The Year She Left Us (4 page)

“Remember what it was like the first time we took our girls?” said Robyn. “So bewildering and scary. We've got much better language now around the whole experience. The girls aren't afraid anymore that they might be left again for good. Ari and A.J. can tell them what it's like to visit the orphanage, and they can help with the cultural activities—brush painting and the cooking classes. We never have enough hands. The younger ones start crying if they have to wait too long for their turn.”

“It's fine for A.J.,” Charlie said. “She goes every summer. Her Mandarin is good. But Ari's like me. She knows two phrases: ‘Menu, please' and ‘Where's the toilet?' ”

“So she'll improve,” Robyn said. “David's not coming at all this time. He's like you: he loves the office. And he refuses to miss another baseball season.”

“Where will you live?”

“I lost my old place, so I rented a new apartment. Rents have gone up—all those damn foreigners.” Robyn laughed. “It'll be tight, but we can manage.”

Charlie wasn't sure. She said she wasn't ready to give up Ari yet, especially with college looming.

“You're never around anyway,” Ari argued across the table, the two of them sitting down for a rare family supper. Between senior year and Charlie's job, they hardly saw each other. “If I don't go, A.J. won't, either. She'll be lonely without me. You're the one who's always saying we should know something about where we came from. Gran and Grandpa George, blah blah blah. You're not interested in going. Les isn't, either. I
have
to go. I have to go
this summer
.”

Charlie wavered. Her daughter looked fierce to her, fiercer than usual. She had gotten a new, lopsided haircut that curved like a spiral staircase around her head, and when she decided she didn't like it, she had cut off the longer strands herself. Her eyes, as always, were smudged with dark makeup, and her blunt, unplucked eyebrows emphasized her obstinate look. She wore a man's shirt carelessly pinned together over a pair of someone's discarded blue jeans. That foot that Charlie had kissed with abandon when Ari was a baby looked bruised at every toe, the same as her fingernails, painted purple-black. Two small tattoos had sprouted on either wrist: a Keith Haring crying baby and, inexplicably, a barking poodle. From the small of her back upward, a third tattoo tendriled. A mum, Ari said, where I can't see it. Charlie had tried to smile. Ari had stopped calling her “Mom” when she was only eight.

Ari drummed the table. “I'll learn Mandarin. I'll be with A.J. every second. I'll do everything that Robyn tells me. I can pay for my own ticket”—her part-time job at Pen and Parchment—“and I'll totally get ready for school when I get home.”

“It's not the money,” Charlie said, though it was, in part. Les might offer or maybe Gran, though Gran and China—Charlie never knew what to expect.

“I want to help those other girls,” Ari said. “The ones going back to their orphanages.” That was the clincher. It was in helping others, Charlie believed, that a person came to know herself. Her natural gifts and inner strength and passions. How, in service, she could find her highest calling. Les offered to pay for half the ticket. Ari took off for Beijing.

Once there, Ari quickly moved out of the apartment.

“I was crowding them so badly, we had groceries stacked in the hallway. It was way awkward. Cricket told me about a room with a family she knows in her building. It's perfect. It's really cheap. I'm paying for it myself. I'm
fine
. Robyn came over.”

Yes, said Robyn, she had checked out the place, and it was legit. There was a landlady who stood guard like a foo dog. Apologies, she said. It was a bit crowded in Robyn's apartment. The pictures on the Internet had made the place look a lot bigger. Ari was great, a huge help, great on the marketing side because she was such a good writer. Robyn never changed a word she wrote.

“Don't worry about a thing,” Robyn assured Charlie. “The girls are having a great time. The weeks are flying by. The younger girls love them.”

“She never picks up when I call,” Charlie said.

“E-mail is better with the time difference. Or you can call here. There's always someone in the office.”

“I'm fine,” Charlie said. She shouldn't breathe down Ari's neck. Robyn was sending pictures, and Ari e-mailed now and then when Charlie beseeched her.

“China photos” was there on Charlie's desktop; she clicked on the file to watch the slide show that Robyn had sent. Ari and A.J. at the airport, dozing on top of their duffels. The two at the gate of the Forbidden City. Ari at the Beijing office, studying the binder where Robyn kept the list of the next group of families due for their heritage tour. Ari and A.J. at the orphanage in Kunming, A.J. smiling wide and pointing above her head to a red-and-gold banner:
WELCOME DAUGHTERS HOME
. Ari stood beside her looking stiffly into the distance. A faded yellow blouse drooped like a pillowcase from her shoulders, and her black skirt, before so tight that Charlie had objected, looked like bunting come loose from its tacks. In none of the pictures was her daughter having fun.
I didn't notice that before
, thought Charlie.

