Dreams of Joy - Lisa See [58]
I open one of the envelopes, and there’s my daughter’s precise handwriting. The letter begins, “Dear Pearl and May,” as though we’re friends and not her mother and aunt. Her formality is like a knife in my heart.
I’m writing this on the boat to Shanghai and am giving it to the captain to mail when he returns to Hong Kong. You must be worried about me. Or maybe you’re mad at me. Either way, I want you to know I’m fine. I really am. I never felt at home in Chinatown. I’m going to my proper home now. I know you doubt me, and I can practically hear Uncle Vern saying bad things about communism. Please trust that I know what I’m doing. I appreciate what you did for me, but from now on Chairman Mao will be my mother and my father. If I’m wrong in my thinking—but I’m not—I’ll live with the consequences. You both taught me how to do that … live with the consequences. I was a consequence. I know that now.
I’m sorry I’ve been a burden to you both. I’m sorry I was a mistake that you had to endure for so many years. Don’t worry about any of that now. I’ll love you both forever.
Love, Joy
I run a finger over Joy’s words and try to imagine her as she wrote them. Did she cry as I’m crying now? She’s so sure of herself, but anyone can be sure at nineteen. How can she possibly say she never felt at home in Chinatown? We did everything—everything—to give her a good home, so my delight at reading my daughter’s letter is tempered with disappointment. It’s with that feeling that I open the other envelope.
Dear Pearl,
If you’re reading this, then you know our mail system works. I put some money in the hat and in the box. If any of it is gone, then someone has pilfered it somewhere along the way. The cousins in Wah Hong? The censors?
I’ll keep sending clothes. Search them for hidden messages and money. Have you read Joy’s letter yet? Some of the things she wrote break my heart. Maybe you have found her by now. I hope so.
I’m doing my best to manage the café. It will be here when you return. Vern is sad and lonely. The people he loved most in the world—Sam, Joy, and you—have disappeared. His confusion shows me how much he’s grieving. I worry about the strain on his health.
Pearl, everyone at your church is praying for you and Joy. I pray for you too and think of you every day. The main thing is we’ve heard from Joy. I hope you’re as relieved as I am.
You have great courage, Pearl. If our Joy is at all like you—and how can she not be?—then she will survive. You have done a lot for me over the years, but I’ve never been so proud or honored to have you as my sister as I am now.
Stay safe and all my love,
May
I rifle through the things May sent to find her original letter. It’s been written in a style to get past the censors. It contains innocuous news about Chinatown, the weather, and a dinner she went to where the hostess served a green Jell-O mold with bananas. Not once did May mention Hollywood, her own business, or anything about herself in either letter. I don’t take that to mean she’s miraculously changed.
Then I go back to Joy’s letter and read it several more times. It doesn’t bring me any closer to finding her, but I’m elated to have heard from her, relieved that May and I will be able to communicate, and awfully happy to have seen Auntie Hu too. What a day this has been, after so many weeks of monotony.
I get up off the bed and add the poster I salvaged to a collection of others I’ve hidden in my closet. I place the fragments of my sister’s and my eyes, ears, and mouths in a pear-wood box tucked under my bed. I’m taking a risk keeping these memories of the past, but I can’t help myself. If Z.G. can have framed posters on his walls, why can’t I keep these things