“I’m fine,” Helen repeated firmly until everyone left her alone. She turned to Marigold and pointed at the lavatory as if nothing had happened. “Are you going in first or am I?”
“You go ahead.”
As Helen slipped past the folding door, Marigold gazed at the empty space where her mother’s shadow should have been.
The situation was worse than she’d feared. Bad enough that Helen had just vanished involuntarily, with scarce control over when she came back. But now someone else had noticed her becoming invisible—multiple people in fact! This had never happened before.
Marigold balled her hands, her nails biting into the thin nylon of her gloves.
Science had taught her that things didn’t simply disappear. Either they dispersed or they were changed into something else. There were always traces. Broken bits that were waiting to be reunited.
For the life of her, Marigold would find every piece. She’d put her mother back together again.
Hong Kong
1946
Chapter Sixteen
Yut Ying
I had forgotten all about Tommy Yeung until, come the middle of August, he surfaced once again in my life.
I was walking to the factory, slower than usual since the summer heat had spurred my feet to swell and now my shoes chafed with every step. I distracted myself from the pain by looking around to see if any of the seeds I’d scattered had sprouted. Birds and squirrels had devoured most of them, then the monsoons had come and swept away everything else. The only survivor was a loquat tree, half a meter tall. It would take years before it bore any fruit.
I crouched, sprinkling water to keep the tree’s soil moist—when I heard the familiar chime of a bicycle bell.
“Yut Ying!” Tommy shouted, hopping off his bike. “You cut your hair, I almost didn’t recognize you. Remember me?”
In the span of six months, he’d grown taller, and the shape of his face had changed, too. His chin had lost its boyish roundness and there were new angles in his jawline. He sported a dimple when he smiled.
“Tending to Hong Kong’s finest orchards, I see,” he said pleasantly. “What is that, apricot?”
“Loquat,” I said, resuming my stroll to work.
He steered his bicycle alongside me. “Your aunt must be grooming you to take over the factory,” he chatted. “Still sewing slippers, or have you been promoted to a supervisor?”
I frowned, but secretly I was pleased to see him again. I quickened my pace. “I’m going to be late.”
“Let me give you a ride. I can drop you off a block before the factory, if you’re nervous about your aunt seeing you.”
It was a thoughtful gesture, but I hesitated. “Why did you say she’s grooming me to take over the factory?”
“My grandfather used to take my cousin and me to his farm during harvest season. He’d make us pick soybeans from dawn to dusk, then we had to dry them and remove their skin and extract their milk. He said it wasn’t enough to know how to run a business, we had to understand every aspect of the product we sold. I figured your aunt was making you gain experience, too.”
“You overestimate her,” I replied.
“Then why does she make you work?”
Truly, I didn’t know. It had been almost a year now, and Gu Ma had stopped asking me about the other seamstresses.
“I don’t mind it,” I said, for that was true. Every hour in the factory was one fewer hour at 12 Harbourage with Sai Ma. “It’s not like I’m that girl in your story—Yeh...”
“Yeh Shen,” he supplied, grinning widely. “You remembered!”
He was a puppy in boy form, I thought, the way he wore his emotions on his sleeve and how eager he was to please. Prince Cannonball would eat him alive.
“I never got to finish it for you,” Tommy babbled on. “Shall I continue?”