I was figuring things out there
, Ari had told her, but the opposite looked true. China had made her miserable, as miserable as A.J. was happy. Charlie's head sank. She had hoped, without saying so to Ari, that letting her daughter go to China would bring home a happier child. She missed the little girl who had let Charlie hold and soothe her; in her place was sometimes a stranger. How relieved Charlie had been at Ari's departure! The fighting had stopped; for eight whole weeks, the house had been mercifully quiet. She'd caught up at work with time left over for walks and agreeable meals, even a couple of casual dates with a friend of a friend from the office—a pleasant change from rushing home to deal with a prickly Ari.

She turned off the computer. There had to be a way to fix things between them. She texted Ari, knowing she wouldn't answer, then packed her briefcase and passed uncertainly out of the office. They would need bread, eggs, milk, yogurt. Chicken, if Ari had gone back to eating meat. She would cook a nice supper. She would stay up late if she had to. Tonight, they'd start over again.

CHAPTER 6

GRAN

W
hen all else changes, Father used to say, your family stays the same. They might take away everything you have, everything you've worked for, and you might in that moment believe you've been good as murdered, but if you've got one member of your family left on this earth, then you know who you are and where you came from. That's what Father told me when he sent me out into the world. Oh, I was a hopeful one, full of dash and adventure, and I lived an exciting life, nothing like the quiet one you see me living now. I lived in the best cities and had two husbands and three big houses, but I never stopped racing to get where I wanted to be. To make something of myself like Father predicted I would. War separated us, and strife and sickness. Sickness of the spirit and strife of the soul. Fear invaded but didn't defeat me because I had people who needed me to be brave. My every breath I drew for others. Every crevice of my thoughts I filled with plans for their welfare. I have never stopped doing that, all the hours of the day. I keep my family close, as close as the lungs to the heart.

This is not my story. I'm just here to keep things straight. I'm the pilot light, burning low and constant. This is my granddaughter's story. She's been told that family isn't everything, that parentage doesn't count because it's who you are yourself that matters. That's wishful thinking, not mine. The least I can do is correct the family record. I have no interest in crowding the picture. I'm not taking over, as my daughters so often accuse me of. Ari needs to know the things I have to say. “Go ahead, Gran. Give it context,” she said the last time I saw her, a year and a half ago now. I laughed at the way she drew out the word
context
, soaking her voice with spite. It's her mother's favorite word, that and
background
and
circumstances
. Charlotte's so good at making excuses that she does it for a living. A professional justifier, that's what she is.

I want Ari here with me. More wishful thinking.

Ari went to China and then came back and ran away. Surely I'm not spoiling anything by telling that little bit. She went to Kunming, where she had been abandoned. “We don't use that word,” Charlotte likes to correct me. As though words hurt more than history. More than fact. She's a sharp one, my granddaughter—my only grandchild, the only one my daughters gave me. She remembers people and events and conversations clearly and says what she's thinking, even what should be forgotten, but I have to warn you: her story is full of bitterness, and there's no happy ending. It's not finished yet because Ari is incomplete. She's twenty now, but as uncreased as a fresh sheet of paper. At her age, my life ended, so I picked myself up and started again.

Here's the context. We're American. Ari's like me; she was born in China, though she's a Sheep and I'm a Dragon. Nobody will tell us who her real parents are. They say they don't know, though I don't believe that for a second. They know everything; they keep everything secret. She was left at a store where somebody stumbled upon her and drew a crowd so he wouldn't be accused of being the father or uncle or neighbor. Those luckless Chinese stuck there for good, they have to be careful to show the world their business, and even if they have witnesses to every blameless moment because they know that the government is watching, always watching, those witnesses might lie to save their own skins. That's how it must have happened, if it's true that she was abandoned. The man who found her shouted to others, “Whose baby is this? I just found this baby!” People gathered, gaping and mostly silent. A woman might have cried that in the park across the street she had seen a figure hurrying, carrying a bundle, a bundle wrapped up so, a parcel or maybe this baby. The department store manager ordered everyone away. It wouldn't be good for business, for the store to become known as a good place for discards.

