me about how much I reminded you of your younger self.

“My younger self was the real me,” you’d say. “I don’t feel quite so right in this shell of a body anymore.”

So you let me throw my things and rule my empire—at least until you lost your temper and forgot your promises—because perhaps that was the greatest freedom you could give me in the eight-by-eight square feet of space that made up our home. The walls were peeling when we first moved in, but we’d bought a can of white paint to cover them not half a year after our stay—do you remember, Mother? We’d spent all day trying to make the paint as even as possible, but even then we messed up, probably because of how dim the lighting was. There were buildings all around our apartment; no one shared the light because there was none to give. You had to take what you could get.

I have always wondered what the real you was like. Everything changes once you become a mother, I imagine you’d say if you were here now. Since you tell me the real you was so much like me, I’ve modeled her off of myself. Carefree—at least when I was younger—yet passionate and just a tad bit cheeky. But the greatest difference is that you are stronger than me.

I don’t know what it’s like to have four brothers, or any siblings at all, for the record, but this is how I’d imagine it to be. Do you think the girl I’m painting is who you were, or is she nothing like you at all? Even with all the stories you told me, I don’t feel like I ever knew you enough. It is a strange, voiceless thought; how you can breathe in words and smell the places and see the sights and taste the past illustrated before you—but nothing really makes sense until you breathe out, a couple dozen years later.

I want to know you, Mother. I want to know who you were. I want to understand you—perhaps then I can finally come to understand us. October 1884 — Beizheng, China

The real you plowed her heels into the dirt, splinters of wood jabbing into her hardened palms, and threw all of her weight forward so as to lessen the burning in her calves. Beneath a dappled myriad of oranges and reds, the dray squealed down the road, its flimsy wheels bumping over stones and rodent carcasses alike. Silhouettes of crows lingered atop clay roofs amidst the waning of color into a darkened dusk, the harbinger of the mid-autumn moon at its fullest. A cool wind swept by. She stopped to wipe sweat off her brow—her head throbbing, her labored breathing too loud in her clogged ears.

Again she hefted the dray, the sweet potatoes rolling in their boxes. She planted a foot in front of her, then another, then another. Her stomach rumbled noisily, and she clenched her jaw in humiliation though no one else was there.

“Shut it.”

A sound of surprise came from behind her. “How did you know I was here?”

Recognizing her elder brother’s voice, Yingzhen continued forward, not caring to turn nor answer his faulty assumption. “The rest of them gone up already?”

“A while ago.”

“Father just seems to be that humiliated by my presence, doesn’t he? To the point where he can’t even walk with his daughter.”

“And by himself.”

Yingzhen set the dray down again to catch her breath. “What?”

“He is humiliated by himself.”

Jinrong stepped into her line of sight and, on his toes, reached over the dray to pluck a string bean from a basket, popping it into his mouth. He spit the stem at her feet and tried to assume a nonchalant demeanor, propping his chin up against the dray, but his missing hand made it difficult. The posture slipped, and the next moment he was punching himself in the face and tripping over his own feet.

“What makes you say that?” Yingzhen said, ignoring the disaster on the ground before her.

Reddening, he clambered to his feet, quickly collecting himself. “A middle-aged man dependent on his sister. The bulk of the crops we tend to are for her restaurant’s profit. Without Second Aunt, we’d have nothing. All of Beizheng whispers about it. How could he not be ashamed?”

Yingzhen laughed quietly, under her breath, as if she was afraid of her father hearing though he was miles away.

Jinrong made one last attempt to dust himself off. “Need a hand?”

“You have one to spare?”

He turned away from her, his fingers subconsciously tracing the stump of his right hand. “No.”

Yingzhen rose, hoisting the dray up. She hadn’t noticed his dilemma. “Then why’d you ask?”

“No—I mean—yes.” Despite the plain difficulty, Jinrong took one side of the dray and ushered Yingzhen to the other. “No need to do everything yourself.”

She scowled. “And of course Father definitely didn’t demand that I do this and absolutely no one left me alone here with this giant bulk of—” Turning sharply, she rounded on him. “If you’re trying to make up for how mean you were to me when I was little—”

He looked crestfallen. “What?”

