Gesturing for me to eat, his gaze crawls back to the mother beside us, and a sadness shrouds his face. He rubs at a dark knot in the wood of the table, as if he can possibly scour it out. “She could’ve had a better life, maybe even a longer life, if she hadn’t married Ba.”
Mum avoided going out with us in public. Folks tolerated seeing a Chinese man with his Chinese-looking children, but add to that an English wife and you invited trouble. Jamie broke some fellow’s nose once after the man called Mum a Johnny-tart.
“What are you on about? If she hadn’t married Ba,wewouldn’t be around.”
“Who knows? Maybe we would be. Tao thinks each soulkeeps being reborn in different bodies until we reach enlightenment. But if Mum hadn’t married Ba, she could’ve had friends, company. She wouldn’t have had to go crawling back to the parents who disowned her.”
“What do you mean,crawling back?”
Jamie tugs his scarf looser. “Remember when Ba blew Mum’s lacework money on those bloody rackets?”
“Of course.”
“It was raining frogs that month. Mum didn’t want us to perform in the rain. She went back to her parents, begging them for a loan.”
The air flies right out of my lungs. We never met Mum’s parents, though we’d seen the stern vicar and his wife greeting parishioners in the arched doorway of their church. “Did they give it to her?”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Did we perform that month?”
“No.” We hadn’t starved either. “Did Ba know?”
He barks out a laugh, throwing his gaze to the ceiling fan. It doesn’t surprise me that Mum never told Ba. It would’ve wounded him to know that she had demeaned herself because of him.
“Why didn’t she tell me?” I press.
“Why do you think?”
“Why can’t you just answer a damn question?”
“Because you already know the answer. She didn’t want to spoil you on Ba. Bad enough that I already saw him for what he was, a sorry sack of empty promises, the selfish bastard.”
I slap the table, and the children’s eyes widen. Their mothergathers them closer, shooting me a look of annoyance. “How could you say that?” I hiss. “He always tried to provide for us.”
“You call what he did ‘providing’? Each of his ideas was as ridiculous as brick shoes. Sometimeswewere the only ones keeping us fed. You might’ve liked our acts, but I hated them. We were only kids.” He slumps back and crosses his arms.
“What about the spiced peanuts?” Adding salt and pepper allowed Ba to sell the nuts for twice their cost to tourists. He’d made enough money to buy Mum patent leather boots with mother-of-pearl buttons.
“Sure. Then he invested the money in tulip bulbs. And how well did that turn out?”
I don’t answer, remembering how the bulbs rotted before Ba could find someone to rent him a plot of land. “I know he wasn’t easy to live with. But he loved us. He loved you. He always said you had a scholar’s forehead. That you were destined to do great things.”
“He was demanding and unreasonable. Besides, what makes a thing great or not great? Making a pile of money? Buying a posh house? Maybe I think it’s pretty great to get out of London. To go someplace where you feel like you can breathe the air, instead of the air breathing you.” His eyes follow a fly bumping uselessly against a wall. “When I finally got free and looked up, I realized what I’d been missing.”
“What?” I snort. “Stars?”
His gaze finds mine. “Space. I needed space.”
“From me.” It’s hard to hide the injury from my voice.
“Not you, Sis.” His words have lost steam, as if explaininghimself to me has wrung him out. Unexpressed thoughts hover like the brown clouds that collect over London in the summer when breezes are in short supply. “Sometimes, it’s enough to simply be at peace.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, you’re eating roast beef with real silver forks, and you’re miffed about the bread. I know it’s not fair, but you’ve got to lower your standards to be happy.”
“It’s not the bread I’m miffed about.” To prove it, I tear off a good chunk and pop it into my mouth.
“I know. You’re angry with me.”