They took her to the orphanage. They have a whole system; they're used to that sort of thing. Five months later, an orphanage auntie gave Ari to Charlotte, who couldn't control herself and promptly broke down in public. She showed me the video; her eyes squeeze shut like sand is flying. She's crying so hard that she almost drops the baby. If I had been there instead of my sister, Rose, the transfer would have gone far more smoothly because the orphanage auntie would have fastened on me first, the only one who was calm and collected, and passed the baby straight to me.

Ari made not a peep when she was handed over because she's braver by far than Charlotte. She's not one to cry while Charlotte is weeping. She took leave of her birthplace, as I once did, and, like me, she did well with her fresh start. At school she excelled, so maybe her real parents were clever after all, giving me high hopes that my grandchild wouldn't disgrace me. Look forward, I told her, look forward, look forward, look forward. She looked back, a fatal error. She never should have visited that orphanage full of bad associations. I told Charlotte and Lesley not to let her go, but when did either of my daughters ever listen? George, Charlotte's father, believed the same as I do, and he didn't know half of my reasons, only the part I told him. The future holds promise while the past is full of ghosts. But Ari looked back, and that's when the trouble began.

Ari is young, almost too young to look at. She has a future of mistakes ahead of her. I am old. My mistakes are all behind me.

“G
ood afternoon.” A woman in an ugly black blazer is bearing down on me, a fixed smile on her face. Her dentures have that dull look of man-made materials, like artificial countertops or the handle of your toothbrush. A petroleum product, that's what her teeth are made of. I have all of my choppers, every last one, including all four wisdom teeth that grew in straight when I turned twenty. Upheaval was good for me. My wisdom came on strong.

I nod coolly. Cool is why I'm here, in the Woodhaven common room, where they run the air-conditioning morning, noon, and night. All summer long, the ladies and gents of Woodhaven retreat into their condos and blast the icy air. Their utility bills must be a fright. What's wrong with a fan and an open window? I like the dry heat as hot as an oven. It's not like Taipei, where Herbert and I lived, so hot and sticky that the bread molds and the towels mildew. But even I have my limits. On days like today, ninety-two degrees and higher, I bring my book to read in the common room. I raise it now to block out that crow of a woman.

“May I help you?” she asks. “Are you here to pay your respects?” She is eyeing my leopard footstool and my volume of Dickens.
Hard Times
for the meek and mild.

“I'm not leaving,” I tell her. “And the food hardly tempts me.” She's worried that I'm going to poach her meager outlay of cold cuts and potato salad. As if I needed funeral meats to stock my larder. I have plenty because I've husbanded well. That's a pun. I may not have been born here, but I was top of my class at Bryn Mawr.

“But it's reserved,” she says. Her voice trembles. The smile has vanished. She can't be the widow, so she must be a sister or cousin. A family member sent on ahead to make sure things are set up for the postfuneral reception. I saw a little notice on the bulletin board when I came in:
RESERVED FOR THE FAMILY OF WILBERT TOWSON
. I didn't know the gentleman, though I'm sorry for his widow. Imagine having to explain the name “Wilbert” all your days.

“What do I pay my dues for?” I say. “I have every right to sit here. I'm only taking a corner.”

“It's reserved,” she repeats, “for a memorial service.” The last two words intoned gravely. Does she think the specter of a final crossing will get me to leave my cool comfort? I wave my book to dismiss her. A memorial service, ha. That's a fine dodge of a phrase. Nobody has funerals anymore, and nobody gets buried. It's fallen out of fashion, and though I carry a smart handbag and always dress for an occasion, that's one modern trend I refuse to follow. There should be Scripture and hymns and deacons and mourning. I had the university organist for George and a whole choir for Herbert. Death can't be cheated or softened with funny stories and family pictures. There should be a hole, dug by men with bent backs and expressionless faces, and a casket not on wheels but lifted to the shoulders, a long and polished coffin almost too heavy to bear.

“Your guests are arriving,” I inform the stingy hostess. She flounces off to chivvy them to the table. The bereaved are fagging in, their tongues hanging out for a drop of whiskey, poor things. They're more likely to get warmish wine in a plastic cup, or water drawn from the city tap and then bottled and gussied up with mountain scenes on their labels. At least some of the guests are decently attired in black suits and, on one, a lovely short black veil. The she-crow is still glaring in my direction, impertinent conduct at Wilbert Towson's last hurrah. Her outfit is helpfully laying to rest the age-old question: Are there, indeed, different shades of the color black? Yes, by the looks of her ensemble, in three shades of faded black—dredged up, no doubt, from the depths of her closet after she, more than anyone else in the family, sat vigil at the deathbed.

