You know, Detective, that moment in a story when the main character realizes she’s made a commitment she can’t rescind and going forward seems the only available option? What’s it called—the point of no return. Well, that’s how I felt at the end of my trip to Dongguan. Out of options. All I could do was put one foot in front of the other, complete the minimum required to satisfy Winnie and the Maks. I thought I could cordon off my work and maintain that barrier, quarantine it in another dimension to prevent it from contaminating my real life and the lives of the people I loved.
But I could not control my dreams. Back at the hotel after that surreal and debauched evening, I crumpled into bed, only to be plagued by nightmares of fingerless children bearing tin cups of poisoned water. I awoke to the sun beating down on me, coating my skin in a suffocating sheen of sweat. My stomach churned, my calves and arches ached, and yet I was determined not to spend another second in this sordid town. I had to get across the border to Hong Kong to see my grandmother and the rest of my family, to remind myself who I really was.
I understand, Detective, that the timing of my grandmother’s birthday might seem coincidental, and I don’t know what more I can say to convince you otherwise. She was born on July 17, 1930. There’s nothing made up about that. Yes, her ninetieth. Ah, I see the confusion. Ninety is her Chinese age, not her Western age. Chinese people believe babies are born at the age of one because they count the months spent in the womb.
No, I can assure you I had no other reason to go to Hong Kong. From my hotel in Dongguan—you can see right here, I checked out at 10:02 a.m.—I went straight to the restaurant, ate lunch with my family, got back in the car, and went to the airport for my evening flight. No detours, no stops.
And I’m so grateful I went. Not only because I was there to celebrate my grandmother, but also because she is part of the reason I sit here before you now, telling you everything I know about Winnie, her associates, and this whole despicable affair.
What does my grandmother have to do with anything? Well, Detective, picture me showing up at the famous dim sum restaurant in Causeway Bay. It’s Saturday at noon and the light-filled room bustles with large multigenerational families just like mine. All around me children shriek with joy, and parents scold, and grandparents cluck indulgently. You could not imagine a more wholesome scene.
Over there at a prime table by the window is my family: My grandmother in a new floral blouse with freshly washed hair. My aunt and uncle who have taken charge of the ordering. My cousin Kayla; her husband, Winston; and their two little girls, all clad in lucky red to mark the occasion. My other cousin Karina has even flown in from Singapore with her boyfriend, Hugh, a tall, slouched Australian dressed in head-to-toe athleisure.
In that moment, I fingered the crimson silk scarf knotted around my throat and was restored to myself. These were my people, these clean, cheerful, bright-eyed souls, not those sleazy da kuan from the night before, dripping in dirty money.
At the sight of my cousin’s round-cheeked daughters, ages six and four, a hole yawned open in my chest and I longed to squeeze my goofy little boy. The girls were called Dana and Ella and they were stunningly well-behaved, conversing easily with the adults, downing dumplings with gusto.
When the little one, Ella, had eaten her fill, she climbed right into my lap to tell me, first in Cantonese and then, when it was clear I was having trouble following, in English, about the new kitten her father had brought home.
I asked its name.
He’s called Bear.
My cousin Kayla caught my eye and beamed.
I said, What an interesting name.
The little girl pushed the back of her head into my sternum and chortled up at me, the sound so pure and clear that in that moment, I was sure she was an angel, an otherworldly sprite. The previous twenty-four hours sloughed off me like flakes of dead skin. This, I reminded myself, was real. This was the true me. I was a mother, an aunt, a wife. I was a woman who was loved. I was the opposite of Winnie, with her severe, solitary life.
I told Ella that her cousin Henri would love to play with her kitten the next time he was in Hong Kong, and she gave me a look of disbelief. A cousin? she cried. Who I don’t even know? Who I’ve never met in my entire life?
Karina’s boyfriend reached over and pinched the girl’s little nose and said, You silly thing, before asking what I’d been doing in Dongguan.
It seemed as though the entire table quieted to hear my answer. Oh, boring stuff. This and that, I said.
What kind of boring stuff? Karina asked.
I reached for my cup and took a long sip of tea. I’m working for a friend’s consulting business—she connects American brands with Chinese manufacturers. I was relieved when my cousin’s eyes glazed over. But how about you? Do you like living in Singapore?
Karina told me about her first day in the city, how she watched a woman toss a cigarette butt onto the ground outside a shopping mall, and instantly a plainclothes cop materialized—where had he been hiding?—to cite her for littering.
Hugh added, It’s a beautiful spotless place, but at what cost?
I sat back and listened, thankful to be out of the spotlight, to have this time with my relatives, listening to their lighthearted workaday stories.