“—you should know that I don’t fall for these kinds of tricks.”

Jinrong sighed. “I was a child.”

“You tried to push me in the well! Actually, you didn’t try. I did fall in.”

“An accident. And then I got you out.”

“Very much an accident,” she said bitterly. Yingzhen paused, pursing her lips. “If this is not a trick, then it’s because of that incident.”

“Which incident?”

“That one.” She jerked her chin to his stump. “After you lost your hand in the factory, your claim as Father’s favorite faded. To him, you had lost your usefulness.”

Jinrong tried to catch her gaze. “Yingzhen—” he began, as if trying to ask her to stop.

“You know it’s true. And now you understand the way I feel as his despised child. He almost treats you the same. But believe me, it’s still better to be a son than a daughter.” Yingzhen turned to Jinrong now, meeting his eyes, no reservation in them whatsoever. “Heliang is now his special child. The second eldest son, twelve years of age, and his best investment for a better future.”

For a while, Jinrong did not speak. It was only when a slight wind came brushing down the road that he dared to murmur the words, as if perhaps the wind would whisk the truth away. “It always comes down to that, doesn’t it?”

Yingzhen barked a sardonic laugh. “We better get going. Second Aunt won’t be so happy if we’re late for dinner.”

In quiet acceptance of defeat and the power of fate, Jinrong and Yingzhen toiled down the road towards the inner part of Beizheng. Backs bent, legs burning, chests heaving, gasps dry in their throats, their bowed shadows against the swaying fields of millet painted a wry spectacle for the crows, who still perched on the farmhouse roof. Caw, caw, caw, caw. Four cries—the Chinese unlucky number. Jinrong glanced up uneasily but Yingzhen paid no heed to it.

After all, omens are only feigned truths. And as you once told me, with a Player’s cigarette between your teeth and smoke curling around us like crowns of snake heads, never let someone tell you what your destiny is. In the end, destiny is something you make for yourself.

The rumbling dray passed into town, the dirt roads easing into stone pathways, the bare terrain morphing into streets speckled with orange and yellow trees. Red lanterns dangled from their boughs like heavenly stars brought down to the earth, spelling the characters 中秋節快樂.. People came trickling into sight, and Yingzhen glimpsed them hanging more lanterns in the trees, hurrying to finish dinner reunion preparations, families and their children smiling at each other, holding hands. At least, that’s how they did it in San Francisco—Jiujinshan, I mean. Though, I think, it must not have been the same. We made our red-lipped buildings and winged roofs for safety in isolation and to replicate home across the sea, but sometimes in the midst of watching the parade you’d turn aside, looking around at things funny. I’d ask you what was wrong and you’d say, “It’s the air. The air is different. I can feel it.”

The real you’s gaze brushed over a group of young women with painted faces, tottering on their bound feet. If Father had a little more money, I’d be one of them. She imagined being married off to some handsome young man, his family secure and well off, their residence spacious and clean. Her father would acquire some affluence—regard, at least, from having a beautiful married daughter.

Yingzhen clenched her jaw, flinging the reverie out of her head. No one would want a beggarly girl with big feet, and she knew it. It’s not the man I love, it’s the façade of the life I envision. And she hated the thought of being dependent on anyone. She hated being bound to her father now; how would it be any better with another man? Just as she did when the others called her Little Shenjin, she wanted to be her own person—yet even if she wanted to, she could never be.

In the next corner, small stands littered the street, their parasols extending over one another. A sea of faces swarmed around them, shouting over each other, trying to hear, but no one could; they just waved their hands and made faces, each one interpreting the motions for themselves. Hopeless men wailed from opium dens, lying on top of Go games, telling unhappy stories with half-lidded eyes. A few well-dressed women bartered with the vendors, shaking their fists in the air and holding up curled fingers before fiercely turning to leave, only to be halted by the surrender of their opponents. They veiled suppressed smiles behind their fans as the coins clinked between them.

There were a few outcasts in the pandemonium. A lone old man sat amidst hanging lines of dried fish and seafood—all species of carp, catfish, siniperca chuatsi, northern snakehead—quietly separating them into baskets. Some abandoned children wandered the streets, picking their noses or teeth or nails. Stray dogs followed them, heads bowed, tails drooping.

