Tangled Vines (14 page)

A couple and their toddler passed in front of her and Calli saw the proud expressions the parents wore as their son waddled unsteadily on his shaky legs. He was obviously new to walking and he grinned proudly as he grasped the hands of each of his parents for support. She and Benfu had been deprived of moments like those and now all these years later, she’d finally get to see what her daughter looked like. She reached into her apron pocket and wrapped her fingers around the envelope of photos. Linnea had slipped it in there as she hugged her good-bye. Calli was too nervous to look, but too hopeful not to.

In a way, she supposed she and her daughter had been the lucky ones. Her neighbor and best friend had gone through a much worse fate. After Xiao Jodi had become pregnant with her second child, she had been harassed by the Women’s Federation group because she had signed the one-child policy and then failed to keep her promise. She’d paid a back-alley physician to remove her IUD and when she became pregnant, and they found out, they’d subjected her to endless persuasion meetings to convince her to take remedial measures—their sterile name for an abortion. Jodi and her husband wanted the baby and could not be persuaded to abort it. They decided to sneak away and hide, back then called
childbirth on the run
. Others had done it and been successful if they could stay hidden. Calli had warned Jodi to avoid shelter from old friends or family but Jodi had thought she was far enough away at her sister-in-law’s village. She’d almost made it to term, too.

Sadly, when she hit her eighth month, members from the federation had raided the house and brought her back to Wuxi. After six days of captivity and isolation from her family, Jodi had finally given in. After they injected her stomach with the poisons, the baby had been aborted and Jodi sterilized. In a final gesture of their power over her, the head of the federation had intentionally let Jodi see the remains of the baby and Jodi lived her days with the damaged body of her aborted son engraved in her mind. She had never recovered from it and last Calli had heard, Jodi had left her job, divorced, and returned home to her parents to live out her days secluded from the cruelty of the world.

At least Calli had not been pregnant when she’d been sterilized. But because of the tricks of others like Jodi around the countryside who continued to find ways around the controlled birth policy, she and many others were deceived into signing papers agreeing to sterilization. What else could they do when the officials isolated them and they were told family members were also being kept in custody until they agreed? Calli had relented only when she’d been told Benfu’s parents had been seized. Though Benfu’s relationship with them was broken, he’d still agonized over their being confined by the officials. He hadn’t asked her to, but for him, she’d signed.

It was only after the procedure, which she’d thought was going to be the insertion of a new type of IUD, was she told she’d never have children again. It was a horrific memory but the thoughts of her daughter being returned to her one day had got her through the hazy days afterward. Though she didn’t know what happened to Dahlia, she’d always held on to a shred of hope that her daughter was alive somewhere and being treated well.

In front of her the child and his parents continued their stroll and the laughter of the little boy rang in her ears. Calli pulled the envelope from her pocket. She was ready—ready to see the daughter who had remained an infant in her mind all these years.

She opened the flap and removed the photos. She looked down at the first one and the tears began to flow. It was definitely her Dahlia. She’d know those dark eyes and the heart shape of her face anywhere. The photo was only black and white but Calli could still see the sad expression her daughter wore, even at the young age of only a few years old. Dahlia looked a bit wary in the photo, possibly even afraid. In it she wore a dark frog-tied shirt and her hair was chopped off short like a boy’s. The wooden chair she perched on had seen better days and Calli imagined the photo was only meant to be placed in her daughter’s orphanage file. Nothing about it showed any attempt to make it a nice, friendly snapshot.

She flipped it to the back of the pile and looked at the next one. In it Dahlia looked about seven years old and Calli felt her breath taken away at how much she’d grown to look like her father. Her eyes had changed just a bit, but enough that they looked exactly like Benfu’s, even with the sadness they held. Even the shape of her tiny nose mimicked his. Calli suddenly wished she had waited and shared the moment with Benfu, and she felt a ripple of shame.

Two more photos remained. Two more pieces of evidence to what her heart had always known—that her daughter was out there somewhere.

