Little Fires Everywhere (30 page)

“Now, Mrs. McCullough,” Ed Lim said, setting his pen down at his table. “You've spent all your life here in Shaker, is that right?”

Mrs. McCullough acknowledged that it was.

“Shaker Heights High School, class of 1971. Did you go to Shaker schools all the way up?”

“From kindergarten. At Boulevard, back when it was still K to eight. And then the high school, of course.”

“And then you attended Ohio University?”

“Yes. Class of 1975.”

“And after that you moved back to Shaker Heights. Directly?”

“Yes, I'd been offered a job here, and my husband—my fiancé at the time—and I knew we wanted to raise a family here.” She shot Mr. Richardson a quick glance at his table, and he gave her the merest nod. They'd talked about this in prep: the focus was to remind the judge, whenever possible, of how much she and Mr. McCullough wanted this baby, how family focused they were, how devoted they were to little Mirabelle.

“So you've really lived in Ohio your entire life.” Ed Lim seated himself on the arm of his chair. “May Ling's parents, as we all know by now, came from Guangdong. Or perhaps you know it as Canton? Have you ever been there?”

Mrs. McCullough shifted in her seat. “Of course we plan to take Mirabelle there on a heritage trip. When she's a bit older.”

“Do you speak Cantonese?”

Mrs. McCullough shook her head.

“Mandarin? Shanghainese? Toisan? Any dialect of Chinese?”

Mr. Richardson clicked his pen irritably. Ed Lim was just showing off now, he thought.

“Have you studied Chinese culture at all?” Ed Lim asked. “Chinese history?”

“Of course we're going to learn all about that,” Mrs. McCullough said. “It's very important to us that Mirabelle stay connected to her birth culture. But we think the most important thing is that she has a loving home, with two loving parents.” She glanced at Mr. Richardson again, pleased that she had managed to work this in. There are two of you, he had said; that might be a big advantage over a single mother.

“You and Mr. McCullough are clearly very loving. I don't think anyone has any doubts about that.” Ed Lim smiled at Mrs. McCullough, and Mr. Richardson stiffened in his seat. He knew enough about lawyers to know when they were about to snap the trap shut. “Now, what exactly will you do to keep May Ling ‘connected to her birth culture,' as you put it?”

There was a long pause.

“Maybe that's too big of a question. Let's back up. May Ling has been with you for fourteen months now? What have you done, in the time she's been with you, to connect her to her Chinese culture?”

“Well.” Another pause, a very long one this time. Mr. Richardson willed Mrs. McCullough to say something, anything. “Pearl of the Orient is one of our very favorite restaurants. We try to take her there once a month. I think it's good for her to hear some Chinese, to get it into
her ears. To grow up feeling this is natural. And of course I'm sure she'll love the food once she's older.” Yawning silence in the courtroom. Mrs. McCullough felt the need to fill it. “Perhaps we could take a Chinese cooking class at the rec center and learn together. When she's older.”

Ed Lim said nothing, and Mrs. McCullough prattled nervously on. “We try to be very sensitive to these issues wherever we can.” Inspiration arrived. “Like for her first birthday, we wanted to get her a teddy bear. One she could keep as an heirloom. There was a brown bear, a polar bear, and a panda, and we thought about it and decided on the panda. We thought perhaps she'd feel more of a connection to it.”

“Does May Ling have any dolls?” Ed Lim asked.

“Of course. Too many.” Mrs. McCullough giggled. “She loves them. Just like every little girl. We buy her dolls, and my sisters buy her dolls, and our friends buy her dolls—” She giggled again, and Mr. Richardson's jaw tensed. “She must have a dozen or more.”

“And what do they look like, these dolls?” Ed Lim persisted.

“What do they look like?” Mrs. McCullough's brow crinkled. “They're—they're dolls. Some are babies, and some are little girls—” It was clear she didn't understand the question. “Some of them take bottles, and some of them, you can change their dresses, and one of them closes her eyes when you lay her down, and most of them, you can style their hair—”

“And what color hair do they have?”

Mrs. McCullough thought for a moment. “Well—blond, most of them. One has brown hair. Maybe two.”

“How about the doll that closes her eyes? What color are her eyes?”

“Blue.” Mrs. McCullough crossed her legs, then uncrossed them again. “But that doesn't mean anything. You look at the toy aisle—most dolls are blond with blue eyes. I mean, that's just the default.”

“The default,” Ed Lim repeated, and Mrs. McCullough had the feeling of being caught out, though she wasn't sure why.