Yingzhen halted beneath the vertical display hanging from the building: 北正小吃, the most straightforward name Second Aunt could have come up with, much like her cutting personality. The words were among the only characters she could recognize. She jerked her chin at Jinrong.

“Go ahead. I’ll bring it to the back.”

Jinrong hesitated for a moment then nodded, turning away. He was guilty, Yingzhen knew. Despite his sympathy for her, he had his insecurities—and his pride. No, it would be much too shameful to walk in the room with her as if their status was somehow equivalent. He was her elder brother, two years her senior, and he was the man in the family after his father. To return side by side with his little sister, assisting her, was the greatest humiliation.

Mother, you would never talk about a person as much as you did your brother. I wish I could have met him and loved him like you did. You would tell me about how he would have been just as much an older brother to me as he was to you, even if he was my uncle. He was everyone’s older brother. Then you would sigh and lean back in your chair, your eyes wandering to the spider crawling on the ceiling.

“I knew I hated him before, though,” you’d say to me. “Time tells funny tales.”

The real you watched him go then turned to wheel the dray to the back alley. Few roamed here, save a few lines of scribbled poetry on peeling walls and clumps of dirty laundry dangling from rusting railings and—of course—the occasional cat. Yingzhen paused beside the sewer railing and began to unload some of the baskets; the dray was too wide to fit through the alleyway.

Second Aunt’s door already swayed partially ajar, its rusty hinges squeaking though there was no wind. Her hands full, Yingzhen wedged her foot into the gap and kicked it open. Dust tickled her nostrils as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she suppressed a sneeze. Setting the baskets down in a corner, she pinched her nose until the tingle went away, then briskly turned back for the rest.

When she returned to the grey room, Second Aunt was standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips and her lips pursed. She wasn’t angry, Yingzhen knew; she just always looked like that. Though there was quite a bit of space between them, Second Aunt seemed to tower over Yingzhen, her form filling up the entire doorway and blocking out what little light came from the other side.

Yingzhen lay her baskets down and dipped her head. “Hello, Second Aunt.”

Second Aunt narrowed her eyes. “You’re not thinking of leaving, are you?”

“No, Second Aunt.”

“You seem awfully inclined to.”

“I wouldn’t want to miss your cooking.”

At that, Second Aunt beamed and shook a finger at Yingzhen. “Oh, child. You just really know how to flatter me, don’t you?” She chuckled to herself for a moment before lifting her head and snapping her fingers in the air. “All right then. Get those baskets over here and you’ll have the first spoonful of my signature 牛肉湯.. How does that sound?”

“Not before you are properly served, Second Aunt.”

Second Aunt was even more amused. “Your mother taught you filial piety well, didn’t she?”

Yingzhen turned, hiding a smile. “She did.”

“Speaking of which—” Second Aunt fiddled with something in her sleeve. “Your birthday was just a month ago. How old are you now, Yingzhen?”

“Fifteen.”

Second Aunt tsked. “Children grow up so quickly. I hope you don’t rot as fast as that cilantro there.”

Yingzhen glanced ruefully at the basket in her arms.

“Here,” Second Aunt said, slapping a 紅包 on the ground before her feet. “Don’t tell your father.”

Yingzhen bent down to pick it up, but when she straightened to thank her, Second Aunt had already gone. She finished with the rest of the baskets, and when the job was done, she found Jinrong standing sullenly in the doorway. Marching up the stairs, she brushed past him.

“She said it—I get the first spoonful,” she whispered into his ear.

“What?”

Paying him no heed, she continued into the kitchen where Second Aunt was stirring the stew. The aromas of star anise and soy sauce wafted to her nose, brimming with childhood nostalgia.

“Let me do it,” Yingzhen told Second Aunt. “You go ahead and sit down.”

Second Aunt chuckled again, muttering something that sounded like oh child, oh child under her breath. Not bothering to hide her smile this time, Yingzhen swiveled around to find Jinrong standing behind her, his mouth puckered.

“Now you go and sit down too,” Yingzhen told him. “I doubt you would like it very much if Heliang and Zhangyi and Weiyi were all there except for you.”

