Red Thread Sisters (9781101591857) (11 page)

“Ni hao.”
Wen heard a voice she'd know anywhere.

“Auntie Lan Lan, it's me, Wen.”

“Ah, Wen! You called us!” Auntie Lan Lan shouted, as if her voice needed to cross the ocean.

“Auntie Lan Lan, do you know Shu Ling's birth date? The exact date? There's been a big mistake. The people over here think she's thirteen.”

“Thirteen.” Wen heard Auntie Lan Lan sigh. “Almost too old for adoption.”

“Right,” said Wen. “So can you check her file, to be sure? Maybe there is a scratch-out. Maybe somebody read it wrong.”

“Director Feng is on a trip. I'll go to the files in his office and pick up the phone there. You hold on, OK?”

In the background, Wen could hear the babies. She'd forgotten how loudly the babies cried, how the air seemed to pulse with their wailing.

Auntie Lan Lan's voice came back on the phone. “I have it.”

“Read me her birth date, Auntie Lan Lan.”

“It says Shen Shu Ling was born thirteen years ago. So she turns fourteen this January 12.”

“Go over it again. Is there another date somewhere on the page?”

“No, Wen. That's it. I remember now how, in the beginning, when Shu Ling came here, there were so many babies all left at the same time. The aunties tried, Wen, but some of them got the birth dates mixed up. So early on, especially because Shu Ling was so malnourished, we must have thought she was a year younger and kept using that age. But the file is right, it gives the official date.”

“This,” Wen gasped, “this cannot be possible.”

“She is thirteen now. Wen, I am sorry,” whispered Auntie Lan Lan.

“It's OK, Auntie Lan Lan. It's not your fault,” Wen said. “I must go now. Thank you for answering my question.”

Suddenly, there was so little time left.

“Of course, Wen. Maybe you will find a family for Shu Ling even so,” Wen heard Auntie Lan Lan say.

“Maybe. Bye, Auntie Lan Lan.” Wen hung up quickly, so Auntie Lan Lan wouldn't hear her crying in America.

twenty

Out her window the next morning, Wen saw the dark skies split open and rain pound down.

“Richard,” her mother called from the sink. “We've got a leak!”

Wen and Emily tore into the kitchen, where water was collecting on the ceiling and dripping onto the stove. Just as her mother put a big pot under the leak, two other drips started, near the middle of the ceiling. Her mother grabbed two more pots.

“I thought we got the roof fixed last year,” her father fumed.

Extra,
thought Wen.
Fixed roof an extra.

They took turns dumping out the water from the pots. Soon the ceiling paint began to peel, turning the drippings a milky white.

“There goes the ceiling,” her mother said with a sigh, as she massaged her forehead.

Ceiling an extra,
Wen noted.

The streaming water beat against the metal pots.

“This noise is killing me,” her mother complained.

Wen stuffed towels into the containers and the dripping sounds softened.

“Oh, thank you, Wen,” her mother said.

“This we do in the orphanage,” Wen said.

Later, the sun came out. The dripping stopped, and Wen's mother put the pots away. Nobody mentioned the peeling ceiling.

Emily put on polka-dot rain boots and splashed in puddles in the backyard.

“Christine, the basement, come quick!” her father called.

Wen and her mother sized up the basement, where her father stood in a foot of murky black water.

“The ground's so wet, water must be seeping through the foundation,” her mother said. “We've known the foundation's had cracks for a while now.”

“Can't deal with the whole foundation now, that's for sure.” Her father grabbed a bucket and began to bail water into the basement sink.

Foundation of house an extra,
Wen thought.

What was next to go?

After Wen, Emily, and her mother helped her father bail out the basement, Wen got out paper and a ruler. She made rows and columns for the months of December and January. Then, with purple marker, she colored a huge star in the box of January 11, the day before Shu Ling's fourteenth birthday. That was the last day a family could pick Shu Ling. She'd make a black X on each day that passed without success. The blank boxes were the days full of possibility, days when Shu Ling might be chosen. Across the top, with a thick red marker, Wen wrote the word

 

COUNTDOWN!

 

It was December the first. According to Wen's calendar, just under six weeks now remained until Shu Ling's final day.

On Friday, Wen opened the Worldwide Adoptions Web site to see the new description Jenny Peters had assured her would be ready. But the same old, weary one reappeared.

Wen called Jenny. “It's Friday. Day of the new Web site. It comes today?”

“Wen, I'm so sorry. Things got held up on our end,” said Jenny. “The Web site person is telling me Sunday, now.”

Wasted days! Wen's panic rose. “Sunday the latest, please! Days fly fast.” She glanced at the calendar, its empty boxes almost screaming, “Five weeks and four days left.”

When Wen clicked onto the Worldwide Adoptions Web site on Sunday, Shu Ling's listing was updated at last.

 

This 13-Year-Old Girl

Needs a Family Now!

Pick This Treasure Before She Ages Out in a Little Over 5 Weeks!

Susie is thirteen and will age out January 12. She has a clubfoot, correctible by surgery. She is a delightful girl who helps the aunties feed the babies and gives extra love to the neediest children. She cooks very tasty noodles. She scrubs tiles until they shine, weeds well, and does all chores with the greatest energy. Susie has a cheerful disposition and a sunny smile. This girl is an artist, gifted with special talent. She has waited for a forever family for a long time. Contact Jenny Peters for additional information about how you can make Susie your daughter.