She put the photo in the back of the pile and looked at the next one. At least twelve years old, Dahlia was definitely at the self-conscience puberty stage. Her arms and legs looked long and gangly, her front teeth a bit too big for her head. Her eyes hadn’t changed from the first photo; they still held a look of longing. Though her hair was longer in the photo, Calli could tell by the style and the clothes she wore that Dahlia wasn’t living a life of fortune. It broke her heart. All that time Dahlia could have grown up with a mother’s arms tenderly around her, a father’s love guiding her through difficult teenage angst. But she had been deprived of it due to the mental instability of one crazy old woman. It didn’t make sense that fate could be so cruel.

She finally looked at the last photo. It completely took her breath away. In this one, the institute had splurged for color and Dahlia had flourished from a gangly duckling to what looked like a graceful swan. She was at least fourteen and beautiful in a sad, pensive way. But through the photo Calli could sense that her daughter was strong—perhaps even stubborn like her father. Her eyes penetrated as if she were looking straight out of the photo and into Calli’s eyes.

An old soul, Calli would have described her, someone who had seen too many battles. The expression she used to look at the camera was one of defiance but Calli could also see the same longing, as if she was putting on her best face to encourage someone to love her. Calli stared at her and wished she could have been there to erase the pain from her eyes. She felt the hot tears slide down her face.
I love you, Dahlia!
She wanted to scream it so loud that wherever her daughter was, she could hear her.
I have always loved you. Always.
She felt so helpless, as if with a few photos she’d watched years of neglect happen in an instant. She sobbed quietly and looked up just as the small family returned in front of her. The little boy broke away from his parents and toddled up to her lap. With a concerned look, he searched her face and patted her arm in an innocent and unknowing gesture.

The young mother rushed over to her son, her plastic slippers slapping the walk as she apologized for the interference of what she knew was a private moment. She grabbed him and tried to pull him back as he struggled against her.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. Leave him be,” Calli mumbled as she tried to bring her cries under control. She didn’t want to scare the little fellow. The tiny boy looked up at her tears and his lip began to tremble. See? How could such a little soul with no relation to her feel such compassion, whereas Dahlia’s own grandmother had been relentless and cruel in her obsession to continue their family line? But if Calli chose not to forgive, wouldn’t she be as cruel and void of feeling as Feiyan had been? What was it she had been taught by her own mother? Forgiveness wasn’t to benefit the one who’d offended, but to ease the suffering of the one who’d been offended. Oh, how she wished the tangled vines of fate could be undone so that she might see her child again.

Calli stood. She felt an urgency to return home and talk to Benfu. It wasn’t too late to find Dahlia but they would need the old man’s help. And perhaps forgiving old Zheng would bring her the peace her old heart craved so badly. Either way, she had her first clue about where her daughter had gone and she would not stop until she had done everything she could to pick up where the trail had gone cold. She just hoped her old bones and arthritic muscles would hold up and allow her to do this, give her a chance to tell her daughter she had been wanted.

As Calli carefully tucked the photos back in the envelope and into her pocket, the young mother picked up her son and walked away, her husband beside her patting the back of his son. Over her shoulder the little boy met Calli’s eyes with his.
Go,
they seemed to say,
go and find your baby. She still needs a mother.
Calli nodded her good-bye to the tot, then hurried along the path in the opposite way. Her fingers remained in her pocket, protectively grasping the envelope. She couldn’t wait to show Benfu what a beautiful daughter they had created. But first she must decide the best way to tell him, for she worried about his weak heart and what news of this caliber could do to it.

L
i Jin stood next to the ironing board in the ray of light flooding through the window. Her shoulders ached. Already that morning she’d cleaned the entire apartment, mopped the floors, done the laundry, and made Erik’s favorite home-cooked soup. Even the teakwood side tables were shining from her strenuous polishing and she admired them from her post. She’d had a productive day, hurrying so that she could focus on Jojo when he got out of school. To be honest, she loved keeping house. It made her feel at peace, and if she could only find a job that paid her to keep house and cook all day, she’d be satisfied. But so far no one with the ability to pay had ever wanted to trust someone like her—someone with no background to speak of and no references to give.

She listened to her show and occasionally looked up at the television as she pushed the iron back and forth over Erik’s favorite linen shirt. She wished she had the nerve to burn it, as it was the one he usually wore when he went out. She was no longer naive enough to believe it was a night spent with
the boys,
but she also no longer cared. She was planning her escape.