Jinrong’s expression only soured more, but he did as she said.

Turning to the giant pot of beef noodle soup, Yingzhen seized two towels to grip the handles before hefting it down the hallway that opened to the main room. A few glass lights hung from the ceiling, complementing the red strips of old Chinese sayings on the walls. Second Aunt had closed the restaurant for the festival, so the whole room was set and empty save the tables connected in the center where the rest of the family waited—thoroughly occupied by a rising dispute.

“Weihao.” Fourth Aunt—or was it Fifth Aunt?—jerked her chin at Yingzhen’s father. “Long time no see. Ever care to return that money you borrowed? Five years ago?”

Livid eyes glared daggers at her. “Why don’t you treat your elder brother with some more respect?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, 三哥,” the aunt taunted. “Feeling down?”

Yingzhen spooned the soup into all thirty-five bowls—that of her grandfather, five aunts and their children, two uncles and their children, and her own family of six. Some of them were absent, but she didn’t bother making sense of it. None of them paid her any heed except for Second Aunt, who smiled and nodded.

“Little Shenjin!”

Yingzhen stiffened, and a good portion of the clamor in the room died down. She lifted her head slowly to find one of her cousins smiling widely at her—the younger of Second Uncle’s two sons.

“Taijiang,” she said. The one who had just been married to some rich girl in the better part of Beizheng. Who else would have the audacity?

Yingzhen’s father had broken away from his puerile argument. “What did you just say?” He rose from his seat, narrowing his eyes at the young man. Taijiang scarcely even blinked.

“I called her Little Shenjin,” Taijiang said, unfazed. “Isn’t that what we all used to call her?”

Yingzhen let the ladle sink into the pot and set down the bowl she had been filling. She considered stepping forward to her father, perhaps calming his outburst, but decided against it. She wasn’t in the mood to get involved between them.

“You—” Yingzhen’s father pushed his chair aside and stepped forward, shaking a finger at Taijiang, red flushing his face. His eyes had gone balefully wide, their whites brimming with fury and rage and pain. It seemed if they opened any wider, surely they would pop out of their sockets and land in Taijiang’s soup, slimy with blood and fluids. He kept sputtering, his jaw clenched so fiercely it might have unhinged if pushed just a moment further. “You dare—”

Taijiang crossed his arms. “What is it, old man?”

Yingzhen’s father plowed the last few steps forward and seized Taijiang by the collar, slamming his face into his bowl. “Say that again.” He shook Taijiang furiously, wringing soup from his hair. “Say that one more time—”

“It’s Shenjin, isn’t it? That’s the name you can’t hear. Shenjin. You’re scared of a name, old man, you’re scared!”

“Taijiang!”

It was Second Aunt who had spoken, her eyes fierce, assertive. She rose and strode over to the two of them.

“Sit down and apologize to your uncle,” she said.

Taijiang scowled. “Second Aunt—”

“You are forcing me to deal with you like a child. Are you going to continue acting like a child or do you want me to treat you your age?”

Taijiang pressed his lips together but sat stiffly down, turning back to his splattered soup.

“You have not yet apologized,” Second Aunt said.

“I will not.”

For a moment, no one moved. Then—Second Aunt sighed and turned to Yingzhen’s father, muttering. “Stubborn child.”

The gathering wore on. It wasn’t even half an hour before Grandfather retired to the back room, muttering something about back and knee aches. Dusk deepened, and above them the moon glinted amidst a blanket of shadow, but the night was early and they had just brought out the osmanthus wine. The fragrance drifted to their noses and kept them bound to the room, like vipers curled around their necks, slender tongues flicking across their eyes, venom frothing before their faces. Give me a door, give me a door, the vipers whispered, beady eyes flaring. But you told me then there were only windows to look out of. The trapdoors were sealed shut or laced with snares, the ground crumbling and linking back together as the years took wing.

A couple unknown relatives were fighting again, and Yingzhen’s eyes travelled back and forth between them.

“Another,” she said to Jinrong, holding out her empty cup.

Despite her being so much younger, Jinrong filled the glass quietly.

Yingzhen clicked her chopsticks in Jinrong’s face. “What’s the matter? Lost your appetite?”

