Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune(70)

He laughed. “Yes, we’re all getting older.” He nodded as if contemplating my suggestion. “The street does need the influx of new blood. I’ll make sure to keep an eye out among the prospective buyers. Although I’m not looking forward to Melody’s reaction when I tell her what I have decided.”

The neighborhood would be saved. Seeing younger families take over for the retiring shopkeepers would be a blessing to my community. In time, I might be able to see it prosper. This gave me hope for the future: I felt excited at the prospect of meeting this next generation of neighbors.

I’d been wrong in thinking that shackling the shopkeepers to the neighborhood was the answer to their problems. It had been my misguided solution. Helping them was to allow them to move on to wherever they needed to be. Like Older Shen and the Chius, it was to retire and make way for others.

“She shouldn’t complain if she’s still getting a commission from the sale.”

“And what about you? How are you faring? I hope the fire hasn’t dashed your goal of reopening the restaurant.”

I told him about Old Wu and my mentorship.

“You have the best teacher in Chinatown,” he said. “You will do well. What about your beau?”

“Who?” I asked.

He winked. “The young man I’ve seen come and go by the restaurant. Forgive me if I’ve overstepped, but one of the hobbies of the aged is to stare out the windows. Celia calls it gossip but I call it mindful observation.”

Daniel. I blushed when I remembered the terms on which we parted.

“I messed it up between us,” I replied.

“For someone as eager to fix things as you are, I find it hard to believe that you wouldn’t at least try to make it work with your sweetheart. Love is one of those rare things that may seem fragile, but it’s stronger than it looks. Much like me.” He patted his chest.

I smiled.

Older Shen leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “You never know, he might come back. Love, like life, has the highest risk, but the greatest reward. If you jump and fail, the chasm below is endless, but if you fly, the sun will be yours.”

“I’m not aiming for the sun, Mr. Shen,” I said.

“Maybe you should be.”





Chapter Twenty-six





With the neighbors and my friendship with Celia in a better state, and the renovations for the restaurant about to start, I settled in that evening to read more of my mother’s journals. I picked up the next in the stack. There was so much of her past that she had left unsaid.


Mother, when I told you about him, you were disappointed.

Not the proper husband. Not secure enough. Not good enough.

He wasn’t what you wanted.

He wasn’t what you expected.

He knew nothing about the restaurant. It infuriated you that he agreed with me about leaving Chinatown.

All you saw were his imperfections. The cracks, the inelegance, how un-Chinese he was. His skin was the same as ours and his name, written in ink brushstrokes. He was born in San Diego from a respectable family, yet it wasn’t enough.

What did he need to be?

Like the father I never knew? The man you never married. I have heard the whispers about the one who stole your love and brought it back with him to Shanghai when he left. How you wanted to follow, but your pride kept you planted on this side of the ocean.

You never told me, but I knew.

How he sent letters but you never replied. Instead, you burned them so I couldn’t find them.

But I knew.

My love is different, for I have chosen well. You will see, Mother.


You finally met him. It was as inevitable as the sun rising over the horizon.

I had feared this meeting from the moment I decided he was mine.

You didn’t find him suitable.

I love him.

I love you.

I don’t want to choose.

Mother, you will make me choose.

I can’t.

I will break your heart because I will choose the future.

I will choose him.

I want to spare you this heartbreak, Mother.

Don’t ask me to choose.

Please.



Ma-ma’s choice. I couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for her. I didn’t blame Laolao for her disapproval—my father had ended up abandoning Ma-ma. He should have loved my mother as much as she had loved him.

There was no trace of her agoraphobia back then. Miss Yu and Celia both concluded that it had been Laolao’s death and my father’s desertion that triggered the condition—or at least the severity of it, since the seeds of it were within her since girlhood.

I pulled my phone from my purse and sent Celia a message.

    Me: So I have been reading my mother’s journals . . .

Celia: Hahaha. Do I want to know?

Me: No, nothing like that. She’s writing about my father.

Celia: Heavy subject. Do you want company?

Me: Yes. Part of me is nervous about reading them.



Celia arrived three minutes later. She sat in her favorite chair with her arms crossed over a frock printed with white cats. “Why are you so nervous?”

“I have a feeling there will be more about my father,” I replied.

“Oh.” She frowned. “I never met him. I was away when they were dating. Then I traveled around Europe after that, and by the time I got back, he had left. I asked Miranda if she wanted help in tracking him down, but she adamantly declined. She said she knew where he was and that he had made his choice clear. We left it at that. The neighborhood doesn’t talk about him much for obvious reasons, mostly out of respect for her.