Red Thread Sisters (9781101591857) Read online

  “Good-bye, Wen.” At the open door, Auntie Lan Lan clutched a tissue, as if she’d been wiping her own eyes.

  “I’m scared, Auntie Lan Lan.” Wen peered out the door at her new family clustered around the jeep, waiting for her.

  Auntie Lan Lan knelt and put her face close to Wen’s. “Try not to be scared. It will take time. But they’re a nice family, these people, I can tell.” Then she went on. “Have I told you the ancient Chinese legend, Wen, the one about the red thread?”

  Wen shook her head.

  Auntie Lan Lan spoke softly. “It’s a very old story that goes like this: There is an invisible red thread that connects those who are destined to meet. No matter what place or circumstance, the red thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break.” She paused. “This thread has brought you and your family together. At this orphanage, on this day. You and the McGuires are meant to be. Believe this, Wen. The red thread connects you.” Auntie Lan Lan clasped both her hands over Wen’s. “You’ll grow up so strong and smart in America. Remember, be a very good girl.”

  “I will.” Wen grasped Auntie Lan Lan’s hands.

  “It’s time, Wen; they’re waiting for you,” she said.

  Wen let go of Auntie Lan Lan and walked toward her new family.

  A driver in a black uniform stood by the jeep’s doors. “Wennie!” called Emily, patting the place beside her. Wen wedged into the backseat beside Emily and her mother. Her father sat up front, next to the driver, who started up the engine.

  The jeep approached the orphanage gate. Over the gate stretched a wide arch of worn tiles. Hammered iron characters, some bleeding rust onto the tiles, announced the place: TONG DU CHILDREN’S WELFARE INSTITUTE.

  This was the gate where Wen’s mother had left her, the winter she was five. Her mother had just had a baby boy. On a very cold day, she’d swung a big sack of dry noodles onto her back and called for Wen. Wen’s mother took her hand and told her they were going for a walk. Her toes cramped in her cotton shoes, Wen’s feet began to hurt as they journeyed along winding roads. Finally, she and her mother reached a hill where a crumbling pink building stood.

  Wordless, they approached the building. Wen’s mother stopped and propped her sack of dry noodles against the gate. She motioned for Wen to sit against the noodles and pinned a scrap of paper onto her jacket. Then her mother began to cry. Wen heard her choking through her sobs, as if she were trying to explain something to her. But Wen’s mother’s words were garbled and Wen didn’t understand.

  Then Wen’s mother grew still and told Wen she was a good girl. “I love you, Wen,” she said.

  “I love you too, Mama,” Wen replied.

  Wen’s mother stooped to kiss Wen’s cheek. She hugged her for a long time before she let go. Then, with a final look over her shoulder, her mother went away.

  “Mama!” Wen called, more scared than she’d ever been in her life. But her mother did not return. The sun went down and the trees around the building towered over her like dragons. The hard noodles pressed against her back. She got up to search for her mother, but the night was so dark, she couldn’t see in front of her. She sat back down by the gate.

  “I love you,” Wen called to the darkness.

  There was only silence.

  “Mama!” Wen wept. “I love you.”

  But still there was only silence. No reply came.

  All night long Wen waited. In the morning, a lady in a short white coat found her and called out, “Another gate child!”

  The woman brought her inside and tried to give her hot tea but Wen scrambled back to the gate to wait for her mother. The white-coat lady scooped Wen from the ground and read the note pinned on Wen’s jacket.

  “No need to wait here at the gate, Zhang Wen,” the woman said. “The drought has been too long and your family has gone. You live with us now.”

  That was a little over six years ago.

  Now, at the gate, the jeep stopped. Wen held her hands tightly in her lap. Were they going back? Had they forgotten something? Or had her parents changed their minds already?

