I’d endured two long winters and a miscarriage. On the nights when Philip stayed out late gambling, I planted myself in front of the radio so I wouldn’t feel alone. When music hurt my ears I listened to the news, only to grow frustrated by how little English I understood. More times than I could count, I shut myself in the shower and cried.
“Where would we go?” I asked.
“People are moving to New York and California. I wanted to go there after the war. There were more Chinese there, more jobs for us.”
“Then why’d you comehere?”
“Sam Bou said there was more opportunity in the middle of the country. Kansas City only had five hundred Chinese—it was cheaper to start a restaurant here, fewer competitors.”
“So you followed him.”
“It was good for a while. You saw how well we were doing.”
Yes, but now all the Chinese were heading for the coasts. Several of our friends had left already.It’s getting too hard to live here,they’d said.These Americans are cunning. They’re wary of us for taking away their jobs, so they call us Communists to make our lives difficult. I spend sixteen hours a day doing other people’s laundry, tell me how I have time to be a spy!Even Sam Bou had started hanging an American flag in front of the door to show where our loyalties stood.
“A new place won’t change anything. We’ll just be more in debt.”
“It’ll change me,” Philip said. He sat on the bed, a beseeching look in his eyes. “I’d make a clean break from Sam Bou. We could have our own home, our own business, too, once we save enough. We could start a family.”
It was like he’d read my mind. More than anything, I wanted to start over. I wanted a place I looked forward to coming back to every day, a husband I looked forward to sleeping beside every night.
“What about Francis?” I asked. The thought of the two brothers separating didn’t sit well with me.
“He doesn’t want to go.”
“But—”
“Don’t waste your breath. He won’t leave Fortune’s Palace. This is you and me, Helen. Do you want to go or not?”
“Yes.” I sighed. Knowing the way Philip and Francis quarreled, it’d be weeks before they spoke to each other again. “New York or California?”
“Well.” Philip nodded. “California doesn’t have snow.”
That was all I needed to hear. I clasped my hands. “California it is.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
It was during the drive, someplace between Kansas and Colorado, that I realized I was pregnant.
Morning sickness was a misery. Twice an hour, we had to pull to the side of the highway for me to throw up on the road. I took my moods out on Philip, whom I still hadn’t forgiven. My husband had many faults, but I’ll grant him this: Not once did he complain on that trip, even when it ended up taking seven days instead of three.
To save money, we slept in the car. I took the backseat and Philip folded his arms over the wheel and rested his head in the crook of his elbows. I had no idea how he was able to sleep like that night after night, but we were younger then.
Toward the end of the trip, I slept more hours than I was awake. Often I’d jolt awake, finding the map still in my hand, and Philip turning off the radio. He’d learned not to play it while I was awake.
“Are we there?” I’d ask.
“Not yet. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know.”
Then, on the seventh day, in the middle of the Sierra Nevada, Philip nudged me awake. “Helen, look,” he said, pointing outside.
Ahead was a simple green sign that readWelcome to California.The three most beautiful words I’d seen in a very long time.
As we descended the mountains, I cranked down the car window, sticking my head outside to breathe in the fresh air. The sun gilded everything it touched, and the hills were lush and evergreen. Finally, as we crossed the bridge into San Francisco, the water gleaming beneath us like a sea of diamonds, I could see why we Chinese called America the Beautiful Country. And I couldn’t stop smiling.
San Francisco’s Chinatown made up only a few dense blocks, yet I immediately felt more at home than I ever had in Kansas City. Aside from the restaurants, there was a jewelry store, a post office, several optometrists, and a slew of bazaars selling embroidered slippers and bamboo umbrellas and other colorful knickknacks.
Our first stop was the Yuen Family Benevolent Association, a gathering place for members with the Yuen surname. It was a blue-bricked building with white curtains covering every window so you couldn’t look inside. The woman at the front scolded us for being four days late. The room we’d reserved had been given away, so there was only a single bed left in a communal room. We took it.
