North of Beautiful (35 page)

Mom and I had arrived too early to check in. So we hung out in the plain room Jacob and his mom were sharing. It was nothing like their luxurious high-tech room in the Jinmao Tower, perched high above Shanghai with its marble bathroom and expensive surround-sound stereo. Here, there were two single beds topped with quilts of questionable taste and uncertain cleanliness. In the corner squatted an intimidating-looking air conditioner, plastered with operating instructions translated into incomprehensible English. The bathroom, which I had to use, had no tub, just a spigot overhead with no shower curtain, which meant that the sink and the toilet must get soaked every time the shower was turned on. But at least there was a toilet. While their hotel room was clean, it was also stifling, too small for four people, especially with disappointment crowding in with us.

“This is nice,” Mom said, back to her forced cheeriness, but I was glad for it. The pall around Norah was so heavy, I could almost see a black aura around her.

Usually so get-up-and-go, Norah sagged wearily against the pillow. Half of me wanted to yank her up — and not just because millions of germs were infesting the bedcovers. But because it was against the natural law of order for her to be this depressed, this depleted.

“I would like to see this orphanage for myself,” announced Mom.

“Go right ahead.” Norah waved listlessly at the door.

“You’re giving up? Just like this?”

“Just like this.” Norah said curtly. “It’s over.”

Living with Dad’s comments, which were tufted with verbal poison, inured us to Norah’s sharpness. Mom got off of Jacob’s bed to sit next to Norah. The bed dipped dangerously low to the ground. She asked Norah, “What’s this really about?”

“Fourteen years ago, I came here to pick up Jacob. And then I met Dave. He adopted Jacob, and I believed that we would be forever. But it’s over. It’s really over, isn’t it?”

Mom and I exchanged a look. Her ex-husband’s wedding was tomorrow, which made her failure to access the orphanage doubly acute. Who wouldn’t have a meltdown, particularly Norah, who hadn’t sought a divorce in the first place?

Had this been home, we would have redirected the conversation. Changed the subject, wondered out loud, “So what’s for dinner?” But here in this hotel room, I watched Jacob do the exact opposite, the bravest thing I could imagine. He sat at his mom’s other side and cradled her in his arms.

“Mom,” he said, “you still have me.”

More than feeling useless, I felt like I was intruding on them, standing there with my arms hanging at my side. But then Jacob lifted his hand for me, pulled me next to him so we were all piled on the bed like refugees on a tiny raft.

“This is pathetic,” said Norah finally, authoritatively. “Totally pathetic.”

Even as I was relieved to hear her back to her decisive self, I got an inkling of how Norah must have approached the orphanage: barreling her way in. Calling the shots. That open aggressiveness might have been effective in Corporate America, but after a few days in China I suspected that a different negotiating tactic might work better.

“Okay, let’s go have an early dinner.” Norah stood as if everyone had agreed.

“No,” said Mom firmly.

I stared at her; we all did.

“Well, what do you want to do instead?” asked Norah.

“I would like to go to the orphanage.”

Nobody could have been more surprised than I was. Jacob shrugged at me as if it to say, Why bother?

A pathfinder’s job is hard enough — blazing trails where there are none, guided by nothing but hearsay and gut. While you’re hacking your way through bracken, worrying about lurking beasts, all you can do is hope you had chosen the right direction.

I wanted to help find the way, wherever it took us. So I held out my hand to my mother: “I’m in.”

“Mom, enough already with the pictures,” Jacob protested futilely for the fifth time since we loaded into the cab half an hour ago. He, Norah, and I were crammed in the backseat, Mom up front.

Forget the pictures; enough already with the taxi ride. Thankfully, out in the desolate village there were fewer cars, but that didn’t mean that we were safe on the dirt road. This taxi driver accelerated at turns, and demonstrated zero ability with the brake. It was as if he was road racing, but racing against whom? The three bicyclists we nearly ran over? The water buffalo and its baby who were ambling on the side of the road?

I barely heard a peep from Mom, who was probably white-knuckling it, clenching her seat as if that would prevent her from catapulting through the windshield in the event of a collision.

“Mom, you doing okay?” I asked.