  Abruptly, the jeep lurched forward. Wen looked back at the crumbling pink building set on the top of the hill. When the dust rose and blocked her view, Wen turned and stared straight ahead, the orphanage behind her.

  three

  The jeep swerved down the rutted dirt road. Jostling in the backseat, Wen clung to the armrest. She had ridden in a car only three times before. Once when Wen had a rotting tooth, Auntie Bi Yu, the nurse-auntie, drove her to the dental clinic. Another time, the day Ying Ying got adopted, her new parents drove four of Ying Ying’s friends, including Wen and Shu Ling, to the McDonald’s in the city. Then, during the long drought last summer, she and some of the other kids had bounced in the back of the truck all the way to the village, where government officials were distributing buckets of water.

  Now, as Wen peered out the jeep window, she waited for the joy of release. She had often daydreamed about what it would be like to leave Tong Du for good. As she scoured the bathroom walls or stirred the infants’ cornmeal, she had imagined departing through the orphanage gate. She had planned to feel free, like the swallows soaring wherever they wanted over the courtyard trees.

  Instead, Wen pulled her thighs to her chest and hid her face against her knees. This was the beginning of her new life, and all she could think about was Shu Ling waving good-bye, getting farther and farther away. Wen curled up even smaller, shutting her eyes tight to hold back her tears.

  “Hao ba, Wen? OK?” Over the rumble of the jeep, Wen heard her mother’s voice as she read from a ring of phrase cards Wen had seen other new parents use before. Each card had a Chinese word on one side, the English translation on the other. “Wen, hao ba?”

  Wen nodded, keeping her chin down. Beside her, she felt her mother pat a clump of her hair. Covering her head with both arms, Wen slunk toward the floor, beyond her mother’s reach.

  After a bumpy, two-hour jeep ride, Wen and her family stopped at a big city called Taiyuan. That afternoon, they took an overnight train ride to Beijing. Wen had never ridden on a train. Like a long snake spitting smoke, the train swerved and hissed. Out the window of their sleeper compartment, Wen saw big fields, the wheat already cut and drying along the sides of the roads.

  At bedtime, Wen lay on the top of the second bunk and listened to the whistle of the train as it sped through the night. When she finally fell asleep, Wen dreamed she was back at the orphanage, racing through the dark halls.

  “Shu Ling, where are you?” she cried.

  She checked the infant room, the kitchen, and then the small-children’s activity room. But she didn’t find Shu Ling. She strode up the hill, where she figured Shu Ling must be drawing in the dirt. But Shu Ling wasn’t there. Wen tried to keep running but her feet turned heavy, like great stones, and she couldn’t move. She collapsed on the hill, still calling for Shu Ling.

  When she woke in the morning, Wen felt as paralyzed as she had in her bad dream, only worse, because she knew, for sure, that Shu Ling was really gone.

  They got off the train in Beijing, where the McGuires stayed at a big hotel at least ten stories high. Wen marveled at the hotel’s huge glass windows and moving stairs. Was this what the houses would be like in America?

  The next afternoon, Wen and her family boarded a plane for America. Auntie Lan Lan had prepared Wen for planes. “Airplanes are like great big birds. They fly in the sky but they don’t fall to the ground,” Auntie Lan Lan had explained. “The plane will bring you to America, the land of opportunity. . . . Ah, Wen, America! There are such big houses there and a McDonald’s on every corner.”

  On the plane, Wen sat beside her father, while her mother and Emily got the seats behind them. As they waited for the plane to take off, Wen’s mother put her hand on Wen’s arm and whispered, “Bu yao jin. It’
s nothing to worry about. Bu yao jin.”

  Wen tried not to wince at her mother’s toneless Chinese. Instead, she studied her mother’s pale skin and round eyes. If she looked at her mother long enough, maybe she would get used to her.

  Beside her, her father got out the card ring and showed her a picture of a plane, the words “Airplane” and “Fei ji” on reverse sides of the card.

  “Fei ji. OK.” He thumped the airplane window and grinned at her. Her father talked too loudly, as if shouting would help her understand. Wen forced a small smile.

  When the plane rose from the ground, Wen felt her stomach do a flip-flop. She was in the air! It was a good thing Auntie Lan Lan had told her about airplanes not falling from the sky. Wen blinked in disbelief as puffy white clouds floated right outside her window. She was up so high, she must be near the sun itself.