A new photograph, the one Shu Ling had sent Wen, showed Shu Ling standing on top of the hill. She wore the red good-luck tunic Wen had sent her and her flared jeans so her bad leg wouldn't show. Even though Shu Ling's face looked gaunt and pinched, she smiled bravely, as if to say,
Pick me, great daughter!
Underneath her picture was the portrait of Wen and Shu Ling that Wen's father had helped scan, the lines so gentle, the shading so fine, it showed Shu Ling's talent far better than words.

Now a family was bound to pick Shu Ling. Now some family would say, just like Wen's own family did,
There's our daughter. We choose her.

Because she had practically memorized Nancy's step-by-step list, Wen could almost hear Nancy's voice, brimming with hopefulness.
Once you find her
, she had said,
get her on the advocacy blogs of the stand-up people.
They would post Shu Ling's picture and direct people to Worldwide Adoptions, to adopt her.

Wen attached her own picture of Shu Ling, the description, and the portrait to e-mails she sent to the advocacy blog writers. By the next day, all had responded.

“Great girl. I'll feature her,” wrote Sandy from “Children Who Wait.” “You're a wonderful friend to be doing this.”

“Thanks for sending this. I'll post it right away,” replied a blog person named Linda, who had a site called “Forever Families.”

“I'm on it,” said Tom, from his “Take Me Home” blog.

“We'll find her a family as soon as we can,” Donna wrote from “Needed: One Family.” When Wen opened the blogs again, she saw Shu Ling on each one, her write-up and portrait just below her picture, with a link to the Worldwide Adoptions Web site so people would find her right away.

Five weeks and one day left.

Every day Shu Ling wasn't picked, Wen drew a black X through a square on her countdown calendar. As a week passed with nothing happening, the blog people got as anxious as she was.

 

Dear Wen,

I see a family hasn't picked your friend yet. Don't give up. We're calling her our Child of the Week. Hopefully this will bring her a lot of attention.

 

Sandy

 

Hi Wen,

No news from our Shu Ling advocacy. We've sent out a special blog alert to all our readers. Try not to worry. Somebody's bound to pick her soon.

Keep the faith,

Tom

Another storm came, the rain beating against the roof. Wen listened for leaks and wondered how the foundation was holding up. When she clicked on Shu Ling's photo, as she did several times a day, Shu Ling remained familyless. Exactly four weeks were left.

What was going wrong? Wen dialed Jenny Peters to see if she knew.

“Wen, I'm glad you called,” Jenny said. “The phone is ringing off the hook. We're getting such a response to the new description of Shu Ling. All of a sudden, people want to know about her. In the past week alone, her page got fifty-four hits.”

“Hits? What is this hits?” Wen asked.

“Clicks. People who read the words you wrote about her. Eighteen hits just yesterday, Wen. I've never seen anything like it. Nobody in the office has either. You've done a remarkable job. The blog readers are coming our way too. You must have covered every blog out there, Wen! Somebody's bound to pick her.”

“But have only four more weeks. All those hits and nobody say yes?” Wen asked.

“Not yet, but lots of activity, Wen. I've also had six or seven families call me directly, to ask more about her. I'll let you know as soon as I hear anything.”

Hits
, Wen thought as she clicked her phone shut. When would one of those hits lead to a family who picked Shu Ling?

A couple of days later, a letter arrived from Shu Ling. Wen tore open the envelope.

 

Dear Mei Mei,

 

I just got your letter and then yesterday, Auntie Lan Lan told me you had called. Yes, I am thirteen years old after all. She and I went over the file together. I wanted to be sure. And all those years we thought I was just a year older than you!

I am so sad I cannot be in your family. But it is OK, Wen. We'll visit each other in America and still see each other. I like the idea of spending summers with each other. We'll still find ways to be together. That's what matters.

Auntie Lan Lan told me about the age-out rule. Me being thirteen is bad for getting me a family, right? Just do your best, mei mei. I know you will.

 

Love,

Shu Ling

P.S. If you can't find me a family, don't feel bad. I could always be an auntie.

“I could always be an auntie,” Shu Ling had said one day last spring, just after Wen got picked for adoption. They were collecting smooth pebbles near the orphanage walkway.

“On your feet all day?” Wen had asked. “Don't you see how tired the aunties get standing so long, especially when they're older?”

Wen looked discreetly at Shu Ling's turned-in leg. How many hours a day could Shu Ling work, with that twisted leg?

“Besides,” Wen continued, “you always get so attached to all the babies, Shu Ling, and when the sick ones die, you get sad for such a long time. If you were an auntie your whole life, you'd get your heart broken, over and over.”

“But if I am not an auntie, then what?” Shu Ling had sighed, sifting through some pebbles.

“Well, think of the other older girls who left. Li Wei and Chen went to work at the chemical plant up north,” Wen said.

“I could do that,
mei mei
,” said Shu Ling.

Wen thought, then shook her head. “The fumes made those girls sick and they had to quit.”

Shu Ling put down a stone, selected another, then tossed it away too. “Jin Jing worked as a coal mining receptionist.”

Until the coal dust blackened her lungs,
Wen thought to herself.

“Mei Lin became a manicurist in the city. Somebody would hire me, Wen,” Shu Ling said.