31

I wake to The Boys thudding around their indoor track of a living room.

“Shhh!” I hear one of the aunties shushing them. “You’ll wake up Syrah.”

I smile then, thinking how great it is to wake up in a house full of noisy life. As soon as I pull my hair back into a messy ponytail and wipe the sleep out of my eyes, I head downstairs toward the scent of potstickers frying in the kitchen. Suddenly, I’m homesick for Bao-mu, who always foisted a container of the fresh dumplings onto Age whenever he came over to visit, telling him, “You not cook tonight. You study!”

“Syrah’s finally up!” yells one of The Boys, zooming around me. I swear, there’s got to be an easy way to remember which one is which. Give me enough time, and I’ll figure it out. “Is this how fast you go on your snowboard?”

“You’re way faster,” I assure him.

“I’m faster than Syrah!” he bellows more victoriously than a first place winner at Wicked in Whistler.

Laughing, I follow my nose to where the Leong sisters are seated around the kitchen table, a well-oiled potsticker production line.

By way of greeting me, Auntie Marnie looks up from the long strips of dough that she’s slicing into one-inch segments and asks, “Chi bao le ma?” Funny, isn’t it, that her greeting—a standard Chinese one, have you eaten yet—is a question I’d never hear out of my own mother’s mouth, so concerned is she that I don’t gain an unnecessary ounce?

With a dough-caked hand, Auntie Marnie motions me over to the empty chair, unaware of the drifts of flour flaking with her every movement. Quickly, she bustles to the stove, where she wipes her hands on a kitchen towel and lifts the cover off the frying pan, sizzling with potstickers. “Almost done.”

As I sit in the one remaining empty spot at the table, I wonder where Grace is, since she’s not in here with the rest of the women. Auntie Marnie reclaims her seat across from me. Next to her, Auntie Yvonne rolls the cut-up dough in her palms before flattening the balls with a tiny rolling pin into pancakes. Jocelyn drops a mound of pork and cabbage filling in the center of each skin before folding the edges over into fat crescent moons.

That’s where the production line hiccups. Jocelyn nods at the growing stack of pancake skins in front of her. She whispers to me, “They’re way too fast.”

“No,” teases Auntie Yvonne. “Your young hands are too slow.”

While the conversation rolls ahead in rapid Mandarin, I take my place in the production line as Jocelyn’s backup helper. Just as I did with Bao-mu countless times over the years, I pick up a doughy skin, dollop some of the meat into the center, dip one flour-dusted finger into the bowl of cloudy water, and wet the edges of a skin. I fold over the dumpling, and the way Bao-mu taught me, I crimp the edges.

“Just like Pi-Lan!” cries Auntie Yvonne, delighted. “She is such a good cook.”

Surprised, I ask, “You know my Bao-mu?”

“Of course.” Auntie Marnie pops up to check on the potstickers, moving them around with long chopsticks in some order only she understands. “She was your po-po’s best friend. Pi-Lan was so sad that she couldn’t make it to the memorial. But the baby came home from the hospital yesterday, and she had to be there to help.”

Then it comes to me. Bao-mu was the one who brought Mama to her new parents. That’s why her photos were in Po-Po’s scrapbooks. So why did she come back to take care of me for all these years?

As I pick up another pancake skin, I notice Grace hovering by the kitchen door, as if she wants to join us but doesn’t know how. It’s the way I feel around the girls at school who seem to speak another language. In this case, we do. Grace doesn’t speak Mandarin.

“Grace, hurry, we need reinforcements,” I tell her in English, then dust the flour off my hands and grab the extra chair tucked under the telephone nook.

Pretty soon, Grace is shaping The Son of Blob in her hand. “What’s the trick?” she asks me quietly, embarrassed at the miscreant in her hands.

“It’s all about putting the right amount of meat on the skin,” I tell her. “Too much, and it oozes out. Too little, and you’re eating the Pillsbury Doughboy.”