“Well—”

“Ah, forget it. I don’t care enough to join your… sentimentality. These noodles are too good.”

Jinrong buried his face in his hands. “Why are you like this?”

Yingzhen shrugged and clicked her chopsticks in his face again. “What’s the point of crying when you could just not?”

“Have you been listening to anything anyone’s been saying?”

“No. Doesn’t concern me.”

“Really?” Jinrong leaned forward. “Not even the Jin-shan?”

“Well, I do keep hearing those words getting passed around. But they’ve been around for quite a while. Years, at least.”

“Yingzhen—”

“What?”

“I thought you were intelligent.”

“I’m flattered.”

Jinrong sighed in exasperation. “There are strange tales passing around—strange tales of men becoming tremendously rich overnight.”

“That’s a shame. I’m not a man, and I’d never want to be.”

He ignored her. “Across the sea, they say, is the Jin-shan—the Gold Mountain—where gold and wealth and riches are to be had for all.”

Yingzhen snorted. “Like the Forbidden City, but for everyone, hm?”

“It’s incredible.”

“Who told you?”

“A cousin of Taijiang’s wife saw it with his own eyes.”

“So this is one of his stories.”

“It’s not a story, Yingzhen,” Jinrong said. “So many have returned with proof.”

“Hm.” She frowned, suddenly noticing the impatient tapping noise beside her, and glanced around to find Second Aunt standing there, thumping a chopstick on the table.

“Don’t tell me my niece is going deaf at such a young age,” she said. “Come. We’re going outside to watch the moon.”

This time around, I imagine the real you listened to the stories. Under the watchful gaze of the moon, a silver glow crying silver tears, the images before her blurred together, and a vision manifested in the night

sky. Above the grey streets of Beizheng and the shambles of her father’s farm, the Gold Mountain sailed. The land of the free. Crisp wind brushed past her face, sweeping her hair behind her, and she could taste her liberty at the tip of her tongue, the flavor faint but sweet. She savored it, harboring it within her tongue, and slowly, it morphed into allure. A quiet hope. A throbbing hope. But not yet a promise.

“Gē-gė,” Yingzhen murmured, cupping her face in her hands, warm from the wine.

Jinrong shifted on the roof beside her. “Hm?”

“Do you think Father wants to forget Mother?”

There was a silence.

“I don’t know.”

Yingzhen sighed. “Everyone is so afraid of being forgotten when they go. Doesn’t he know that?”

Jinrong gave no response; he had none for her.

The words for America in Chinese are me ˘i guó [美國], meaning beautiful country.

I have always wondered why. For most other countries, the names have no such significance. Either they imitate sounds—Italy as yì dà lì [意大利] and the Philippines as fēi lü ` bīn [菲律賓]—or there is simply no meaning at all. Why, out of all places, is America the one and only ‘beautiful country’? How, with its Western establishment, tens of thousands of years younger, does it mean so much to a people across the ocean? How, at the turn of the twentieth century, when U.S. imperialism went hand in hand with Chinese exclusion, did we come to speak the name through gritted teeth, irony lolling off the tips of our tongues?

“Me ˘i guó,” you tell me every night. “Me ˘i guó, me ˘i guó, me ˘i guó. Our beautiful country. This is our home.”

“I know, Momma.”

“This is our home,” you say again. “Our home.”

Moist earth seeped in through the coarse hemp of her breeches as the real you knelt in the dirt, begrudgingly lowering the yoke. She let the wooden buckets thud to the ground, a trapped girl’s work, a messy chore flung aside. Wood on wood thunked dully against one another as the stick fell, one tipping over at the impact—and the girl, who had been stretching out her back, jumped and reached immediately to stabilize the bucket, only to remember that it was empty and there was nothing to lose.

Yingzhen sighed and glanced up towards the grey sky, her eyes glossed over. In the way that somebody calls your name when your mind is spaced out into nothing, the words Little Shenjin rang in her head, her skull vibrating with the impact. Her gaze shifted to look directly forward at the ashen yellow hills, fog blanketing everything beyond the second mound. Within the fog undulating phantoms of her father’s face surfaced, that face of fury and rage and pain when those words were spoken. Little Shenjin. She bit her lip, turning fiercely away, but Taijiang’s taunting voice remained—persisted. It’s Shenjin, isn’t it? That’s the name you can’t hear. Shenjin. You’re scared of a name, old man, you’re scared!