I wait another thirty minutes reading my Dickens. Then I hoist my footstool and march through the crowd to the door. I stayed to make my point, but that wasn't the only reason. Maybe I was hoping that someone would say hello.

I
moved here three days after Ari's seventeenth birthday. Somebody had to look to her future. Herbert had died the previous summer, and I had remained in our Taipei apartment until Lesley told me that Ari had been suspended for showing up drunk at school. I knew about Woodhaven from an old college classmate who had lived here briefly until her husband died and her daughter insisted she move to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, like a company transfer, convenient for everyone but my friend. I bought the place unseen but used a good broker who dispensed with brochures and Web site descriptions and instead e-mailed me photographs and room dimensions. I wanted a corner unit but the prices were scandalous, and so I settled on a third-floor condo with an extra three feet in the kitchen. It has two bedrooms and a view of the courtyard. Squirrels leap in the trees, the closest I've lived to wildlife. I'm hoping to see a deer one day, though it's been three and a half years and none has made an appearance. There's no staff assistance or nursing care here—that was one of my requirements; I don't approve of the conveyor-belt program—only senior independent living in six buildings, with a common room and a pool. There is no doorman, but this is Millbrae. There wouldn't be a taxi to hail even were a doorman posted, uniformed and ready.

I didn't inform my daughters of my plans to move to Woodhaven until the deed was recorded. Lesley and Charlotte objected; if I were going to move, they said, they wanted me close to them in the city, but I know better than that. Their lives are their own, and it's too late to mend them. If I had to give up the globe, I might as well choose Millbrae. What would runty San Francisco be next to Shanghai, Manhattan, Los Angeles, Taipei, teeming cities where the world spills through the gates? I like things shiny—shiny and new. Next to Woodhaven, a new development curls in on itself with curb cuts and sodium streetlights and broadband cabling into all the houses. And everything at Woodhaven gives off the cheer of the recently retired who are determined to be content at the prospect of their depletion. The people and properties have all been resurfaced—hips, faces, putting greens, pathways. The gents' pink pates are scrubbed free of carcinoma. My Benz sails the pleasant streets like a tour boat gliding placid waters. Lesley complains that if I weren't going to plop myself down in San Francisco, I should have moved closer to Stanford, that sprawling suburb of a school whose bland perfection thrills her. Ha, I said. Give me fieldstone and climbing ivy. I never liked Stanford, with its nouveau pretensions, though George was very proud when both girls attended school there.

“It's just like Ma to buy a place almost convenient to us but not really,” I overheard Lesley say to Charlotte after I moved to Woodhaven. They were in my living room; they thought I was in the bathroom. I was enjoying the privacy of my extra three feet of kitchen.

“It's closer than Taipei,” said Charlotte, always looking for the bright side.

“We don't want her driving into the city,” said Lesley. “We've got to come down here to see her every week or she'll be using us as an excuse to motor all over the place.” It's hardly a drive—twenty miles in twenty minutes.

“I wish work weren't so busy,” said Charlotte.

“That's such bullshit,” said Lesley. “You leave me to deal with her most of the time.” And then they moved and I couldn't hear the rest. I should have emerged and assured them that they didn't need to visit. I wanted only Ari. For her, I had big plans.

Y
esterday I sent Yan to buy Ari a notebook. Yan is my servant, whom I brought with me from Taipei. When I was growing up, “servant” is what we called them. Here in Millbrae, I'm not allowed to say that. She's my caregiver, my housekeeper, my live-in companion. I don't like her dogging me twenty-four seven, but the alternative is worse: Lesley threatened to move down here herself.

“Somebody has to look after you. I'll buy the unit next door.” Naomi's place. How I miss her! Naomi lived in Shanghai at the same time I did, though of course we didn't meet, since she lived in the Jewish quarter. Her father was a doctor the same as mine. Lesley could never replace Naomi—she's too high principled, being a judge and such.

“Your visits are enough,” I told both my daughters. Lesley has no reason to move—she has a very nice house at the top of Telegraph Hill. If she had a better car, she wouldn't resent coming down here. Lesley drives a Prius, Charlotte a hybrid Civic, cars with no pickup and precious little style. Nobody loves to drive as much as I do.