  Later, when her father had dozed off, Wen slipped Shu Ling’s roll of paper from her backpack and smoothed it on her lap.

  With charcoal, Shu Ling had sketched the two of them, standing side by side. Their elbows linked, the girls wore their favorite clothes, assigned to them from the common wardrobe. Wen had on her sparkly pink sweatshirt and Shu Ling was in the flare jeans that hid her bad leg so nicely. Their smiles were as wide as the slices of watermelon the aunties served as a special treat in the summer.

  Underneath the picture Shu Ling had written, “I will always remember you, mei mei.”

  Mei mei. Little sister.

  Wen could almost hear Shu Ling’s voice saying the words out loud for the first time. Wen was six years old when she and Shu Ling had been scrubbing the courtyard tiles. Shu Ling told Wen her story, how a policeman had discovered her, just three months old, in a melon crate, left on the steps of a hospital. Her parents had wrapped tape around her bad leg. Shu Ling said that her parents must not have wanted a broken baby, so they threw her away.

  Shaking her head, Wen told Shu Ling that her parents hadn’t just left her anywhere. They’d left Shu Ling at a hospital so the doctors could find her and fix her.

  Shu Ling had straightened, as if a basin heavy with wet laundry had been lifted from her back. “So they weren’t just throwing me away.” Shu Ling thought for a long time. Then she thanked Wen for telling her this new thing.

  When Wen stretched for the bucket to get back to work, Shu Ling had warned her to be very careful with the bleach. “No matter what happens, mei mei, from now on, we’re family.”

  Mei mei. Now, the portrait on her lap, Wen read Shu Ling’s words again. She told herself not to cry. If her new family knew she was sad, they might think she wasn’t grateful and give her back. As soon as the plane landed in America, her mother and father and Emily might get up from their seats, say “Wait here,” and then never return. And then what would happen to her?

  Very carefully, Wen rolled up the scroll and put it into her backpack. Lulled by the drone of the plane, she finally slept. She woke as the plane jolted to a stop. Her father nudged Wen’s arm and pointed out the window.

  Mei Guo! America!

  All she saw was a vast stretch of concrete, as big as a wheat field, with airplanes lined up in rows. This was America? Where were the big houses and the McDonald’s on every corner?

  “Di er jia fei ji. Plane number two,” she heard her father say. Fighting her drowsiness, Wen tried to open her eyes wide to see more of this America. Her mother took her elbow and guided her to a long line of people waiting for a man to stamp their papers. Wen twisted the straps of her backpack. Why was it taking so long to get into America?

  Finally, with her father and Emily right behind, Wen and her mother approached the desk. The man stamping papers stopped and took a long look at Wen. Wen felt his round eyes burrowing right through her. His eyes darted from her to her mother then back to her. He shook his head, like he was confused, like something was wrong. Wen covered her face with her hands.

  “My daughter.” Wen’s mother placed her hand on Wen’s shoulder.

  Wen remembered her mother saying those same words when they first met at the orphanage.

  Then Wen’s mother said it again. “My daughter.” Her raised voice sounded mad, like Auntie Lan Lan’s when a kid spilled food at dinner or the boys started punching one another at bedtime.

  Gently, Wen’s mother reached for Wen’s hands. Wen uncovered her face and stepped closer to her mother. As the line moved, Wen peeked at the mean man. He was stamping their papers quickly, his hands flying, his eyes directed straight down, as if he was scared her mother would yell again.

  Wen wanted to thank her mother for making the man stop staring at her. But her mother didn’t know much Chinese and Wen was so nervous, she couldn’t remember any of the English she had thought she knew so well.

  After the McGuires filed into the second plane, Wen slept through the whole flight. Once they landed, Wen’s father led the family to a big wheel where they got their suitcases, then wove through the crowded airport to the street. Wen’s mother herded them to a line that said T-A-X-I. Finally, Wen’s father opened a door to a yellow car with wide leather seats.