She didn’t know exactly what day it had been, but she remembered that night seven winters ago: the sputtering fire, the cracking wood mimicking the sound of whips, the gale threatening to choke out the last sparks. Her hand reached forward, straining, to grasp onto the fugitive visions, the image of her mother’s face—the shape of her nose, the outline of her mouth, the familiar features everyone always said she took after. The name—again. Little Shenjin, she remembered them calling her. Little Shenjin.

Yingzhen! she would protest, angrily. My name is Yingzhen! She wanted to be her own person. She didn’t want to be “Little Shenjin” or “Weihao’s daughter” or even worse, “that girl from the corner farm”. But secretly, her younger self liked being thought of as her mother—tall and beautiful and strong. She hoped when the others called her Little Shenjin, they didn’t name her so just for her face, but rather because they also thought of her as tall and beautiful and strong.

“Not nearly strong enough.”

Kneeling on the riverbank, the real you spoke bitterly to the waters but received no response, neither a fleeting shadow in the corner of her eye nor a pale grey face in the lapping water—not even a rush of wind. The ghost of her mother gave her nothing. The basket baby who had been swept down this path seven winters ago gave her nothing.

The basket baby. What an unfitting name for a baby girl, just another unnamed, unremembered. You’d spoken of her once or twice, but in your later years it seemed to have slipped your memory. I remembered her, though. The story stuck with me. The real you wanted to give her a name, but she wasn’t very good at words, and she was afraid that if she did, she would ruin a sacred memory. So her sister remained the basket baby, a name only she knew because she never spoke it aloud, even when she was alone. It shamed her—to call her baby sister so. It shamed her more than she could know. It shamed her because she was not knowledgeable enough to name the basket baby, the least she could have done. It shamed her because she knew she could have done more but she had done

nothing to stop her father. It shamed her because she had let her mother down, and after that night seven winters ago no one ever called her Little Shenjin again.

Sighing, Yingzhen resumed rubbing her back and puckered her mouth at the thought of bringing the buckets back full. Both her knees were damp now as she bent over the riverbank, splashing water in her face, rubbing the oil off her skin. She was glad for the wind; in the riled waters, she could not see her face and the tiredness that lingered within its lines. They echoed only of the cycle she trod: crumbs of feed in a webbed corner, wailing wind through the splintered walls, the beady glints of spiders and cockroaches and silverfish in the night, the familiar creakgroan of the wooden floors.

Yingzhen straightened unwillingly and plunged the first bucket into the water. The muscles in her arm tensed at the weight as she dumped it on the side of the bank and reached for the second, repeating the action. She fit the shaft to the rope, meaning to heft the weight onto her shoulders, but wavered as her mind swam with objections. She’d risen early from bed before the roosters’ crowing and taken the long passage to the river instead of the town well, in order to be blessed with a moment of solitude—yet thought of return had come so quickly. Pressed for time, compelled by necessity, the notion of her father’s disappointment reeling in her head, she was bound to this life. As her parents did, as their parents did, and the parents of their parents did, they would remain in Beizheng evermore. Trapped. Mirror, mirror, mirror.

Hating the truth but knowing what had to be done, she heaved the yoke onto her shoulders and turned back the way she had come. She waded through the rippling sea of grass, the blades nearly at her shoulders. They swayed in the wind like water, and her mind wandered back towards the river. She pictured the basket drifting down the current, alone, unimpeded by stones in the water. It was almost peaceful.

If she had been there, if word of what her father had done had reached her sooner and not in the morning after the basket baby was long gone, perhaps she would be less lonely. Maybe then she wouldn’t be the only girl in her family and she’d have someone to play with and take care of. Maybe she would comb her hair until it was glossy as a princess’s crown. Maybe they would play dress-up and weave colorful gowns of red and gold from her mother’s old threads. Maybe she would stash away Second Aunt’s sweets and cakes, saving them for the basket baby, and they would have a feast together, by themselves, without their four brothers. She would save all the good leftovers from dinner too—xiang chang pork rice, steamed buns, scallion pancakes, the special fish she’d only had once in her lifetime. Anything the basket baby wanted.