Auntie Yvonne squashes another ball into a large medallion-sized pancake and looks at me in the same way Bao-mu does when she embarks on a fact-finding mission. As if she’s merely relaying information, Auntie Yvonne says casually, “Pi-Lan said your mommy bought her a big house in California.”

It’s hard to say who’s more surprised, me or Grace. On Bao-mu’s last day at The House of Cheng, I had visions of Winston Churchill sending his allowance to his nanny after she’d been cut off penniless despite years of service, and I worried out loud to Bao-mu about her retirement. She had brushed off my concern: “You not worry. I be lots okay.”

“Pi-Lan told Po-Po that your mommy took three trips to find her the perfect house. Three thousand square feet, four bedrooms, and a housekeeper,” says Auntie Marnie proudly, as if she were the one who’d arranged it. She carries a platter from the stove to the island, steaming with dumplings. “All furnished.”

Three trips to San Francisco? When had Mama found the time? Suddenly I remember the emergency shopping expedition tacked on to her last D.C. trip. Only Mama wasn’t shopping for the newest “it” shoes or the season’s “must-have” pieces, but for Bao-mu’s future. There is a whole life that Bao-mu and my mother have kept secret.

As if we’re all preschoolers, Auntie Marnie orders us, “Go wash your hands, and then we’ll eat.”

Soon, Auntie Yvonne is scooting the platter that we’re sharing family-style closer to me. “Eat,” she urges. “Eat.”

Under the doting eyes of my aunties, I choose one, which gets a fast rejection from Auntie Marnie: “No, no, that one is too skinny. You take this one,” and she hands me the plumpest, choicest dumpling. I take a careful bite, and close my eyes. Hot, savory juices flood my mouth. When I open my eyes, Auntie Marnie is watching me closely, weighing my love for her in my response.

It is so delicious that I want to shove the rest of the dumpling into my mouth, but restrain myself to careful chewing and enthusiastic nodding.

“Good?” Auntie Marnie demands.

The ultimate compliment would be to tell her that these are better than Bao-mu’s, but I’d feel too disloyal to do that. Besides, the potsticker is too hot in my mouth for an answer, a verbal one anyway. So I spear another with my chopsticks, which is all the answer Auntie Marnie needs, and she smiles, satisfied. That is, until she notices at the same time I do that Grace isn’t eating.

“You need to taste,” commands Auntie Marnie, using her chopsticks to nudge the potsticker closest to Grace toward her. “This is good for you.”

“I’m not really hungry, thanks,” says Grace. Her eyes dip to my aunt’s rounded stomach, and I can read her mind: if Marnie thinks she’s the poster child of good-for-you cooking, Grace isn’t buying. “Ample” would be one way to describe Aunt Marnie. “Fat” would be my family’s. It’s not that her seams are bulging, because they aren’t. She’s just curvy like I am, in a way that stick-thin Chengs aren’t supposed to be.

“The other day I was at Children’s Hospital, visiting my friend’s little sister. Cancer,” I say amid the aunties’ sympathetic clicks, sounding like a pod of concerned dolphins. “And none of the kids on her floor could eat. I just felt like it was so, I don’t know, disrespectful not to eat when I can.”

Auntie Marnie nods, understanding me. “To stay healthy, you need to eat. Not too much, not too little. This was one of your po-po’s favorite things to make with us girls growing up,” says Auntie Marnie, looking sadly at the plump potsticker at the end of her chopsticks.

“No, she liked eating them,” corrects Auntie Yvonne.

Auntie Marnie shakes her head and says authoritatively, in what I’ve already identified as her eldest sister, I-know-best-tone, “No, no. It’s the talking part she loved best. She always said that we brought our secrets to the kitchen table.”

“And she devoured them like they were fat potstickers!” says Auntie Yvonne, laughing.

The lure of these fresh potstickers is irresistible, even to Grace, who selects the tiniest one with her chopsticks, nibbling at its end. I don’t say anything, and I keep my eyes off Grace. I know what it’s like to have every bite scrutinized and not feel worthy of the most minute morsel. But I hear her chewing, and take another bite myself.

