Wish You Happy Forever by Jenny Bowen Page A

with rope rags had caused bone-deep scars on her hips.
    â€œOh . . . poor baby . . . oh, let me—”
    I tried to gently clean the still-raw wounds. She rolled away from me.
    â€œNo? Okay . . . it’s okay . . . it’s gonna be okay . . . C’mere, little one.” I pulled her close, quickly slipped on the disposable diaper. “There now . . . that’s better, isn’t it, Xinmei?”
    And she slapped me in the face.
    I’m ashamed to say my instinct was to slap her back. Instead, I sat there, staring at this strange little creature, my hand in midair. My daughter? She spat at me. That stopped me cold.
    My hand fell against my mouth and the tears came. Mine, not hers. She watched me from across the bed. A safe distance. And from there, I could see her little bare feet. They were scarred as well—burned to the ankles, evenly on both sides, like bobby socks.
    When a child is naughty, holding her in scalding water teaches her not to misbehave again, someone told me later.
    â€œWho did this to you?”
    I took a deep, shuddery breath. “Okay. All right. Don’t worry, Xinmei, we’ll work it out.”
    I sure hoped that was true. We spent the night on opposite sides of the bed. She cried out in her sleep. I longed to hold her, to try to soothe away the sadness that filled the room. But I didn’t dare pull her to me. I reached across and stroked her back as she slept.
    China was breaking my heart.

Chapter 6
    A Good Beginning Is Half the Journey

    Berkeley, California
June 2000
    The next month flew by in a frenzy of preparation for Half the Sky’s first build and training. My garage was piled high with newly purchased toys and art supplies and princess dresses and tiny high heels and tutus. Along with their birthday money and lemonade stand proceeds, children adopted from China sent us dress-up clothes to fuel the dreams of their little sisters.
    I sorted the treasures into boxes lined up in the driveway to send along with our first volunteer building crew. I picked up a cheap plastic diamond tiara and imagined it perched above Xinmei’s sad little face.
    When I was a child there was a delivery van always parked in a driveway down the street. A boy named Andrew lived in the house belonging to that driveway. He would let us look inside the truck sometimes. Its walls were lined with little toys in cellophane bags. Andrew’s father drove the truck to deliver the toys to the wire racks that tantalized small children in grocery stores and five-and-dimes. And sometimes, if we helped him, Andrew’s father would let us choose a toy.
    One day, when I was seven years old, I was heading home from school with my house key on a chain around my neck. I’d been a latchkey kid for only a few weeks.
    Andrew’s father was in his driveway, working in the van. He called out to me and said I could choose a toy. I climbed into the van. Before I could select a toy, he told me to close my eyes for a surprise. I did. He put his hand on me and he said, “It makes me sad that I don’t have a little girl like you to love.” I kept my eyes closed, listened to a song in my head about camels and bears and ponies prancing on the merry-go-round, and thought about how I should feel sad for Andrew’s father.
    Do you love me? he said.
    Yes, I said.
    Did I? Is this what love is?
    Then he was angry. He pushed me out the door of the van and told me never to tell. I never did. I didn’t know who I could tell. After that day, I went straight to the library from school. I read books there until my parents got home.
    What Andrew’s father did to me was unforgivable, but far from the worst thing a grown-up has ever done to a child. Perhaps the greater hurt was that I didn’t know who I could tell.
    Three years later, a girl on my street reported that Andrew’s father was gone. She’d told her parents what he did to her, she