Sight of the farmhouse emerged from beyond the hills and she struggled the last few steps forward, the wooden yoke rubbing unpleasantly on her callouses, her shoulders numb and bruised, her arms burning as if licked by fire. She kicked the door open, lowering the yoke to the ground, and heaved a heavy sigh at last.

Rolling her shoulders, Yingzhen cursed at the pain but quickly turned her mind away. The pot of rice remained where she left it on the counter, thoroughly soaked with the water she’d saved from yesterday. She kindled the fire, letting it eat away at the wood a little as she drained the rice, then set the pot to boil. Sighing again, she turned aside, meaning to pick up the bucket she’d left on the ground—only to collide head-on into Heliang. The boy jumped and started backwards, his heel connecting with the rim of the bucket, and the water went spilling all over the floor.

Yingzhen swore, throwing her arms up in the air angrily. “What are you doing here?”

A nervous smile crept onto his face, which seemed even feebler with his timid posture, height and wide, gullible eyes. At twelve, he should have been taller and heftier, but he scarcely reached her shoulder. Looming over the small boy, Yingzhen seemed old enough to be his mother, though they had only three years between them. Something behind her caught his attention, and he sidled past her, glancing unhappily at the cooking rice.

“Congee again?”

“If you don’t appreciate my efforts, I’d be glad to let you make your own.” She swiveled around, shaking a finger at the upturned bucket. “And if you don’t clean that up, you’re not getting any. That includes replacing the water.”

Heliang puckered his lips and began to stamp away. “Fine! I’ll fend for myself!”

“Need I remind you that you have no idea how to cook?”

There was a moment of doubt before Heliang huffed in defeat and seized the bucket roughly. “Jiě-jiė…why do you have to be so mean?”

“You’re not even going to do anything if you stay.” Yingzhen hefted the full bucket off to the side. “All you do is sit there and watch me work.”

“All right, all right! I’m going.” Heliang shuffled towards the door, muttering a string of insults under his breath as he threw his queue over his shoulder.

Yingzhen didn’t bother turning to watch the spectacle. She set the bucket down in a corner, threw a towel on the ground to soak up the spill, and turned back to the congee. She’d just lifted the lid, letting some steam escape from the pot, when her father’s condemnatory voice reached her ears.

“What is going on over here?”

She tensed, her back to the voice, quiet and reserved and demanding, but most of all— filled with disapproval. That was the only way she had ever known it to be. Not disapproval of Heliang, nor anyone else. No. Disapproval of her. Only for her. Alone among everyone, everywhere, that voice of disapproval followed her near and far, tracing her every step. She was always doing something wrong, but no one else was. No one else could, not when she was around. Her presence was the embodiment of a scapegoat.

Turning, Yingzhen faced her father. His angular face and shrewd eyes pierced her as they always did, adorned by a crown of arched, thick brows and white hair. He looked years older than he was, his sunken cheeks tinged with ruefulness, his temple furrowed by grief and longing. But Yingzhen had no time to pity his sorrows. She would take him for who he was now and how he treated her.

“Heliang spilled the water, so now he is going to replace it.” Yingzhen spoke evenly, avoiding her brother’s gaze.

“Then what is the reason for the commotion?” Her father stepped forward, surveying the scene in the likeness of an inspection guard.

Yingzhen crossed her arms. “He doesn’t want to.”

“And why doesn’t he want to?”

“Because he doesn’t want to take responsibility for his actions.”

“Really?” Her father jerked a chin at Heliang, who had been lingering timidly in the doorway. “Come here.”

Heliang inched a few steps towards them.

“Why don’t you want to refill the water?” their father inquired.

“Because,” he said haughtily, “it’s far and the bucket is heavy.”

“Ah.” Their father nodded, as if that was somehow righteous. “Now that is a different story. Yingzhen, don’t you think it would be very good for you to help out your little brother? As a woman, it is your duty to serve.”

Yingzhen clenched her jaw but knew better than to retaliate. “Yes.”

