The Third Son by Julie Wu Page B

approaching on the adjacent tracks.
    The train whooshed past, filling our car with its roaring clickety-clack, clouding our window with steam and flecks of black coal.
    Yoshiko blinked in the filtered light, shadows of the passing windows sliding across her face as she watched the train, so I could not read her expression. When the train had passed, she was silent for a moment, then absently indicated the direction the train had gone. “My mother is from Hsinchu. Actually, she’s from the mountains, but she lived in Hsinchu before she got married.”
    “The mountains? She’s an aborigine?” I said.
    “No—well, she says no, but she grew up among them, and she looks so different from other people. She calls herself a hill person. She has white skin like mine, and those high cheekbones. It’s possible she’s part aboriginal or part Dutch or something.”
    “Why did she leave the mountains?”
    “Her father sold her when she was twelve. They were desperately poor. He made cedar mothballs for a living and they had to haul them down the mountain to the market and all the way back up again every week. She kept complaining about it—she’s a terrible complainer—and finally when she was twelve and complained one more time, her father said, ‘Fine. We’ll sell you.’ And he sold her to a rich banker and his wife in Hsinchu.”
    “Then how did she end up in Taoyuan?” I asked.
    The dimple on her cheek reappeared as she smiled. “Well, the vendors at the market all talked about this pretty girl and asked who her parents were, and somehow word got to my father’s family.”
    “I see.”
    “A pretty good match for an adopted daughter, even with my father’s name problem.”
    “What problem?”
    “Perhaps you don’t know what my surname is?”
    “It’s Lo, right? I asked my friend and he said—”
    “That’s right. And the odd thing is that my father is the only one in his family with that name. His father, brothers, cousins—everyone else is named Cheng.”
    “Why? Is your father adopted?”
    She shook her head. “Only my grandfather knew, and he became senile before he died, so there’s no way to know now. We know he’s not adopted. But he’s been treated the same as his brothers, so for my mother it was a very good match.”
    “Does she still complain?”
    “Of course. But she has a better life than she would have if she’d married someone poor like her father and stayed in the mountains.”
    She glanced at me sideways and my heart sank.
    W E GOT OFF at Taipei Main Station. On the crowded platform, I saw other men glance her way, and I was both proud to be with her and ashamed not to be worthy of her.
    She walked on with a confident click of her black patent leather pumps, knowing the exact location of the Sintori Noodle Shop, as her sister, Tsun-moi, worked in a bookstore down the street. I recognized her sister’s surname as one of the Hakka minority that were commonly adopted as maids.
    “The sister she was supposed to replace works near here, too. My sister Leh-hwa—given away at birth, you know, to save dowry.”
    “Yes.” I knew of poorer families in which a daughter was given away at birth. The family then adopted another girl to take her place and serve as a maid and future daughter-in-law.
    “But she didn’t like her family, so she ran back home when she was sixteen.”
    We walked a few paces before she spoke again.
    “I was supposed to be given away, too, but I was sleeping. Bad omen. They took my cousin instead.”
    We turned down Zhongshan Road, busy with signs, banners, bicycles, and motorcycles. We crossed the street to get to Sintori Noodle Shop and passed by a radio shop along the way. I stopped for a moment, looking in the storefront window.
    “I thought Hsimenting, but this is a good location, too,” I said. “For a radio shop. Lots of foot traffic here.”
    “True,” she said. “But shops are fancier in Hsimenting.”
    “True.”
    I saw the reflection of her in