Auntie Marnie sighs. “I wish Mei-Mei was here right now.”

There are many places I can picture Mama: on the jet, at a fashion show, in her gym. But sitting at a dirty table with dough and raw minced pork on her fingers, I think not. Then again, maybe I’ve dismissed Mama too quickly. Maybe she would be at home here with her hair pulled into a careless ponytail, the way she was at a daycare for homeless kids. And I wonder what Mama is doing now, whether she’s eating anything in Hong Kong, stealing a bite here and there. If she’s thinking about her mother. What she would do if she knew I was here, surrounded by her sisters.

“She should have come yesterday.” Auntie Yvonne’s mouth purses disapprovingly. “You’re supposed to honor your mother. No matter what.”

A little accusation goes a long way. Mama should have come. It’s what I’ve been thinking since Mama left for Hong Kong. She should have come to her own mother’s funeral. She should have come with me.

“Aaah,” Auntie Marnie sighs, a sound loud with guilt that all but says, what can we do? “We gave her away.”

Auntie Yvonne sets down her chopsticks, ready to fight. “What could we have done?”

Softly, Grace says, “I don’t think I would have come if I were Betty.”

Just then, The Boys clamber into the kitchen, following the scent of these little pieces of our hearts, dumplings served up as morning dim sum. “We want some, too!”

There are only a half dozen left, and instead of brushing The Boys off, Auntie Yvonne smiles indulgently at them and bustles to get them clean plates and forks, telling them in her actions that they are worthy. The doorbell rings, and Auntie Marnie orders The Boys, as if there’s safety in numbers, “Open the door and then come back to eat.”

Obviously, no one dares to flout one of Auntie Marnie’s orders, and The Boys leave together, one giant mass of noise and dirt.

“Your father’s good to her?” asks Auntie Yvonne, who’s abandoned all pretense of politeness.

“Auntie Yvonne!” cries Jocelyn, rolling her eyes. She leans toward me. “Consider yourself an official part of the family. All questions are fair game now. Just wait.”

“She’s always been part of our family.” Auntie Marnie spins around indignantly to face us. “Syrah is a true Leong.”

“No, she’s not,” says a voice, sharp with an accent that sounds a world apart from this little home in Richmond. Standing in the doorway, faces grim, are Mama and Baba.

How many times have I imagined them so hell-bent on being with me—to catch my soccer games, dance recitals, spelling bees, snowboarding competitions—that they’d cancel meetings, reschedule appointments, turn down lucrative speaking engagements, and surprise me with their appearance? Only now that they’re ready to take me away (why else would they be here?), I don’t want to go.

“Mama?” I say at the same time that Auntie Marnie steps uncertainly away from the stovetop and toward her. She breathes in disbelief, “Mei-Mei?”

Words waiting to be said for nearly forty years come rushing out of Auntie Marnie in a spate of hot and sour Mandarin: how they made a mistake and sent Mama away, how their mother would have been happy that the family is finally reunited. But Auntie Marnie has no idea that Mama doesn’t speak Mandarin. That with her every word, she’s widening the unbreachable emotional gap between them, the one that yawns with so much more distance than the scant four feet that separates them here in this kitchen.

Arms crossed, Mama answers in Cantonese, her words burning like the forgotten oil on the stovetop: I. Am. Not. Your. Little. Sister.

Her older sisters look bewildered first at her, then me. Baba, ever in control, commands, “Syrah, get your things.”

Even with everything going on, I notice that our father doesn’t spare a single glance at Grace, who’s standing so straight and immobile, she could be a longtime military cadet.

“Now?” I ask. “Wait, what are you doing here?”

“My business in Hong Kong finished early. So I’m able to make it to the meetings in Whistler after all,” says Baba. “But when we went home to pick you up, you weren’t there.”

Mama folds her arms over her chest and stares at me as if I’ve betrayed her. “Bao-mu told us where you were.”

