White Ivy(94)

“Many girls liked Shen, or they liked his family’s circumstances, but he didn’t look twice at them. He had heard the rumors that I was in love with a dead man, but curiously, it made him want me more.

“After asking around, I found out that the Lins were known for two things: their hard work ethic, and their weakness for gambling. They would work themselves to death to attain something, only to bet it all away on a whim. Shen was on track to become a doctor in the local hospital, and I was sick of Xing Chang, sick of taking care of an ailing father, sick of my sisters, and most of all, sick of my mother, who had worshipped the Wus all her life, licking their boots and fawning over their children. I wanted to get away from her most of all.

“One day, when Shen passed me on the street, I made sure he heard me telling my friend how badly I wanted to leave China to go to America. That I wished there was a man who had ambitions of living abroad. I heard rumors shortly afterward that Shen told his father he wasn’t going to become a doctor, he was going to take the TOEFL exam. After he passed, he came around my house and proposed. I made a bit of a fuss about it, then accepted.

“You used to ask how your father and I got married. That’s how. It was because I willed it. If I had been a stupider girl, your father never would have looked at me. But I saw my chance and made a story for myself—even if it was a false story. You have to give a man something to fight for. That’s the secret to a lasting marriage.”



* * *




WHEN NAN STOPPED speaking, Ivy could only stare. She dug the pen deep into her palm.

Meifeng once told her a bedtime story about the frog who lived in an old well. The frog was born in the cold and dark well; all it knew of the outside world was the faint light far above it, which it took to be the sun. One day, a bird flew down into the well and said to the frog, “Come up to the outside world where it is bright and warm.” The frog laughed at the bird, thinking that the well was, in fact, the entire world. Ivy could see that she’d been the frog, thinking her suffering unique, specific to her Chinese family, her particular circumstances. But she was just another desperate girl who’d dreamed of beautiful things, dreams Nan must’ve also had at her age. Nan, who, like Ivy, had fought to escape. Not only to escape but to thrive, she’d fought with everything she had to get what she wanted.

“I admit—I was disapproving at first when I heard you weren’t marrying a Chinese man,” said Nan. “But you’ve always known your own mind. So don’t worry—your family won’t disappoint you. We won’t get in your way.” Nan’s voice cracked. Ivy realized that her mother assumed the Lins were the reason Gideon was calling off the wedding.

“Stop that!” Nan snatched the pen from where Ivy had been digging it into her palm. She took Ivy’s hand and ran the tips of her fingers down the web of grooves.

“Don’t ruin your hands. You’ve always had beautiful hands. Look at this. A long life line.” She traced the bottommost line. “A fractured love line. A precarious wealth line. That’s the luck you were born with.” She closed Ivy’s fingers into a fist. “You know how we picked out your name? In Chinese, Jiyuan means ‘to chance one’s luck.’ Now is no time to turn lazy. Pull yourself together. Now—what are you going to do about your wedding?”



* * *




IT WAS HALF past two in the morning when Ivy stepped foot in her old bedroom in Clarksville. Everything was the same as she’d left it when she’d gone off to college, vowing never to return. Her old clothes were folded neatly in the drawers, the boxy T-shirts with yellowing collars, shiny theater costumes from Drama Club, rubber flip-flops and canvas shoes flattened in a cardboard box. In the bottommost drawer of her desk was her old Baby-Sitters scrapbook where she’d glued cutouts of skinny white girls with braces, pretending they were her friends.

She ran a finger over the photo frame on the nightstand—she and Austin standing at the bus stop in their oversized winter parkas—and her finger brought up no dust. There was no dust, either, on the plastic clock or the little glass dog figurine on her desk. Meifeng had given her the figurine when she went to college. Nineteen eighty-two was the year of the water dog, Ivy’s Chinese zodiac sign combined with her elemental astrology. Water dogs were supposed to be brave, self-centered, selfish. “You’re brave, self-centered, and selfish,” Meifeng always told her.

Ever since Meifeng’s knee troubles caused by her days as an ayi, Nan had taken over the Lins’ housekeeping. Ivy pictured her mother wiping down the furniture, the clock, the glass dog, with the striped dish towel she always used, rinsing out the towel in the plastic basin Ivy had once used to destroy her diary. She felt anger. She blamed Nan. Only stupid people would work so diligently to clean a room no one occupied. Just what was it that her mother had tried so hard to slap into her growing up? Ivy suspected even Nan didn’t remember.

The next morning, out of habit, she checked her phone for any calls from Roux; the little jerk in her heart beat to the rhythm of six days, six days. But there was only a text from Gideon asking after Meifeng.

As Nan cooked breakfast, Shen showed Ivy all the upgrades they’d made to the house: the tiered chandelier shaped like an upside-down wedding cake, the elaborate ceiling moldings that looked suspiciously like the ones at Ted and Poppy’s townhome, the patio they’d built in the yard, having finally uprooted the chicken shed, with smooth stone tiles and a row of young trees trimmed into lollipops. Ivy had to admit that this house, which in her memories retained the decrepit dankness of a cellar, was much improved, and—dare she say it?—quite tasteful. The kind of house she might have been proud of growing up in. The kind of house that might have saved Austin.