is splitting down the middle. “It’s nothing. I was just thinking about the new set list, that’s all.”
Mom’s shoulders relax. “I think you’re going to really love it. Rehearsals start next Wednesday, if you want to watch.”
I force a weak, flimsy smile.
Dad holds up his beer bottle. “Speaking of which, I’m sorry to disappear, but I’ve got work to do.” He kisses Mom on the cheek and nods toward me and Popo. “I’ve got about a thousand photocopies to make of all the new sheet music, and if I don’t start now, I’ll be up until three a.m.”
He vanishes back into the hallway like he was hardly here at all. Mom motions toward the living room. “Are you coming?”
I’m trying so hard not to cry, that Popo’s hand on my wrist makes me jump.
“We’ll be there in a minute. I want to talk with Harley first,” she says with the raspy, adoring voice I’m so fond of.
When Mom’s gone, Popo pats my arm. “Why don’t you go and get the present I brought you?”
The bag is still in the hallway, and when I get back, Popo is looking out the window like she’s remembering something from a long time ago.
I sit down next to her, and when Popo nods at me, I pull the contents out onto the table.
It’s a rectangular photo album, covered in bright red leather with gold flowers embroidered along the edges. In the center are some characters I’m not familiar with, but I am pretty sure are hànzì.
I run my finger along the metallic words. “What does this say?”
Popo’s eyes are fixed on me. “It’s our family name. Soong. From Taipo’s side of the family.”
Our family name. Like Popo thinks I have just as much of a right to the name as she does.
I turn the cover and find an old black-and-white photograph on the first page. It’s of a little girl wearing a short dress with her hair in a blunt, straight cut. She’s frowning at the camera like the sun was too bright, and there’s a woman standing behind her with her hands on the girl’s shoulders.
“This is my mother, Chin Choy. Your taipo.” She points to the little girl—a great-grandmother I’ve never seen before. Popo looks at the photo with heavy creases beside her eyes and points to the woman next. “And my popo.”
Curiosity sweeps over me. “Were you close?”
Popo doesn’t take her eyes away from the ghosts of her past. “She worked very hard, especially when my mother was younger. She was born in China, and her family was very wealthy. But then the war happened….” Her voice trails off, and she lets out a sigh. Popo doesn’t like to dwell on the negatives of the past, even when they’re from someone else’s past. “She took a boat all the way to Hawaii and married when she was only sixteen. She worked at a factory and would send all her money back to the housekeeper in China, but she found out many months later that the Communists had been living in her family’s home. They would give the letters to the housekeeper but keep all the money that was inside. After she found that out, she never wanted to go back to China. I know she missed home—but I know she loved Hawaii, too.”
“I never knew any of that,” I say, staring at the photographs.
“It was a long time ago,” Popo says. Sensing the end of her story, I turn another page. Her eyes light up with joy when she sees a photo of another small child, standing in front of a horse with flowers draped around its neck. “This was me when I was a little girl. I remember this afternoon very well.” She chuckles. “We had just finished watching the King Kamehameha Day parade. On our way home, a fire ant bit the bottom of my foot, and by the next day I had a blister the size of a half-dollar. Ma had to use a needle to break it open. I was so scared.”
I flip another page. And another. Popo tells me so many stories about her childhood, and her teenage years, and the day she met Grandpa Cillian, who passed away in the nineties from lung cancer. She tells me about the day she went into labor with Mom, and how Grandpa Cillian was so determined to come into the room when he heard Popo screaming that he fought off four nurses and a doctor to get through