The Paper Daughters of Chinatown - Heather B. Moore Page 0,111

child in her arms, she wished that Huan Sun could have been with her.

The girls of the mission home, who had become friends to her, filed into her room to gaze upon the tiny creature. It was only after everyone had left that Mei Lien broke down into tears. Labor pains had not brought such tears of despair, but knowing that this child might grow up fatherless was what broke through her bravery.

When Tien Fu Wu entered her room later that day, Mei Lien handed over the baby to her.

“I cannot do it,” Mei Lien said, her voice choked. “This baby does not deserve such a weak mother. I have no father to give him. No income to provide for him.”

Tien Fu Wu merely took the baby and walked the room, cradling him in her arms.

Mei Lien watched the young woman carrying the child. The calm manner. The soothing words. The guilt was crushing her like a boulder.

“Huan Sun still hasn’t returned,” Mei Lien said in a stilted voice. “What if he changed his mind? Or what if he’s . . . dead?” She swallowed back a rising sob. “I should leave here. I don’t deserve your care and goodness. I have nothing to offer in return. I am nothing.”

Tien Fu Wu sat on the single chair in the room. Her dark eyes focused on Mei Lien. “I used to think I was nothing. But Miss Culbertson kept believing in me. Then Yuen Qui was always kind, no matter what. And finally, Miss Cameron trusted me. Because of that, I know that you have a home here. And your son will too. Once he’s old enough for school, we will find a place to educate him. No matter who his father is, or if he never knows a father, he still has a mother and many, many aunties.”

“Miss Cameron will not kick me out for having a son?”

“No.” Tien Fu Wu’s smile was soft. “You are both family here. If Lo Mo can put up with me, housing you is no problem.”

Mei Lien watched the remarkable young woman holding her child—a baby Mei Lien already loved fiercely. Her love for the child was overwhelming, making her wish that her life had been different, that he’d been born into a marriage, and that she had the ability to give him the world.

“I don’t want to leave,” she admitted in a whisper.

Tien Fu Wu rose from her chair and settled next to Mei Lien on the bed. Together they gazed down at the sleeping baby.

“He will grow into a fine man,” Tien Fu Wu said softly. “With a mother as devoted as you, he can’t help but have a happy and productive life.”

Mei Lien desperately wanted Tien Fu’s words to be true.

“Now, you must rest. Miss Cameron’s orders,” Tien Fu Wu continued. “I will walk the corridors with your baby while you sleep. When he is hungry, I’ll bring him back to you.”

Mei Lien closed her eyes, and the last sound she heard before falling into a warm sleep was Tien Fu Wu humming softly to her little boy.

“Kindness and peace had a soothing effect at first, but later brooding over her sorrows and worries, and possessed by a fierce jealousy, fits of despair seemed to possess [Chow Kum]. The climax came one day when she tried to jump from a window with the little girl in her arms. After that she had to be taken away from the Home.”

—Donaldina Cameron, mission home report on Chow Kum

1904

Dolly stepped off the train into the midmorning sunlight of a hot August day. She had arrived in Philadelphia at last, nearly a week late. Today she would see Charles Bazatas. She could hardly believe it had been nearly four years since she had seen the man with whom she hoped to build a future.

The weeks and months and years had passed, one after the other, and still they were living on opposite ends of the United States. Anticipation simmered in Dolly as she thought about what it might be like to see Charles after all this time. She was older, he was older, they were both wiser. Perhaps.

Charles’s letters were always full of enthusiasm for his work, and Dolly replied in kind with briefer summaries of hers. In truth, the last few years had been hard. She thought of the girls and women who had left the mission home—some of their own accord, others by a judge’s ruling to return to their “uncles” or “grandfathers,”