Tangled Vines (13 page)

Halfway through her long speech, the old man hung his head. When she finished, he mumbled his response. “You are right, girl. I haven’t deserved to be called a father. I let Benfu down and should have made amends years ago. I wish I could take it all back and rewrite time, but I can’t.”

He looked up at Linnea, his eyes imploring hers.

“Do you think it’s too late? If I could die without so much guilt on my conscience, I could rest in peace, and maybe even be allowed a better life in the afterworld. But at this point, is forgiveness even possible?”

Linnea couldn’t help it. Compassion seeped in and she felt sorry for the old man. He looked so much like her Ye Ye and even had the same mannerisms. How could she be cruel to someone so like her own beloved Ye Ye? And from what she could see, he’d lived a tortured life of guilt and regret.

“It’s too late to rewrite history and take away the hurt you’ve caused Ye Ye and Nai Nai, but there is something you can do to help right the wrong.” She reached over and took Zheng’s gnarled hands in hers and leaned in closer. “Listen close and I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. Tomorrow, you’re coming back here.”

The old man nodded obediently and Linnea knew she had him. He wasn’t saying it but he’d do anything to be able to have a semblance of a relationship with his only son before he died. Anything to help right the wrongs. Linnea hoped with his help she could make a miracle happen—maybe even a few.

T
his is nonsense, Linnea. I’m supposed to be watching the store while you’re on your break, not gallivanting up and down the street beside you. My old legs are tired, girl.” Calli was irritated. Linnea insisted she accompany her to Sky’s store and that was the last thing she wanted to do today. She had set her sights on finishing her latest knitted sweater but this would set her back another day at least.

“Nai Nai, I have someone I want you to meet. But first, I want to ask you to keep an open mind.” Linnea held the door open.

“Linnea, what is this all about? I’ve already met Sky’s grandfather.” Calli walked through, looking around to see who was so important to take her away from getting her work done. The room was darkened by the drawn shade but she saw a man sitting in the corner, crouched over on a small stool. His face was hidden by the shadows.

Calli held her hand up and gave a small wave. “
Ni hao
. Do I know you?”

The man didn’t say a word, but he lifted his face and the beam of light from the door shined across and highlighted the deep lines in his face and his dark eyes. Calli could see him clearly then and immediately knew who it was. It wasn’t Sky’s grandfather as she’d expected. Even though it had been many years, she’d never forget the face that was so like her husband’s. She was shocked he was still alive. She did the math and realized he must have already passed age ninety. She looked quickly around the room and was relieved not to see his wife. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking about the old woman. She tried to retreat back out the door but Linnea blocked her way.

“Just talk to him a minute, Nai Nai. He has some things he needs to say.”

Calli shook her head stubbornly and turned back to the door. “I have nothing to say to him. He is not a part of our life, Linnea. I don’t know how you found him, or how he found you—but he is not welcome in this family.”

Linnea took her Nai Nai’s hand in hers and squeezed them to her chest. “
Please,
Nai Nai. He wants to talk to Ye Ye. You can help bridge the gap.”

Calli finally turned and spoke to the man directly. “Benfu doesn’t want anything to do with you. Ever. There—you have your answer and it is not a gap you have between you and your son. It is an endless chasm. He has blamed himself all these years for not protecting our daughter from his own mother. And you stood by and let her commit that evil deed. Tell me, how can you possibly mend that?”

With that she pushed Linnea’s hands out of the way and reached for the door.

“What if I told you I could help you find Dahlia?”

Calli froze. No one had uttered her daughter’s name in decades. She felt her knees begin to give way and she leaned over the counter beside the door. She clutched her chest and it was a moment before she could speak. Linnea led her to a bench at the end of the counter.

“Dahlia? She’s alive?” Her voice had lost all sense of authority and came out sounding weak and embarrassing to her.

The old man lowered his face into his hands for a moment, then looked up and stared Calli in the eye. “She was alive when Feiyan left our home with her a week after she took her.”

With that the old man hung his head again. Calli didn’t care if his guilt was killing him; nothing he felt could ever compare to what she and Benfu had been through. But she couldn’t deny his words sent a piercing streak of hope through her—hope that maybe her daughter was alive after all.

She felt a wave of dizziness as she shook her head from side to side. “I knew it. I
knew
she took her. I smelled her in the house that day. All these years. All the denials and it was her all along.”

The old man wrung his hands. “Calli, please. You have to understand. Feiyan was ill in her head. I tried to talk her into bringing the baby back. I begged her! But after everything she’d been through to survive the revolution, she was obsessed with continuing our family name and she was adamant you couldn’t keep a girl child. But she regretted it. The guilt eventually drove her to her grave.”

Calli’s face hardened. “I’m glad; I hope that she suffered with her guilt like I suffered with my loss. But there is no way to compare the two. That was my child, you old fool. Nothing she endured was enough to punish her for what she did.”

Linnea crossed the room and put her arms around her. Calli could see that the girl was overcome with emotion.

“Nai Nai, you don’t mean that. I think she must have been a very sick old woman.”

Calli buried her face in her hands and began to sob. She was ashamed that she was letting a side of her out that most had never seen. A side filled with rage. “Linnea, you just don’t know. Dahlia was my little girl. My baby.”

