Someone’s calling me: a number I don’t recognize. I let it go to voicemail, then listen to the message, mostly out of boredom. “Yun, it’s Luli! I got a phone! Just like you kept saying I should. Anyway, I got your number from one of the other girls and I just want to check how you’re doing. I know you told Dali you’re okay, but where are you living? Did you—well, please call me back. I’m really sorry about what I said the last time we talked.”
I swallow a lump in my throat. I’m not still angry at Luli for what she said about Yong, but I know she’ll want to talk about the baby. I just can’t deal with that right now.
I’ve been lying around Yong’s for days and days, so nauseous I can barely move, too sick to hunt for a job. Yong isn’t around much. He goes in and out to see friends, to work, even disappearing for a few days at time. We don’t talk about the baby. I don’t want to think about it, and I guess he doesn’t either, although a few times I’ve seen him studying me, only to turn away when I notice.
He comes in now, while I’m still staring at Luli’s new number debating whether to return her call. “Hey,” he says. “I’ve been thinking. We should go to my ma’s. She lives in Yellow Grain Village, just a couple hours away. She can take care of you till we get things straightened out.”
I wasn’t expecting this at all. “Your ma won’t mind?” None of the girls I know have met their boyfriends’ parents. Most of them keep all that private, not even telling their parents that they’re seeing someone. Ming definitely never introduced me to his family as his girlfriend. Certainly not his dad.
Yong shrugs. “She’ll be fine with it.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “If I’m going to get the termination and then find work, I should be here, in the city.”
“I’ll bring you back as soon as I’ve got enough money for it. But that could be a while, depending on how many jobs I get in the next few weeks. Don’t you want to have someone looking after you in the meantime?”
Eventually, I agree. I know it might be a bad idea, but I’m too sick to care.
***
I’ve never been so miserable.
I cling to Yong with my head against his back. My eyes are squeezed closed against the cutting wind and dust driving into my bones. The stink of exhaust and pollution along the congested expressways nauseates me.
As we get further away from the city and into the countryside, I feel more and more uneasy. The private detective’s warning flits through my mind. He’ll tell a girl they’re going to go on a weekend trip together . . . then sell her . . .
My pulse suddenly begins to speed up. For a moment I panic, wondering what I’ll do if Yong isn’t actually taking me to his ma’s place. But Yong tears faster along the highway. The drone of the motorbike rumbles in my ears, the potholes and bumps of the smaller highways making me feel even queasier. I can yell into the wind or beat on him to stop, but then what? We’re in the middle of nowhere, and it’s not as if I can walk all the way back to the city. I can do nothing but hang on until he stops.
After another hour, Yong slows. We drive along the dusty, rutted road of a small township, where shabby, low-lying buildings line the main street. There are several newer, white-tiled ones interspersed—a few are even two stories high. I scan the buildings, searching for a police station, bus station, anywhere I can run to if it comes to it.
Yong turns into an alley lane and stops in front of a squat, old-style building. As I climb off the bike, I’m aware that my legs are tingling and numb from the vibration of the motor. I rub them, readying myself for whatever comes next.
Yong undoes my bags, which are piled and tied on the back of the bike, and thrusts one at me. He picks up the other two, saunters past me, and kicks at the door. “Ma! Ma! I’ve come home!”
I take a deep breath and quietly let it go as relief comes over me. We really are at his mother’s place. He hasn’t brought me to some old bachelor’s home to sell me off.
The woman who opens the door has a thin face, tanned by the sun, with a network of fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. She’s slight, but more gristly-lean than wispy. She stares at Yong, first bewildered, then cracking into a big toothy smile.
“Yong! Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” She grabs him by both forearms, scolding, but is plainly delighted to see him. I quietly let out a long breath.
“What are you doing here?” she says. “Don’t you have to work? Come in, come in out of the cold.” She pulls him in and, not seeing me, begins to shut the door behind him.
I hurry forward, and she notices me. The glee on her face is suspended. “Who’s this?”