She’d been lucky. So far Jojo hadn’t really caught on to the tension between her and Eric over the last few weeks. On the ride back from their impromptu road trip she’d had time to think. She’d realized that she had no choice; she must at all costs get her son away from Erik. Though he’d promised she wouldn’t have to be his runner anymore, he’d broken so many promises that she knew not to trust him. It was easy enough for him; if they got caught, he’d point the finger at her and, like thousands of women around the world, Li Jin would be left taking the punishment for her man’s crimes. No, she wasn’t going to take the chance of leaving Jojo alone in the world. She had to get away.

She sighed. She also didn’t want to go back to scouring the streets to find enough work to keep a roof over her son’s head and food in his belly. And there’d be no more school. That thought brought a pang to her heart. Jojo loved school and he was so good at it. Only last week she’d received a note from his teacher that his quarterly test scores were in the top five of the entire class.

She flinched as the door flew open.

“Li Jin, I’m starving. Did you make some lunch?” Erik flashed what he thought was an irresistible smile and crossed the room. He stood behind her and put his arms around her waist as she ironed. He nuzzled her neck affectionately.

“
Ni hao
. I have some chicken soup in the cooker,” she answered, feeling revulsion at his touch but trying not to show it.

“Mmm, you’re great. Can you get me a bowl ready while I wash up? I have a meeting in an hour—just stopped by to eat, then gotta run.”

With that he let go and reached over and shut the television off. Right in the middle of the show he knew was her favorite.

“How do you listen to that crap?” he said, and disappeared into the bathroom.

Li Jin set the iron up on end and went to the kitchen cove. She got out a bowl and filled it with soup. Sure she’d serve him up all right, straight to the drug enforcement committee if she could find a way to do it without dirtying her own hands.

Erik returned and took the bowl from the counter and sat on the couch. He slurped it loudly, nodding his appreciation. She followed him and sat down at the end of the couch, relieved to get off her feet for a few minutes.

“Turn it on BBC news, Li Jin.”

She rose and switched the television on. She turned the dial until she found the one English channel they could get, then returned to the couch and picked up her bowl.

“Hey, you’re getting good at cooking, Li Jin. I’m glad, too; I don’t think I can stomach any more Chinese food.” He made a face to go along with his sideways compliment.

“Xie xie
.
”
Li Jin thanked him, giving him a half smile. She’d been cooking since she was twelve and was known for pulling a fine dish out of almost nothing. That was one thing she could always count on when trying to stay in the good graces of her foster families. She just didn’t always cook to
his
specifications. He’d really be upset if he knew it wasn’t the chicken breast meat making the soup so good. She’d also put in the chicken feet, what she considered the best part of the bird and necessary to make a good broth. It wasn’t much, but knowing he’d be disgusted brought her a bit of satisfaction at her quiet retaliation. He’d told her before to leave the heads and feet behind at the market where they belonged, but disobeying him in small ways felt good, even if he never knew it.

He was so selfish he didn’t care that she and Jojo didn’t like the strange foods he wanted her to cook. But it was his money, after all. And what he didn’t know was that she was squirrelling away a little bit of it each time he sent her shopping or to pay the bills. She wouldn’t leave penniless. He’d lose a bit of his money to pay for her being his slave for the last year and a half.

He finished his soup in record time and stood. “Where’s my favorite shirt? I’m going out with the guys straight after work.” He looked over at the ironing board.

Li Jin jumped up.
Aiya, she hadn’t finished the shirt!

“Give me just a minute, Erik. I’m almost done with it.” Behind her she heard him grunt in frustration. She turned the iron on and quickly began to run it over the shirt, even before it was hot enough. She knew even one stray wrinkle could cause him to erupt and she didn’t want him to lose his good mood before he got out of there. She was just getting over the latest incident and her body begged for a break, but these days his tantrums came a lot closer together.

“Dammit, Li Jin! You’ve had all day! What the hell have you been doing? Sitting on your ass watching those damn screeching Chinese operas?”

Li Jin heard a crash behind her but didn’t look and restrained the urge to duck. It was probably the soup bowl she hadn’t yet washed. With his temper, they’d soon have no dishes left to eat from, but since it was his money that bought them, she’d try not to worry over it. She did hope he didn’t reach for the new yellow mugs she’d just purchased, though. Hopefully he was in too much of a hurry to continue his rant. She held her tongue, kept her head down, and ironed faster.