In the bedroom, the old Chinese sisters, my grandmother and great-aunt, are shoving their folded dollars into lucky red envelopes all morning. My great-aunt is visiting from Canada, widowed fifty years, and her only child, a baby girl without hair, was found dead one night, overfed by the maid. My grandmother, the younger sister, fills her house with four children and eleven grandchildren, complains about dying every weekend. Forty years, few facts have changed,yet they are arguing relentlessly again as they wait for my youngest uncle to take them out for Sunday dim sum, the little bit of heart over tea. You carried your son to me, piggyback. No, my son was old enough to walk. You gave your son to me, then you took him back. No, you told him my village was full of cowdung so he wouldn't come back. In my family, this is our legacy. Every generation, a child is given away for safekeeping because of war, poverty, other children.My mother gave me to my grandmother, and I was twelve when my youngest uncle told me Respect your mother because she has lost. If she and your grandmother were drowning, we know whose life you would save. When the morning arguing boils off, and every red envelope in the house is filled, my uncle arrives, and the family stands back as the two sisters push towards him like knives over his heart.
Published in Cream City Review.
© Priscilla Lee. All rights reserved.