We took a curve especially hard, and I swear, the car listed so much on its side, two wheels caught air. Jacob slid into me so that I could smell his scent of fresh laundry. How did he manage to smell so good when we’d been on the road for six days? My clothes were rumpled, and I was already sick of what I had brought. So I breathed him in, wanting so badly to feel his lips on mine again.

Finally, Mom answered, releasing her grip on the strap above her door, “This could possibly be the best diet I’ve been on. I’ve officially lost my appetite indefinitely.”

We all laughed; even Mom managed a feeble giggle. As soon as we were back on a straightaway, she handed me a photocopy of a note in Chinese, slightly damp from her sweaty grip. Underneath the Chinese characters was its translation into English: Please take care of my son, Yi-Guan. He is a good boy. And then at the very bottom, in parentheses, was one last sentence: Jacob was found beneath a tree, wrapped inside a blanket with this note and a few coins.

“I can’t wait to see your baby pictures,” said Jacob low in my ear. His breath tickled my neck. I wondered what his mouth could do to me on that very spot. Drawn to his lips, I stared at them now. Mine tingled in answer, the ghost of his kiss still lingering on them.

“I’d love to show them to you!” said Mom, all of a sudden finding her inner rodeo queen.

“Mom . . . ,” I groaned.

“There’s an especially adorable one. She and her brother, Claudius, are standing naked in front of the bathtub. Oh, she loved taking baths. Their chubby little legs . . .”

“I bet you were so cute,” said Jacob.

There should be a law against mothers reminiscing about their children’s babyhood. The stories are always beyond humiliating, as I could personally attest when Mom segued to the time when I spit up into her mouth (what was she doing holding me above her face?) and then the one where I had a major blow-out — “I had no idea poop could come in that color and consistency!” — at the Pacific Science Center.

The only redeeming thing about having a reckless driver intent on leaving Earth was that he had no intention of spending any more time than he needed in the temporal world. We stopped abruptly in front of a plain building, a picture of neatness and organization. A sign had been painted in bright blue over the door, words in Chinese characters, which Norah translated for us: Child Welfare Institute.

“When I first came to collect Jacob, the taxi drivers had no idea there was even an orphanage here,” said Norah, scooting forward to pay the driver. “None of the kids were allowed outside back then, you see. So no one knew.”

As Mom opened the front seat door, she stopped to study us over her shoulder. “Now, people know.”

Following was obviously a genetic trait Norah was missing, because even though she may have been the most reluctant of our group to be back on these doorsteps — with Jacob coming a close second — she couldn’t help but knock on the door herself. As we waited for someone to answer, I inspected the orphanage. For all its cleanliness — not a weed in sight — the place was bankrupt of anything beautiful. But it wasn’t just the orphanage. All the surrounding buildings were dismal gray, as though beauty were a frivolity of the rich. What Mom could have done with a simple planter and a few colorful flowers.

“You doing okay?” I whispered to Jacob.

He nodded, looked like he was going to say something, but the door opened. A young woman, hair cropped short, stood before us in ill-fitting baggy pants and a dingy T-shirt. Her face was coarse and round like a koala’s, so it surprised me to see it harden when she spied Norah. She shook her head emphatically — the international sign for “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”

With that, Mom pushed her way to the front, partially obscuring Norah. In her tentative way that always made me cringe — whether it was here or at a store — Mom started with an uncertain but friendly “Ni hao.” I hated that obsequious tone, because it sounded like she was begging for charity instead of asking for help, as if she didn’t have the right to be where she was. To my surprise, Mom turned to Norah and said, “Why don’t you ask her for her name?”

Norah’s forehead furrowed. “What?”

“Ask her for her name.” And then after a beat, Mom continued softly, “And you could try it with a smile.”

Norah sighed. But she did what Mom had asked. While the conversational question may have taken some of the edge off the orphanage worker’s face, no longer so self-righteous, she still looked impatient. Both eyebrows were cocked up, poised to shutter at any time.

