family, and how I'd decided to find it for myself. Despite how my work at the
Herald
had made him feel close, the Galinger story had driven that project from my mind.
Friday,
I thought.
I'll be off.
I could get back to it then. At least start brainstorming how I might find a record of one boy in all California.
Unless, of course, things were breaking so fast on the Galinger front that maybe Harrison would need my help. If they were, Fran might let me work an extra day, since it was my story, too.
"What are you smiling at?" Mom asked.
"Nothing. Just thinking."
Actually, I was picturing the next morning's paper. I would get it from the front door. Unfold it. See right there in print the jeanette ingold same words thousands of other people were seeing: "with contributions from Margaret Wynn Chen."
That, at least, would tell the world one undeniable fact about who I was. I was someone who had helped find the lies and the truth behind a story.
FAI-YI LI, 1934
Li Dewei takes me with him the day he goes to meet his family at the docks, so that I can help with their belongings. We go to a ship, where we watch people stream off, but we cannot get close enough for him to pick out his wife from the others who plod toward the reception center that Sucheng and I went through.
"
There will be many questions," I tell him. "It may take a long time.
"
"
That is all right," he says. "I will tell the authorities I am here, and then I will wait.
"
Still, I am the one who waits outside the building for hours and hours. And when Li Dewei finally emerges, he carries his small son in his arms and there is no woman with them. In silence we return to the laundry, where he leaves the child before going back out, somewhere.
"
His wife got sick on the ship. She died a week away from land," I tell my sister.
Sucheng shrugs. "How soon do we leave?
"
"
Not today! Li Dewei needs our help.
"
The little boy, whose American name is Philip, tugs on her. He is so young his walk is still unsteady, and I tell myself that surely she must see that Li Dewei cannot care for him alone.
She keeps asking, though, day after day, and her pestering irritates me.
"
There is no hurry," I tell her more than once, watching the angry gestures with which she changes little Philip's soiled clothing or pulls him from the stove.
And finally I lose patience. "If you did not wish this life, you should have thought better when you demanded to come to America!
"
My voice is harsh, covering the truth that more and more I am glad to be here. And covering, too, my regret that I have not found a safe way to let our parents know where we are and why we left.
Besides, I tell myself, she should see that her life is not so confined now that she has a household to care for.
In the early morning she goes out, buyingfood from the vegetable stands that line the streets and from meat and fish shops where chickens hang in windows and shining salmon lie on tables in overlapping waves. And all day she has little Philip to keep her company.
Some days I have company, also.
For by now Li Dewei has needed more medicines, and An and I have had more occasions to talk. And some late aflernoons I go out even when there is no errand to do, and Li Dewei does not ask why, as long as my work is done. He appreciates that I am trying to learn the ways of my new country, and perhaps he thinks that is my intent.
But I go to meet An, as often as she lets me know that a meeting is possible.
Because now, when she walks by with her girlfriends, sometimes there is a quick nodâno moreâa nod that means
Meet me.
Li Dewei is too preoccupied to notice. And if my sister, bringing in a bundle of folded shirts, Philip hanging on her clothing, happens to see, what does it matter? She cannot stop me from going out. An is no concern of hers.
And if I do not understand why An should wish to be with me, if only for the fifteen or twenty minutes that she can slip away unnoticed, that does not matter,
Herald
had made him feel close, the Galinger story had driven that project from my mind.
Friday,
I thought.
I'll be off.
I could get back to it then. At least start brainstorming how I might find a record of one boy in all California.
Unless, of course, things were breaking so fast on the Galinger front that maybe Harrison would need my help. If they were, Fran might let me work an extra day, since it was my story, too.
"What are you smiling at?" Mom asked.
"Nothing. Just thinking."
Actually, I was picturing the next morning's paper. I would get it from the front door. Unfold it. See right there in print the jeanette ingold same words thousands of other people were seeing: "with contributions from Margaret Wynn Chen."
That, at least, would tell the world one undeniable fact about who I was. I was someone who had helped find the lies and the truth behind a story.
FAI-YI LI, 1934
Li Dewei takes me with him the day he goes to meet his family at the docks, so that I can help with their belongings. We go to a ship, where we watch people stream off, but we cannot get close enough for him to pick out his wife from the others who plod toward the reception center that Sucheng and I went through.
"
There will be many questions," I tell him. "It may take a long time.
"
"
That is all right," he says. "I will tell the authorities I am here, and then I will wait.
"
Still, I am the one who waits outside the building for hours and hours. And when Li Dewei finally emerges, he carries his small son in his arms and there is no woman with them. In silence we return to the laundry, where he leaves the child before going back out, somewhere.
"
His wife got sick on the ship. She died a week away from land," I tell my sister.
Sucheng shrugs. "How soon do we leave?
"
"
Not today! Li Dewei needs our help.
"
The little boy, whose American name is Philip, tugs on her. He is so young his walk is still unsteady, and I tell myself that surely she must see that Li Dewei cannot care for him alone.
She keeps asking, though, day after day, and her pestering irritates me.
"
There is no hurry," I tell her more than once, watching the angry gestures with which she changes little Philip's soiled clothing or pulls him from the stove.
And finally I lose patience. "If you did not wish this life, you should have thought better when you demanded to come to America!
"
My voice is harsh, covering the truth that more and more I am glad to be here. And covering, too, my regret that I have not found a safe way to let our parents know where we are and why we left.
Besides, I tell myself, she should see that her life is not so confined now that she has a household to care for.
In the early morning she goes out, buyingfood from the vegetable stands that line the streets and from meat and fish shops where chickens hang in windows and shining salmon lie on tables in overlapping waves. And all day she has little Philip to keep her company.
Some days I have company, also.
For by now Li Dewei has needed more medicines, and An and I have had more occasions to talk. And some late aflernoons I go out even when there is no errand to do, and Li Dewei does not ask why, as long as my work is done. He appreciates that I am trying to learn the ways of my new country, and perhaps he thinks that is my intent.
But I go to meet An, as often as she lets me know that a meeting is possible.
Because now, when she walks by with her girlfriends, sometimes there is a quick nodâno moreâa nod that means
Meet me.
Li Dewei is too preoccupied to notice. And if my sister, bringing in a bundle of folded shirts, Philip hanging on her clothing, happens to see, what does it matter? She cannot stop me from going out. An is no concern of hers.
And if I do not understand why An should wish to be with me, if only for the fifteen or twenty minutes that she can slip away unnoticed, that does not matter,
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