No, in all seriousness, Karina said, as much as I love Hong Kong, it’s gotten way too difficult to practice medicine here. She explained that at her old position she’d been expected to work across the border at the Shenzhen clinic half the week, where more and more, the rich Mainland Chinese seemed to believe money could buy the perfect medical outcome. The stress had aggravated her gastric ulcers. Her hair had fallen out in clumps.
Aunt Lydia said, We miss her, but we’re glad she moved.
Uncle Mark said, Last year a doctor was stabbed to death by a patient who complained he felt worse after surgery—at the most prestigious hospital in Beijing! That’s just one of several assaults on medical workers.
I nodded solemnly, arranged my features into a look of deep concern, but in my mind, I was picturing the men from last night, calmly extracting demand after demand. More than a gift or an extravagant bribe, that crocodile Birkin was a warning, a threat. It sat beside my luggage in the trunk of that Mercedes in some overpriced parking garage nearby. If only someone would break into the car and take it, so I’d never have to see it again. If only someone would break into my life and abduct this version of me that Winnie had created, so I would never have to be her again.
My grandmother interrupted my thoughts. Ava, you look so tired, so skinny. You’re working too much.
It’s jet lag, I said.
Do you have someone to take care of you at home?
I couldn’t recall ever being asked this question so frankly, and suddenly I wanted to cry. Sure, I said. I have Oli. I have friends. The answer sounded feeble even to me.
Friends, my grandma said, are not the same.
I smiled weakly. Where was she going with this?
I’m ninety years old, my friends are dead!
I’m your friend, Hugh said inanely.
My grandma patted Hugh’s sleeve and retrained her focus on me. She said, I used to worry so much about your mom in America. I worried she wouldn’t have people around when she was old. You and your brother lived so far away. With a trembling hand, she dabbed her napkin to the corners of her eyes.
My ears filled with a phantom roar. Please don’t worry about me, Popo, I said. I’m fine, absolutely fine. Here, I’ll eat another egg tart to gain some weight.
What wouldn’t I have given to buy my mom another month, another week, to have her beside me at this table with her mother, her sister, the rest of our family? I wanted to learn more about my cousins, to give Henri the chance to get to know Dana and Ella. The thought of wasting one more day at the mercy of Winnie and her associates sickened me.
En route to the Shenzhen airport, I pictured the life my mom might have led if my dad had forgone graduate school in Massachusetts and they’d remained in Hong Kong—the weekly family meals, her loved ones a subway ride away. I thought about my dad, all alone in that big rambling house he refused to leave. I thought about my brother, who’d recently suggested we both fly to Boston for the anniversary of Mom’s death, to which I’d replied that work was too busy, and I couldn’t take another trip. I thought about Henri, my precious, impossible boy, and how he had even less family than I had, our shrinking lineage an upside-down triangle balanced precariously on its tip.
When he grew old, when we were gone, who would he confide in? Who would give him advice? Who would save him from making the same senseless decisions his mother had made?
For a while I studied the back of my driver’s head. Say, I said, were you born in Shenzhen?
Oh no, he said, no one’s actually from here.
Weaving deftly through traffic, he told me it took twelve hours by train to reach the countryside to see his family. He went every year during the Spring Festival, when the trains were so packed that if he were to let go of his bag, it would be held in place by all the passengers crammed in beside him.
Are your parents sad that you’re so far away?
He stopped at a red light. Probably a little.
A mass of pedestrians flooded the crosswalk, clutching purses and shopping bags and the hands of small children.
I said, You must get homesick from time to time.
Never, he said, thumping his chest, I’m a city boy now.
And do you like this job?
He glanced back at me and grinned. I won’t be a driver forever. I want to run my own business, a whole fleet of cars and drivers, chauffeuring businessmen around town.
At the airport, he pulled up to Departures, put the car in park, and ran around to remove my luggage from the trunk. I thanked him and wished him good luck with his career plans.
See you, bye, he said in English.
I fought the impulse to throw my arms around this young man and tell him to take care of himself, to work hard and not be swayed by all the dirty cash flowing through this city, for there was no shame in good, honest work.
But who on earth was I to be doling out such advice? Instead, I said simply, See you, bye.
From your perspective, Detective, I can see how this all sounds. Why did it take me three more months to turn myself in and come clean? Believe me: if I only had myself to worry about, I would have sped to your office the instant my plane touched down in San Francisco. But I am selfish; I am weak. I feared for my husband, my son, my beloved ninety-year-old grandmother, who was only a border away from those heinous men. For that, I am sorry. I am sorry I thought I could somehow extricate myself from Winnie’s grip. I’m sorry I thought I could protect my family from them. Most of all, I’m sorry I didn’t grasp right away that the only thing that would save us was the truth, nothing but the truth.