No wonder Mom was so silent in the taxi. She must have been strategizing on the drive over, practicing in her head for this moment, because she murmured something more to Norah, words I didn’t catch, but I wasn’t the intended listener. Whatever Norah now said disarmed the young woman, who glanced briefly at Jacob and nodded while she answered rapidly — too many words that weren’t part of any language tapes I had studied. I was starting to hope that we’d be let in, but instead, the young woman closed the door, gently but firmly.

“What did she say?” I asked Norah. And then, “What did you say?”

“That this place saved Jacob’s life and that all he wanted was to thank his caregiver.” Norah considered the closed door and then briskly, she said, “Well, that was an excellent attempt. Let’s go.”

“No, let’s wait,” countered Mom, holding her spot, “just for a little bit longer.”

And magically, the door opened, this time framing a middle-aged woman. Her friendly eyes inspected us from behind round-rimmed glasses. She looked like she was playing dress-up in her oversized shirt worn over a long, ankle-length skirt. On her feet were flats, the kind that always brought out Karin’s inner fashion critic. Old lady shoes, she derided them. The woman didn’t waste time looking at any of us, just Jacob. And then she nodded as if in answer to a question. The door widened in invitation, and Mom motioned for Jacob and Norah to enter first, but Norah stayed back, whispering to Mom, “But I told her almost the same thing earlier — that Jacob wanted to meet his amah.” She was clearly confused.

Mom smiled at her and then murmured, “Who knows? Timing? Or the way you asked?”

We trailed behind Norah, who was back to her confident, verging on peppy, stride. Trust me, nothing was going to derail Norah now that Mom had gotten us inside the orphanage. I thought about Mom as she huffed at my side, trying so hard to keep up. How many times had I wanted to cringe when she begged Dad for every little thing: extra money for Christmas groceries so the boys could have their favorite meal — filet mignon for Claudius, rack of lamb for Merc. The car to bring me to the dermatologist. She never asked for anything for herself, yet without any hesitation, she’d humble herself for us.

“Mom.” I stopped in the hall and turned to look at her, to really look at her. I swear, for the first time, I saw past the body she inhabited now, the one that humiliated Dad whenever he was seen with her in public — the one that embarrassed me, too, the few times she showed up at a school function. I saw Mom the way she had been and could have been and was becoming in these days free of Dad. “You’re amazing.”

“I was wrong,” said Jacob, overhearing us. Or maybe he had been listening for me. He waited now for us to catch up.

“How?” I asked.

“Your mother is more Chinese than the Chinese. She takes humility to an entirely new degree.”

Mom — my mother with her brown curly hair and green eyes — glowed at those words, unused to compliments, orphaned as she was from Love and Security. And this time, when she demurred, “No, no, not really,” I wasn’t irritated at all. She was just being more Chinese than the Chinese.

“We’re supposed to wait right here,” said Norah, arms crossed, as we were first shown and then left in what must have been the director’s office. The Spartan room was as unlike Merc’s high-tech office as our modest home was to a mansion. The office was just large enough for the four of us to squeeze in snugly before the metal desk. An ancient boxy computer claimed most of the real estate on that desk. Filing cabinets, one after the other, lined the back wall like guards, ramrod straight in their matching uniforms. I wondered if Jacob’s file was in there somewhere; Norah must have wondered, too, since she was staring at the cabinets as though she was prepared to pilfer them.

Four girls my age marched past the office, sidling curious glances at us. They gawked at me, whispering. Not that I blamed them. Just how often had they seen a tall, blond girl — someone who they could have been, but for the happenstance of birth? Then — I swear to God — their jaws dropped at Jacob like he was a rock star, boy manna from heaven dropped down for their delectation. I would have been jealous, but I was too busy reeling at my own ignorance.

Call me stupid, but I had expected these orphanages to be populated with babies, maybe a handful of toddlers. I wasn’t prepared for these teenagers, girls who could have fit in at Any Town, USA’s high school — even mine. They looked perfectly normal — no birthmark, no physical defects — and perfectly pretty. And still, no one had taken them home.

The girls continued down the hall, now chattering and laughing. I should have studied my Chinese harder; I wanted to know what they were saying. I was going to ask Norah, give Jacob a hard time, but as the girls opened the door, the cry of babies pierced the air. And through that open door, I made out a woman diapering an infant in her crib, the director standing just behind her, talking to her.