  “Jia,” her mother said as she helped Wen buckle her seat belt. “Home.”

  four

  All Wen could see was darkness. She squinted out the window as big cars on the wide, lighted road streamed past them. Then their driver slowed down onto a curving ramp leading to smaller streets with leafy trees outlined against the black sky. Wen could make out rows of houses set behind neat squares of grass. The car stopped at a brick house with wide windows. Emily clambered out of the backseat, took Wen’s hand, and led her up the walk.

  “Huan ying, Wen. Welcome!” Wen’s mother said as her father unlocked the front door.

  Still holding Wen’s hand, Emily brought her into the house. Wen gasped. The hallway was as big as a room! The ceiling hung high above her, as if it were a sky.

  Emily led her to a room down the hall. She waved her arm from Wen to the room and back to Wen, making a big sweep through the air. “Wen’s!” she exclaimed.

  What was she talking about?

  Emily pulled Wen into the room. “Wen’s!” she repeated, planting both feet on the floor. Without warning, Emily flung herself down on the rug, her face toward the ceiling, her arms and legs spread toward the four walls. “Wen’s!” she shouted, from the floor.

  This whole room, for me? Wen thought she should reenter the room on her knees, as if she were visiting the sleeping place of an empress. The walls were painted deep purple and the bed was covered with a lavender quilt. Stuffed animals sat heaped along the pillow. All those stuffed animals—enough for almost every baby and little kid in the whole orphanage! And the books! So many books, lined up neatly in a bookcase, ready to be read. In the corner, Wen saw a small white desk and a chair. How could one room belong just to her?

  Emily sat on the fluffy, purple bed. Then, crouching, she pulled out a second bed, nestled under the first. Emily raised two fingers. “Wen’s . . . trun-dle.”

  Wen’s mother came into the room and said something to Emily, who nodded and replied. Wen tilted her head, trying to understand. Where had all her English gone? She felt as if some giant lock inside her brain had mysteriously clamped shut over all the English she’d ever known.

  Wen had studied English even before she went to school. A month after she’d arrived at the orphanage, five-year-old Wen was helping in the small-children’s activity room, where she discovered some English picture books. After dinner, she had pored over the tattered books, connecting the words to the illustrations. Her favorite story was about a lady who went to a dance but lost a glass shoe, which a prince used to find her so they could live happily ever after.

  When she was eight, Teacher Jun began real English lessons. From old workbooks, Wen sounded out English words and learned to link them into sentences and repeat the lines out loud with the other s
tudents.

  Eight months ago, Auntie Lan Lan had heard Wen was going to America. “Your English must be even better,” she told Wen, and started giving her extra lessons every night.

  “You must learn to make real sentences,” Auntie Lan Lan had said. “It’s not enough to just repeat what the teacher says.”

  While they fed the babies, Auntie Lan Lan had quizzed her. “Name?” Auntie Lan Lan drilled. “I am Wen,” Wen would call. “Good. Season?” Auntie Lan Lan asked. “It is summer,” Wen answered, as if they were tossing a ball back and forth.

  And now all that English was trapped inside her, somewhere Wen couldn’t find.

  In the hallway, her father stretched and opened his mouth, making big yawns. When he caught Wen’s eye, he began to pretend to snore, interspersed with long whistles. Then he grinned at Wen.

  Beside him, her mother shook her head, making clucking noises, like she was laughing at him. She took the ring of cards from his pocket.

  “Shui? Sleep?” She showed Wen a card and then rested her cheek on her hands, folded sideways like a pillow.

  Wen’s mother gestured toward the room across from Wen’s. She ruffled Emily’s hair. “Wen, shui with mei mei? Little sister?” her mother asked.

  “Wennie, shui with mei mei,” Emily begged.

  Wen felt her mouth go dry. She couldn’t call Emily mei mei, because her throat would shrivel and she would choke. She was the mei mei, not this little girl. The only person saying mei mei should be Shu Ling, declaring that no matter what, Wen was her little sister and they were family.

  Emily grabbed Wen around the waist and tried to pull her across the hall.