“That’s very good to hear,” their father said. “Heliang, put the bucket down. Yingzhen will fetch the water.”

Heliang mumbled a meek response and did what he was told.

Their father clasped his hands together. “Now, if there is nothing else—Heliang, come with me.”

Wordlessly, Heliang followed their father out of the door, casting a sheepish glance at Yingzhen. She didn’t spare him another look before turning upon her heel to face the boiling congee. A spoon in her hand, she stirred the rice stonily, impassivity disguising her hidden anger.

Yet suppression never sat well with Yingzhen. Fury boiled within her veins, simmering just below the surface, then seething, churning to break through the mask. She spat in frustration, slamming the spoon onto the table, breaking off the handle, but it wasn’t enough. There was so much, so much to let out. Snapping the handle in two, she hurled it across the room, directly into the empty bucket. It clanged grimly, like the tolling bell of a funeral march. Still, not enough. She kicked the bucket, pain shooting up her leg, and kicked it again. She was tempted to destroy the entire room—knock over the congee, spill the other bucket, let the cooking fire spread until it licked up everything, the dried meat, the earthen jars, the hidden beer, the salted vegetables, the slanted shelves, everything there was. She saw herself standing in the middle of the room, the flames all around her, as if they were hers. As if anything could be

hers. Her gaze brushed across ruin, watching the spiders escape from their webs, the smoke filling the room, the fire devouring her overturned congee and turning the water into steam.

The fervor died in her eyes as the vision vanished, and she opened her eyes to find herself alone. No dragons with tongues of fire, no burning shelves nor smoldering stacks of dried food, no nothing. The truth was laid bare before her—she would never be so bold as to summon the dragons within her. She would never even do so little as to throw a bowl of congee. She knew the consequences.

Mirror, mirror, mirror. Remember?

Yingzhen lifted her head, coming face to face with her reflection in a hanging pot on the wall. Sometimes it was not her own face that she saw, but rather her mother’s—as her father saw her—and the generations and generations before her. Perhaps once, they stared at this same pot, in the same place she was now. Their family could never get anywhere. No matter how hard they worked, they never got anywhere.

You didn’t write my Chinese name on my legal birth certificate because you didn’t want the other children to make fun of me or the teacher to pronounce my name wrong. Dad wasn’t there on the day I was born—he was off on another business trip—and so you were left to decide for yourself, alone in the hospital room with me sleeping in a box at the side of your bed. You stared at me for a good long while, thinking about how you weren’t so sure he would care anyway, and thus—Helen, you wrote in a scrawled hand. Helen Hendrickson.

Sometimes I can’t decide if that was for better or for worse; instead of struggling to pronounce my name, teachers call it, then look expectantly around the room for an answer. When I say, “here,” in that quiet voice of mine, they repeat the name incredulously, believing it to be a mistake.

“You?” they say, and I nod faintly, trying to draw attention away from myself. I have inherited so much more of you than Dad that sometimes I wonder if he’s really my father after all.

After a moment or two, they shrug and move to the next name, and the next, and the next, while I keep my eyes glued to the pink gum stuck to the back of the chair in front of me. There are teeth marks on it, as if someone tried to gnaw it off months after it hardened.

In 1885, Tape v. Hurley outlawed the segregation of Chinese children in schools, but it was scarcely enforced. I was only attending this school because there weren’t any other Chinese children in our area; after you married Dad, you lived in his house, abandoning the little place in Chinatown. They would have insisted on my going to another elementary school farther away if it weren’t for my name. Without my face, they would never have known.

“Japan?” Mrs. Miller asks me, tapping a fingernail on my desk.

I nod, because I don’t know how to contradict her.

“Would you so kindly tell the class about the Meiji Restoration?”

Within my fist, my fingers clench and unclench themselves beneath the table. They are clammy with sweat, and I try to wipe it away on the cold table leg. “I—” My voice sounds so feeble, so helpless—the voice of a weakling. “I… I’m sorry.” It’s the only response I find fitting. I can’t even say I don’t know. I look down, unable to bear her gaze any longer.

“Hm,” Mrs. Miller says. “Well, class—” She moves on with the lecture, but the clamminess on my hands doesn’t go away.