Yong half-turns. “Ma, she’s with me.”
Ma’s gaze swings between Yong and me. “What do you mean?” Her hand comes off the door handle, and I quickly slip inside. It’s nearly as cold inside as out.
Yong drops my bags and shuts the door, leaving us in the murky light of the single window. We’re standing in a room that’s barely the size of the factory dorm room, though a doorway shows another room off the side.
“Ma.” He’s embarrassed, awkward. I’ve never seen him like this. “Ma, this is Yun.”
“Yun.” She gapes at him—at me—at him again. “Why is she here?”
Yong rubs his arms as if warming himself. I wait, wondering what he’ll say.
“Ma, we’re married. She’s my wife.”
Ma puts her hand over her mouth, shaking her head. “What are you saying?”
I glance at Yong, not sure why he lied, but he ignores me.
“Married! How could you get the permit without your hukou?” Now I’m staring. Yong doesn’t have a hukou?
Yong wipes the dust off his jacket. “It wasn’t a problem.” He makes a dismissive gesture with his hand. “I took care of it with a payment to the right person.”
“But how long have you known each other?” Ma’s hand drops to her throat. “Why haven’t you brought her to meet me before?” Her voice is rising. “What kind of person . . .” She throws a few wary glances my way until tears are running down her face. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about her?” She mops at her face with her sleeve, peering at me over her arm. “What about those pocks? Don’t you know those are marks of bad character?”
I stop listening. I’ve heard these things so many times. And I’m used to people talking about me like I’m not even there.
I move toward a red vinyl chair—the only one with any padding, though there’s a large tear in the fabric—and plop into it. I’m stiff and drained from the long ride on the motorbike. There’s a TV in front of the chair, and I’m tempted to turn it on to drone out Ma’s moaning, but instead I take in the house.
Besides the three mismatched chairs near the TV, the room is crowded with a large cupboard, a table with stools near the brick stove, and a bed at the back of the room. A faded flowered sheet hangs partly across it, acting as a privacy curtain. The dresser wedged in at the foot of the bed is covered with a little shrine: photos, candles, incense poking out of a gold-colored pot, and a bouquet of plastic flowers. Around the room, a calendar and several pictures of nature scenes are pasted to the wall. There’s one frame with several small photos crowded behind the glass. Yong and another boy who looks slightly older. Now I start to understand. Yong must be a second child, born in violation of Family Planning policies. That’s why he doesn’t have a hukou.
It strikes me that Yong has told me very little about himself.
Yong falls into the chair beside me and snaps on the TV, turning it way up. Ma, still bawling him out, moves to the stove and begins clattering her pots. She makes so much noise for such a little person.
“How long can you stay?” Ma shouts at Yong.
“I have to leave tomorrow, get back to work.”
Ma bangs a pot onto the table. “So soon! Why did you come here then? For just one day!”
“Yun’s going to stay here with you.” Yong yells over his shoulder. “I’m leaving her here with you.”
I look at Ma. She stands frozen in disbelief; her hand is on the pan she just banged against the table. “You’re leaving her here?” Her mouth turns deeply to a frown.
“I have to go back to work.”
“How are you going to make a son if you’re in the city and she’s here?”
“Don’t worry, Ma. I’m sure I’ve put a boy inside her.”
Ma’s head turns sharply to me, her mouth a small round circle of surprise, and her bad temper vanishes.
I, on the other hand, feel as if Yong has dumped cold water on me. Does Yong actually want me to have this baby? Or is he just saying that so his mother will be willing to take me in? I can’t tell, and in this tiny house, I may not get a chance to ask him.
Not that he’d tell me the truth.
For the first time, it fully sinks in: I can’t trust Yong. And now I’m stuck here, in the middle of nowhere, with hardly any money and no guarantees about what will happen next.
I don’t want to break down in front of Yong. Luckily, I’m so exhausted that I don’t even have the energy to cry.