“It's not anything racist,” she insisted. “They just want to make a generic little girl. You know, one that will appeal to everyone.”

“But it doesn't look like everyone, does it? It doesn't look like May Ling.” Ed Lim stood up, suddenly towering over the courtroom. “Does May Ling have any Asian dolls—that is, any dolls that look like her?”

“No—but when she gets older, and she's ready, we can buy her a Chinese Barbie.”

“Have you ever seen a Chinese Barbie?” Ed Lim asked.

Mrs. McCullough flushed. “Well—I've never gone looking for one. Yet. But there must be one.”

“There isn't one. Mattel doesn't make one.” Ed Lim's daughter, Monique, was a junior now, but as she'd grown up, he and his wife had noticed with dismay that there were no dolls that looked like her. At ten, Monique had begun poring over a mail-order doll catalog as if it were a book—expensive dolls, with names and stories and historical outfits, absurdly detailed and even more absurdly expensive. “Jenny Cohen has this one,” she'd told them, her finger tracing the outline of a blond doll that did indeed resemble Jenny Cohen: sweet faced with heavy bangs, slightly stocky. “And they just made a new one with red hair. Her mom's getting it for her sister Sarah for Hanukkah.” Sarah Cohen had flaming red hair, the color of a penny in the summer sun. But there was no doll with black hair, let alone a face that looked anything like Monique's. Ed Lim had gone to four different toy stores searching for a Chinese doll; he would have bought it for his daughter, whatever the price, but no such thing existed.

He'd gone so far as to write to Mattel, asking them if there was a Chinese Barbie doll, and they'd replied that yes, they offered “Oriental
Barbie” and sent him a pamphlet. He had looked at that pamphlet for a long time, at the Barbie's strange mishmash of a costume, all red and gold satin and like nothing he'd ever seen on a Chinese or Japanese or Korean woman, at her waist-length black hair and slanted eyes.
I am from Hong Kong,
the pamphlet ran.
It is in the Orient, or Far East. Throughout the Orient, people shop at outdoor marketplaces where goods such as fish, vegetables, silk, and spices are openly displayed.
The year before, he and his wife and Monique had gone on a trip to Hong Kong, which struck him, mostly, as a pincushion of gleaming skyscrapers. In a giant, glassed-in shopping mall, he'd bought a dove-gray cashmere sweater that he wore under his suit jacket on chilly days.
Come visit the Orient. I know you will find it exotic and interesting.

In the end, he'd thrown the pamphlet away. He'd heard, from friends with younger children, that the expensive doll line now had one Asian doll for sale—and a few black ones, too—but he'd never seen it. Monique was seventeen now, and had long outgrown dolls.

Now, back in the courtroom, Ed Lim paced a few steps. “How about books? What kind of books do you read with May Ling?”

“Well.” Mrs. McCullough began to think. “We read her a lot of classics.
Goodnight Moon,
of course. And
Pat the Bunny
—she loves that.
Madeline. Eloise. Blueberries for Sal.
I've saved all my favorites from when I was a child, and it's very special to get to share them with Mirabelle.”

“Do you have any books that feature Chinese characters?”

Mrs. McCullough was ready for this one. “Yes, in fact, we do. We have
The Five Chinese Brothers
—it's a beautiful retelling of a famous Chinese folktale.”

“I know that book.” Ed Lim smiled again, and Mr. Richardson's shoulders grew tight. Whenever Ed Lim smiled, he was learning, you had to watch out.
You just can't tell what he's really thinking,
Mr. Richardson
thought, and then, instantly chagrined,
What a terrible thing to think.
He flushed. “What do those five Chinese brothers in the book look like?” Ed Lim was asking.

“They're—they're drawings. They all look alike—I mean, a lot like each other, they're brothers, that's part of the story, no one can tell them apart—” Mrs. McCullough fumbled.

“They have pigtails, don't they? And little coolie hats? Slanty eyes?” Ed Lim didn't wait for Mrs. McCullough to respond. His daughter had seen this book in the school library in second grade and returned home deeply troubled.
Daddy, do my eyes look like that?
“Not exactly the image of Chinese people I'd want May Ling to have in 1998. What about you?”

“It's a very old story,” Mrs. McCullough insisted. “They're wearing traditional costume.”

“How about other books, Mrs. McCullough? Any other books with Chinese characters?”

Mrs. McCullough bit her lip. “I haven't really looked for them,” she admitted. “I hadn't thought about it.”

