Shanghai Girls (Shanghai Girls #1)(117)
“No!” I say as much to her as to myself “That’s not how it was.”
“Baba cared enough about you to criticize you. Mama cared enough about you to buy you pearl cream. She never gave me anything precious—not pearl cream, not her jade bracelet. They sent you to college. No one asked if I wanted to go! And even though you went, did you do anything with it? Look at your friend Violet. She did something, but you? No. Everyone wants to come to America for the opportunities. They came your way, but you didn’t take them. You preferred to be a victim, a fu yen. But what does it matter who Baba and Mama loved more or whether or not I had the same opportunities as you? They’re dead, and that was a long time ago.”
But it isn’t to me, and I know it isn’t to May either. Just consider how our competition for our parents’ affection has been repeated in our battle for Joy. Now, after our whole lives together, we say what we truly feel. The tones of our Wu dialect rise and fall, shrill, caustic, and accusatory as we empty all the evil we’ve stored up on each other’s heads, blaming each other for every single wrong and misfortune that’s happened to us. I haven’t forgotten about Sam’s death and I know she hasn’t either, but neither of us can help ourselves. Maybe it’s easier to fight about the injustices we’ve carried for years than to face May’s betrayal and Sam’s suicide.
“Did Mama know you were pregnant?” I ask, voicing a suspicion I’ve harbored for years. “She loved you. She made me promise to take care of you, my moy moy, my little sister. And I have. I brought you to Angel Island, where I was humiliated. And since then I’ve been stuck in Chinatown, taking care of Vern, and working here in the house while you’ve been in Haolaiwu, going to parties, having fun, doing whatever you do with those men.” Then, because I’m so angry and hurt, I say something I know I’ll regret forever, but there’s enough truth in it that it flies out of my mouth before I can stop it. “I had to take care of your daughter even when my own baby died.”
“You’ve always been bitter about having to care for Joy, but you’ve also done everything possible to keep me away from her. When she was a baby, you left her in the apartment with Sam when I took you out for walks—”
“That wasn’t the reason.” (Or was it?)
“Then you blamed me and everyone else for making you stay home with her. But when any of us offered to take Joy for a while, you turned us down.”
“That’s not true. I let you take her to film sets—”
“And then you wouldn’t allow me even that happiness anymore,” she says sadly. “I loved her, but she was always a burden to you. You have a daughter. I have nothing. I’ve lost everyone—my mother, my father, my child—”
“And I was raped by too many men to protect you!”
My sister nods as though she was expecting me to say this. “So now I get to hear about that sacrifice? Again?” She takes a breath. I can see she’s trying to calm down. “You’re upset. I understand that. But none of this has anything to do with what happened to Sam.”
“But of course it does! Everything between us has to do with either your illegitimate child or what the monkey people did to me.”
The muscles in May’s neck tighten and her anger roars back, matching mine. “If you really want to talk about that night, then fine, because I’ve been waiting a lot of years for this. No one asked you to go out there. Mama very clearly told you to stay with me. She wanted you to be safe. You’re the one she talked to in Sze Yup, whispering her love to you, as she always did, so I wouldn’t understand. But I understood that she loved you enough to say loving words to you and not to me.”
“You’re changing the truth, like you always do, but it won’t work. Mama loved you so much she faced those men alone. I couldn’t let her do that. I had to help her. I had to save you.” As I speak, memories of that night fill my eyes. Wherever Mama is now, is she aware of everything I sacrificed for my sister? Did Mama love me? Or had Mama in her last moments been disappointed in me one final time? But I don’t have time for these questions when my sister is standing before me, her hands on her hips, her beautiful face contorted in exasperation.
“That was one night. One night out of a lifetime! How long have you used it, Pearl? How long have you used it to keep distance between you and Sam, between you and Joy? When you were in and out of consciousness, you told me some things you obviously don’t remember. You said that Mama groaned when you stepped into the room with the soldiers. You said you thought she was upset because you weren’t protecting me. I think you were wrong. She must have been heartbroken that you weren’t saving yourself. You’re a mother. You know what I say is true.”
This hits me like a slap to my face. May’s right. If Joy and I were in the same situation ….
“You think you’ve been brave and given up so much,” May continues. I don’t hear condemnation or taunting in her voice, just relentless anguish, as though she’s the one who’s suffered. “But really you’ve been a coward: afraid, weak, and uncertain all these years. Never once have you asked what else happened in the shack that night. Never once have you thought to ask me what it was like to hold Mama in my arms as she died. Did you ever once think to ask where, how, or if she was buried? Who do you think took care of that? Who do you think got us away from that shack when the sensible thing would have been to leave you behind to die?”