Lisa See - Shanghai Girls

I go to the kitchen to make tea. I’m standing in front of the sink, filling the teakettle, when I feel a rush of wetness down my legs. This is it! My water’s finally broken. Grinning, I look down, but what I see running down my legs and pooling on the floor is not water but blood. The fear that grips me starts somewhere in that down-below area and comes all the way up to my heart, which pounds in my chest. But this is like a small tremor compared with what happens next. A contraction wraps from my back to my belly button and pushes down with such ferocity that I think the baby will fall out in one fast whoosh. That doesn’t happen. I don’t even know if that could happen. But when I reach under my belly and pull up, more liquid gushes down my legs. Squeezing my thighs together, I shuffle to the kitchen door and call to my daughter.

“Joy, go find your auntie.” I hope May’s in her office and not out with the studio people she entertains to keep her business connections strong. “If she’s not in her office, go to the Chinese Junk. She likes to meet people there for dinner.”

“Ah, Mom-”

“Now! Go now.”

She looks at me. She can see only my head peeking out of the kitchen. For this I’m thankful. Still, my face must betray something, because she doesn’t try to fight me as she usually does. As soon as she leaves the apartment, I grab dish towels and press them between my legs. I sit back in my chair and grip the armrests to keep from screaming every time another contraction hits. I know they’re coming too fast. I know something is terribly wrong.

When Joy returns with May, my sister takes one look at me, grabs my daughter before she can see anything, and pulls her out of sight.

“Go to the café. Find your father. Tell him to meet us at the hospital.”

Joy leaves, and my sister comes to my side. Creamy red lipstick has turned her mouth into an undulating sea flower. Eyeliner widens her eyes. She wears an off-the-shoulder dress of periwinkle satin that hugs her body as closely as a cheongsam . I smell gin and steak on her breath. She looks in my face for a moment, then lifts my skirt. She tries not to reveal anything that will be less than a comfort, but I know her too well. Her head tilts as she takes in the blood-soaked towels. She sucks a tiny bit of her lip into her mouth and holds it between her right front tooth and the tip of her tongue. She smoothes my skirt carefully back over my knees.

“Can you walk to my car, or do you want me to call an ambulance?” she asks, her voice as calm as if she’s asking if I prefer her pink hat or the blue one with the ermine trim.

I don’t want to be any trouble, and I don’t like to waste money. “Let’s go in your car, so long as you don’t mind the mess.”

“Vern,” May calls. “Vern, I need you.” He doesn’t answer, and May goes down the hall to get him. They come back a minute or so later. The boy-husband’s hair is tousled and his clothes wrinkled from sleep. When he sees me, he starts to whimper.

“You take one side,” May instructs, “I’ll take the other.”

Together they help me up, and we walk downstairs. My sister’s grip is strong, but Vern feels like he’s crumbling under my weight. There’s some kind of fiesta on the Plaza tonight, and people pull away when they see me with my hand pressing something between my legs and my sister and Vern holding me up. No one likes to see a pregnant woman; no one likes to see such private business made public. May and Vern put me in the backseat of her car, and then she drives me the few blocks to the French Hospital. She parks in the porte cochere and runs inside for help. I stare out the window at the lights that illuminate the parking area. I breathe slowly, methodically. My stomach sits on my hands. It feels heavy and still. I remind myself that my baby is an Ox, just like his father. Even as a child, the Ox has willpower and inner stamina. I tell myself that my son is following his nature right now, but I’m very afraid.

Another contraction, the worst one yet.

May returns to the car with a nurse and a man, both dressed in white. They shout orders, put me on a gurney and wheel me into the hospital as fast as they can. May stays by my side, staring down at me, talking to me. “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine. Having a baby is painful in order to show how serious a thing life is.”

I grasp the metal bars on the sides of the gurney and grind my teeth. Sweat drenches my forehead, my back, my chest, and I shiver from cold.

The last thing my sister says as I’m wheeled into the delivery room is “Fight for me, Pearl. Fight to live like you did before.”

My baby son comes out, but he never breathes the air of this world. The nurse wraps him in a blanket and brings him to me. He has long lashes, a high nose, and a tiny mouth. While I hold my son, staring into his lonely face, the doctor works on me. Finally, he stands up and says, “We need to perform surgery, Mrs. Louie. We’re going to put you under.” When the nurse takes the baby away, I know I’ll never see him again. Tears run down my face as a mask is put over my nose and mouth. I’m grateful for the blackness that comes.

I OPEN MY eyes. My sister sits by my bed. The remnants of her red lipstick are just a stain. The eyeliner has muddied her face. Her luxurious periwinkle dress looks tired and wrinkled. But she’s still beautiful, and in my mind I’m transported to another time when my sister was with me in a hospital room. I sigh, and May takes my hand.

“Where is Sam?” I ask.

“He’s with the family. They’re down the hall. I can get them for you.”

I want my husband badly, but how can I face him? May you die sonless- the worst insult you can give.

The doctor comes in to check on me. “I don’t know how you carried the baby as long as you did,” he says. “We almost lost you.”

“My sister is very strong,” May says. “She’s been through worse than this. She’ll have another baby.”

The doctor shakes his head. “I’m afraid she won’t be able to have another child.” He turns to look at me. “You’re lucky you have your daughter.”

May squeezes my hand confidently. “The doctors told you that before and look what happened. You and Sam can try again.”

I think these are among the worst words I’ve ever heard. I want to scream, I’ve lost my baby! How can my sister not know what I’m feeling? How can she not understand what it is to have lost this person who’s been swimming inside me for nine months, whom I’ve loved with my whole heart, whom I’ve steeped with so many hopes? But May’s words are not the worst I can hear.

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible.” The doctor covers the horror of his words with his strange lo fan cheerfulness and reassuring smile. “We took out everything.”

I can’t bear to cry in front of this man. I focus my eyes on my jade bracelet. All these years and for all the years after I die, it will remain unchanged. It will always be hard and cold-just a piece of stone. Yet for me it is an object that ties me to the past, to people and places that are gone forever. Its continued perfection serves as a physical reminder to keep living, to look to the future, to cherish what I have. It reminds me to endure. I’ll live one morning after another, one step after another, because my will to continue is so strong. I tell myself these things and I tamp steel around my heart to cover my sorrow, but they don’t help me when the family comes into the room.

Yen-yen’s face sags like a sack of flour. Father’s eyes are as dull and dark as lumps of coal. Vern takes the news physically, wilting before the rest of us like a cabbage after a terrible storm. But Sam… Oh, Sam. That night ten years ago when he confessed his life to me, he said he didn’t need a son, but these last months I’ve seen how much he wanted-needed-a son who would carry on his name, who would venerate him as an ancestor, who would live all the dreams that Sam has but will never achieve. I’d given my husband hope, and now I’ve destroyed it.