Bao-mu, Mama said, not Pi-Lan, her given name. Mama called her “substitute mother,” Bao-mu, the way I do. Hearing that nickname on Mama’s tongue makes me wonder whether Bao-mu was Mama’s surrogate mother, too? Is that why Bao-mu continued to take care of me long after she should have been enjoying her retirement?

“I couldn’t believe it when Bao-mu said she was sure that you were here,” Mama continues. Accusingly, she says, “Marnie told her.”

Of course, Bao-mu knew I’d find a way to Po-Po’s funeral. Instead of being mad at her, I can understand what she was trying to do: mastermind a reconciliation of sorts.

However brilliant Bao-mu is, she doesn’t account for Auntie Yvonne undermining the peace process. In English, my aunt demands, “How come you’re so mad? You were the lucky one who got to live with the rich uncle. We visited your house after you got sent to the best boarding school in England. It was a mansion. You had servants. A cook. A driver. We barely had enough to eat one meal a day.”

Auntie Marnie puts a warning hand on Yvonne’s arm. If I’m expecting Mama to stop this the way she does any heated argument or political debate at her parties—with a gentle well-placed, self-deprecating comment—I’m wrong. Dead wrong.

Mama’s tone is seething. “Lucky?”

“Stop, stop, this is all a misunderstanding,” says Auntie Marnie, tears welling up in her eyes.

I’m expecting Baba to run the same interference with Mama, because, after all, Chengs do not show public demonstrations of emotions. Instead, he stands behind her, the way Mama stood behind Weipou in that family portrait. One big difference: Baba has her back in this battle. Mama looks lethal in her wealth, armed in her expensive tailored slacks, handmade sweater, and sunglasses swept on top of her glossy hair.

“How can you deny it?” asks Yvonne hotly. “Marnie was sent to the country for five years. Me, I worked like a peasant for two years.” She lifts up her left hand and wiggles her ring finger, the one missing its tip. “I lost this threshing rice while you were enjoying Hong Kong.” Her hand with the decapitated finger gestures at Mama. “And look at you now.”

“Bu yao qiao le,” I plead for them to stop. Glancing over my shoulder, I’m startled to see The Boys clustered behind my parents, transfixed by the sight of adults fighting. “Hai zi men zheng zai ting.” The children are listening.

Only when Mama breathes in do I realize I’ve spoken absentmindedly in Mandarin, the language of the sisters she wants to deny. Not the Cantonese of her lonely childhood in Hong Kong. The funny thing is, no one other than I can speak both languages. Only now do I have an idea why Bao-mu insisted I learn Mandarin even after Mama forbade it. She must have thought I could bridge the Cheng-Leong gap one day. Sure, I can translate word-for-word what’s being said between these two enemy camps, but I don’t want to. The words, their implications, are that ugly. Besides, anger, hurt, and blame are a lingua franca we all understand, that don’t need any translation. All I have to do is look at The Boys, who are staring wide-eyed at the adults fighting worse than any children.

Baba orders me sharply, “Go get your things.” When Grace approaches me, he snaps at her as though she’s a disobedient child, “I want to talk to you.”

The last thing I want to do is leave Grace alone to face the wrath of Baba, but Marnie says, “Syrah, listen to your parents.”

It’s a dismissal I don’t expect. Head down, embarrassed and angry, I hurry to Po-Po’s bedroom and gather my belongings. It doesn’t take long to roll my few clothes into tight cylinders, squeezing out the air the way Mama taught me so I minimize wrinkles, maximize space.

“Are you okay?” asks Jocelyn from the bedroom door.

I nod, glance around Po-Po’s room for any trace that I was here, and don’t find any. But then I see the scrapbooks, too big to fit in my backpack.

“I know it’s a pain, but could you send me these?” I ask.

“Of course,” Jocelyn says without hesitation.

The immediacy of her answer undoes me. I throw myself into her arms, leaving no doubt that whatever our shared history, we are family. Love is a lingua franca, too.