“I do know, Nai Nai. I read her page in our family journal. I know she was your baby and she went missing.”

Calli felt the tears run down her face. “I’ve dreamed of her for years. I knew she wasn’t dead—I could feel her.” She struggled to maintain control and thumped her chest over her heart, then looked up and pointed her finger at the old man. “And you—you and your hateful wife—you kept her from me. You kept her from her father, your only son. How? How can you live with yourself?”

“I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. I know words can’t make up for it. But believe me, we never imagined you wouldn’t be able to have more children. She thought you’d have a son and then get over the loss of Dahlia.”

The memories of her forced sterilization overwhelmed her and Calli wanted to run out the door, but she needed to find out what she could about her daughter. Lately the girl had been on her mind even more than usual and the dreams were becoming more frequent. If he knew anything—anything at all—she wanted to know. She needed that peace.

Now that the old man had gotten started, it appeared he couldn’t stop.

“Mao told us all to have many, many children to build a new red China. That is what we thought you and Benfu would do. Then the land couldn’t produce enough to feed everyone and Mao decided there were too many children! Who could’ve predicted the one-child policy? How could we have known what they’d begin doing to women to keep the birth numbers down, Calli? Feiyan was obsessed that Benfu’s firstborn be a son. She thought you could have other children, once a son was established. I’m so sorry, but it’s Mao’s fault.”

“Tell me where she is.” Calli didn’t care to talk about what Mao had done to a nation. She could lament the millions of forced abortions, sterilizations, and abandoned children.
But to what outcome?
Decades of wrongs couldn’t be undone in a conversation. She only wanted to know where her daughter was.

The old man sighed. “She was taken to the orphanage in Beijing. Feiyan wanted her far enough away that you couldn’t track her.”

Calli shook her head. “That’s not possible. I traveled to that orphanage, along with at least twenty others just like it. They told me she wasn’t there. They all said she wasn’t there.”

“The director owed Feiyan a favor. One that couldn’t be denied. Dahlia’s records were hidden so that she could never be adopted. Instead she was shipped from home to home to keep her moving. You know how it is—if they want to keep a child in the system, they do it. We kept track of her, Calli. We know she did okay until she aged out and left on her own accord. Then her trail was lost.”

Calli felt a rage well up inside her. Rage like she hadn’t felt in decades.

“You kept track of her? And you knew we were suffering but you never told us? Now I might never find her? What kind of monster are you?”

The old man stood, his hand clutching the wobbling cane to try to stabilize himself. He pulled an envelope from his pocket and reached out to hand it to Calli. She refused to take it and Linnea grabbed it instead.

“I’ve kept track of all of you. I moved here after Feiyan died. I have nothing in Shanghai and I wanted to be close to the only family I have. I’ve followed your lives. I still have contacts, you know.”

Calli felt disgust. “Oh yes, I know. China is all about contacts. Contacts that will hide a child from her mother, connections that will cause a woman to go through hell as her womb is altered to prevent any more children. Those are some amazing connections you have there. Congratulations, Laoren.”

He shook his head. “Now, Calli, I had nothing to do with what happened to you after Dahlia was taken. You have to believe that.”

She stared at him, standing to meet him eye to eye. She would not let him know how much seeing him had shaken her. She’d end the meeting strong.

He cowered under the brunt of her hate-filled gaze. When he spoke, he sounded as old as every one of his years.

“Calli, I am a guilt-filled and broken man. I have spent these last few years alone, craving the attention of a son or grandchild. Perhaps it won’t bring your daughter back, but it might help you
to know that my days are short and at least now you have the truth. If it weren’t for this girl here”—he pointed his cane at Linnea—“I wouldn’t have the courage to be standing here telling you this now. I would have stayed in the background, watching from afar until my dying day. But she is quite the intelligent and persuasive one and now, dear girl, I have kept my word. Good day.”

He nodded at Linnea and began to walk toward the back of the room. Then he turned to Calli again. “I had hoped that through you, I might be able to see my son again and tell him how truly sorry I am. But if you are not on my side, I know the effort would be fruitless. Now, I am tired. I aim to go home and rest these old bones.”

He opened the door and called out behind him.

“The envelope contains photos of your daughter. Her orphanage name is written on the back. If you find her, you’ll know it is her by a flower tattooed on the bottom of her foot. Feiyan did that, too—even though I begged her not to. She said it was just in case. In case of what, I never knew.”

With that he waved his hand in the air and disappeared through the back door. He was gone.

With thoughts swirling disjointedly in her mind, Calli slowly walked the ten long blocks to the park and found a bench to sit on. After swearing Linnea to secrecy, she’d told her to go home and tell the family she was visiting Widow Zu. Linnea had agreed immediately as she obviously felt responsible for how affected Calli was to see the old man. Calli didn’t want her to suffer, as she knew Linnea had only wanted to help, but she had to get away and think on her own. She needed to decide whether to tell Benfu or not and she feared for what this new revelation would do to his health. Sure, he’d been stable for many months but the doctors had said that any additional stress could trigger a relapse with the tuberculosis, or even weaken his heart further.