“I can save you some time,” said Ed Lim. “There really aren't very many. So May Ling has no dolls that look like her, and no books with pictures of people that look like her.” Ed Lim paced a few more steps. Nearly two decades later, others would raise this question, would talk about books as
mirrors
and
windows,
and Ed Lim, tired by then, would find himself as frustrated as he was grateful.
We've always known,
he would think;
what took you so long?

Now, in the courtroom, Ed Lim stopped in front of Mrs. McCullough's chair. “You and your husband don't speak Chinese or know much about Chinese culture or history. You haven't, by your own testimony, even thought about that entire aspect of May Ling's identity. Isn't it fair to say
that if May Ling stays with you and Mr. McCullough, she will effectively be divorced from her birth culture?”

At this point, Mrs. McCullough burst into tears. In those early weeks she had fed Mirabelle every four hours, held her every time she cried, and watched her grow until her heels stretched her newborn rompers almost to the breaking point. It was she who had checked Mirabelle's weight regularly, who steamed peas and sweet potatoes and fresh spinach and pureed them and fed them to Mirabelle in doll-sized spoonfuls. When Mirabelle spiked a fever, it was she who spread a cold washcloth on her forehead, who pressed her lips to that little brow to test the heat. And when an ear infection turned out to be the culprit, it was she who fed antibiotic syrup drop by drop into Mirabelle's small pink mouth and let her lap it up like a kitten. She could not, she had thought as she bent to kiss the baby's flushed cheek, have loved this child more if it had come from her own flesh. All night—because feverish Mirabelle would not sleep except in motion—she cradled Mirabelle in her arms and paced the length of the room. By morning she had walked nearly four miles. It was she who, after breakfast, before bath time, and at bed, nuzzled Mirabelle's soft belly until the baby gurgled with laughter. She was the one who had caught Mirabelle in her arms as she stumbled to stand upright; she was the one to whom Mirabelle stretched out her own arms when she was in pain, or afraid, or lonely. She would know Mirabelle in pitch dark by one cry of her voice—no, one touch of her hand. No, one breath of her smell.

“It's not a requirement,” she insisted now. “It's not a requirement that we be experts in Chinese culture. The only requirement is that we love Mirabelle. And we do. We want to give her a better life.” She continued to cry, and the judge dismissed her.

“It's all right,” Mr. Richardson said as she took her place beside him.
“You did just fine.” Inside, however, even he was beginning to feel a faint tremor of doubt. Of course Mirabelle would have a good life with Mark and Linda. There was no question about that. But would there be something—
something
—missing from her life if she were to grow up with them? Mr. Richardson was suddenly keenly conscious of Mirabelle, of the immense weight of the complicated world on this one tiny, vulnerable person.

On the courthouse steps, when the reporters stopped them, he made a brief, anodyne statement about having faith in the process. “I have complete confidence in Judge Rheinbeck, that he'll weigh all the issues and make a fair decision,” he said.

The McCulloughs did not appear to notice this subtle shift in his tone—in earlier statements he'd spoken with some force about how clear it was that they should receive custody, how obvious it was they would raise her best, how completely evident it was that Mirabelle belonged with the McCulloughs (she
is
a McCullough, he'd insisted). Nor did the newspapers, which ran stories titled
LAWYER FOR ADOPTIVE PARENTS CERTAIN OF WIN
. Mr. Richardson, however, was far less certain than the news stories made it sound.

At dinner that evening, when Mrs. Richardson asked how the day's hearing had gone, he said little. “Linda testified today,” he said. “Ed Lim was pretty hard on her. It didn't look good.” He meant
for Mrs. McCullough,
but as the words left his mouth an idea occurred to him, a way to spin this, and later that evening he would call his contacts at the paper. The following morning, the
Plain Dealer
would publish a story mentioning Ed Lim's “aggressive” tactics, how he had badgered poor Mrs. McCullough to the point of tears. Men like him, the article would suggest, weren't supposed to lose their cool—though it was never specified
whether “like him” meant lawyers or something else entirely. But the truth was—as Mr. Richardson recognized—that an angry Asian man didn't fit the public's expectations, and was therefore unnerving. Asian men could be socially inept and incompetent and ridiculous, like a Long Duk Dong, or at best unthreatening and slightly buffoonish, like a Jackie Chan. They were not allowed to be angry and articulate and powerful. And possibly right, Mr. Richardson thought uneasily. Once the article came out, a number of people who had been neutral threw their support behind the McCulloughs; some who had been on Bebe's side found their passions cooling.