Girl in Reverse (9781442497368) by Barbara Stuber

The girl has both arms raised, hands gripping the frame. “So you think she’s reaching out for her mother, maybe?”
    He gives me a wide-eyed look, shakes his head. “Maybe. I knew mine , but I wouldn’t know my father ifhe spit in my face. I can’t be ashamed of it. I had nothing to do with it.”
    A nervous hum starts in me that turns into these words. “M . . . m . . . my parents were Chinese. I remember my mother, but not my birth father. He’s a phantom .”
    â€œPhantom,” Mr. Howard says. “Phan Tom. Sounds kinda Chinese, doesn’t it?”
    I smile. “Yeah, I guess. But Phan Tom was rotten no matter what I call him. He could have been a crook or a bum or the emperor of China or . . .”
    â€œYou ever try to locate him?”
    â€œNever.”
    â€œYou think he might be deceased?” Mr. Howard says softly.
    â€œHe is to me.”
    â€œWe’re alike then. We will never know the blood men who made us. Trying to be who you are, when you don’t know who you are, is a hard go,” he adds. “But I do know some nice Chinese folks. I work for them evenings at the House of Chow.”
    Air forms a boulder in my throat. I glance out at Elliot starting his second round of the track. “You know Mr. and Mrs. Chow?”
    â€œI work there weekend nights. I love Chinese food! Don’t you?”
    â€œWell, I have eaten one-fourth of a fortune cookie, andI’ve had hot tea, which is Chinese, or maybe it’s Japanese . . . and then, uh . . .” I have the worldly intelligence of a wart.
    â€œThe Chows live with prejudice every day,” Mr. Howard says. “They turned it into energy. They turned their Chinese heritage into a business. For Chinese New Year they serve long noodles for a long life and dumplings that look like little money pockets with pennies hidden inside for prosperity.” He shakes his head and smiles. “And of course there are the fresh dragon eggs.” Mr. Howard squats. “The mother dragon sits right on ’em in her nest in the kitchen. Tricky business collecting those eggs.” He goes back to sweeping the spot he just finished cleaning.
    I think how my mother can turn any conversation into a ball of barbed wire and how Mr. Howard turns a loaded, tense topic like our birth fathers into fun. We watch Elliot circling the track. “He told me I was stupid for walking out of class that day, you know, when I got the detention. But you saluted me!”
    Mr. Howard smiles, rubs his chin. “Yup. But I’m not so sure Elliot was calling you stupid, Miss Firestone. Maybe he was referring to the class.”
    â€œHmm . . .”
    â€œWhy don’t you ask him?” Mr. Howard says. “It’s real easy to start imagining things in other people.”
    â€œBut.”
    â€œNo. Hear me out. I know you weren’t imagining whathappened in class. I saw it! I’m just saying that it is easy to make assumptions that everybody is against you when maybe they’re not. But prejudice you internalize, turn against yourself, is the worst. It can get you so sunk inside you’re unwilling to take a risk. Leaves you kinda”—he shrugs—“ cold acting toward other people.”
    â€œUnwilling to take what risk?”
    â€œCaring about somebody else and letting it show. Feeling like you have something worth giving.”
    We are quiet a long moment. “What do you tell your kids? Don’t they get, you know, bothered by people who . . .”
    â€œI hope they learn by watching my wife and me.” He turns. I see the exact moment it dawns on him that I don’t have an example. All I feel is the weight of Donald Firestone on one shoulder and Vivian Firestone hooked to the other.
    Elliot barges in the door steamy and panting. He waves to Mr. Howard. “Hey! How you