The Night Tiger(68)

“I said, I’m sorry!”

Shin turned. “That’s not an apology. That’s just shouting.”

I should have known better than to accuse him of unfaithfulness. For some reason that was a sore spot with him. “Don’t be cross, Shin. I was just feeling jealous.”

“About what?” He stopped beneath the shadow of a tree, its leaves trembling in the moonlight. The darkness made it easy to say things I never would have otherwise.

“I’ve been hateful and envious about you going to medical school. And for being a boy. And getting to choose what you want.”

Shin was silent for a long moment. “Is that all?”

There was a sharp edge to his voice. I had the uneasy feeling that I’d failed some kind of test. What more should I have said? After all, he’d had one girl after another and I’d never objected before. It was too humiliating to start now.

We arrived home without exchanging another word. I felt miserable, the way I always did when Shin and I were fighting, though this time I wasn’t entirely sure what the argument was about. Within, all was dark and silent. My stepfather had gone to bed, and after checking on my sleeping mother, we made our way to the kitchen. I lit the lamp and the room filled with its warm glow. Shin still looked irritated with me, but he said, “Wait here,” and disappeared upstairs.

I had a bad feeling about this; an intuition that I might regret seeing whatever was in Pei Ling’s package. Restless, I prowled around the kitchen. As I put away the dishes, I felt the sharp prickle of being watched. Had Y. K. Wong somehow materialized inside the shophouse? Ridiculous, of course. I froze, listening to the dull thump of my pulse, the ringing silence of the house. Seizing the heavy meat cleaver, I turned to face the open doorway.

There was indeed someone standing there in the shadows. But it was only Shin. Or was it? The flickering lamplight gave him a hungry, angry look I’d never seen before. That wolflike stare, like an animal at the very edge of a campfire. For an instant, I didn’t recognize him and I was afraid.

Shin glanced at the cleaver in my hand and his mouth made a bitter twist.

“Did you think I was my father?”

It wasn’t his fault that they shared the same flesh and blood. “No … I was just startled.”

Shin walked slowly in, watching me intently.

“Has he laid a hand on you?”

“Who? Your father?” That man had barely acknowledged my existence for the past ten years.

He sat down at the kitchen table and put his head in his hands. “I was worried about you. When I was gone.”

“He couldn’t be bothered with me,” I said bitterly. My stepfather had better ways to control me. Ones that involved the foolish fondness that still lingered in my mother’s eyes, the bruises on her arms. “And anyway, if you were so concerned, you should have answered my letters.”

Shin’s eyes turned dangerously blank. “You seem to have done quite well without me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m talking about Robert. You never said anything about being on such good terms with him.”

This was so unfair that it took my breath away. “I told you we only met by chance tonight!”

Shin’s eyes traveled up my pretty dress, taking in the lip rouge and cake mascara that Hui had added when we’d been laughing and joking in her room only a few hours ago. It was an appraising, angry stare, and it made me burn hot and cold at the same time. It was useless to explain things to him, and in any case, why did I have to?

“Robert has been very kind to me,” I snapped.

“Yes,” said Shin. “With his father’s money.”

“Why should you care? After all, you ran away from here as soon as you could.”

“I didn’t run away.”

“You never even came back for holidays. You just left me. In this house.” To my horror, tears welled up in my eyes. Tears of anger, I told myself, gritting my teeth. Shin started to say something but I cut him off. “Do you really think I want to be a dressmaker? I hate it. But it’s not like they’d waste any money letting me study further.”

“Ji Lin—”

“So don’t come back now and say you were worried about me. As far as I can guess, you made some kind of deal with him. So you wouldn’t have to work for him, and you could go and do whatever it was you wanted. You coward!”

If I wanted to, I could really hurt Shin. Hurt him in a way that was nasty and bloody, like hooking the soft guts out of prey. My heart was hammering, my breathing ragged. I almost expected to see blood all over the kitchen table.

“Is that what you think I did?” Shin’s face had gone dead white, a handsome death mask.

I braced myself for what would surely be a withering counterattack, but to my surprise, he said nothing. Just gave me that stricken look, the one that he never showed anyone else, not even when he was being beaten within an inch of his life.

I didn’t want to see Shin like this. And yet, at that moment, I hated him. I remembered how he’d looked, lying in Fong Lan’s lap, her hand sliding possessively down his bare chest. The way she’d gazed into his eyes, smiling.

Shin put a slim brown paper package on the table. “You can look at it, or not,” he said. “I’ll let you decide.”