The Girl Who Wrote in Silk (29 page)

“
Zài jiàn
, Mei Lien,” he whispered into the cold night.

Now back in her kitchen, Mei Lien felt the familiar dark void pulling her down. Unable to fight it, she slid to the dirty wood floor and whispered, “Good-bye, Father. Good-bye, my son.”

Saturday, August 18—present day

Rothesay Estate, Orcas Island

“And here we thought all these years he didn’t talk about his past because he was a paper son.” Margaret scooted forward to take a scone from the plate Inara placed on the coffee table.

“What’s a paper son?” Inara too took a scone still warm from the oven and bit into it as she sat down next to Daniel. Despite pushing him away the last few days, she was happy he was here now.

It was Vera who answered. “During the time of the Exclusion Act, only a limited number of Chinese citizens, such as merchants or diplomats, were allowed into the U.S. One way many Chinese got around the law was to purchase papers that identified them as the son of an American citizen.”

Margaret jumped in. “Let’s say there was a Chinese merchant with U.S. citizenship status. He would travel to China for a few years, and when he returned, he would claim to officials that he had gotten married and had several children in the time he was away. In reality, all he did was sell identity papers, which, years later, upon reaching America, the purchasers produced, identifying them as sons of the merchant. They were sons on paper only, but it worked.”

Inara nodded as she let the explanation sink in. Too many people had worked hard to get to this country only to be treated cruelly once they arrived. It was heartbreaking.

She listened as Daniel continued to bring his family up-to-date on his team’s Yan-Tao/Ken research. She was nearly as behind as everyone else since they hadn’t spoken in days. It had been easier that way.

She planned to tell Daniel that night about losing her father’s loan. She shouldn’t have avoided him like she did the past few days, but she’d needed the time to process the fact that she’d failed at the one thing in life she’d ever really wanted.

Just thinking about it again sent gnawing shame burning through her. Her own father thought her incapable of building and running a hotel. To him she was only good for going to work for an established company where she’d be led by the hand if necessary. Obviously, he thought it necessary.

If only she hadn’t spent so many years doing what he expected of her, she might have discovered sooner this passion for the islands and the hotel business. If only she’d worked while going to grad school and paid down her student loans, maybe she’d qualify for a loan of her own. If only…if only.

Now that Daniel was here, she yearned to talk to him about it all, get his perspective, feel his support. She needed to know she wasn’t alone.

But later. Without his family around.

She leaned into his side as they sat together on the couch under the window in her living room—no, Dahlia’s living room, she corrected herself. It wasn’t hers anymore.

She slid her hand into Daniel’s, needing an anchor for her mixed up emotions. He looked at her and his face softened into a smile. Then he squeezed her hand and resumed talking to his family, who had gathered here after settling their belongings in the guest rooms upstairs.

“Because I believed Ken Chin was a paper son and Yan-Tao a natural-born citizen,” Daniel told them, “I never thought to check immigration records for either name. So this week, just to be sure, I sent my assistant to NARA, the National Archives and Records Administration facility on Sand Point Way. As I expected, she found nothing.”

“What about his birth certificate?” Cassie sat in the armchair next to the fireplace Duncan had added to the house. Her long hair was pulled into a carefree bun and she had her designer-jeans-encased legs tucked under her. She seemed completely at home here and Inara wondered, if she squinted her eyes, would Cassie look like Mei Lien sitting in this house?

Daniel nodded in response to his sister’s question. “It’s in state records under the name Yan-Tao Kenneth McElroy. We still don’t know where the name Chin came from, other than the hypothesis that he chose to change it when he ran away from the orphanage to keep anyone from finding him.”

“It is a common family name,” Vera told them from her perch on the opposite couch from Inara. She sipped at the oolong tea she’d brought as a gift, which Inara had promptly steeped to serve with the store-bought scones.

“You know,” Inara said now as she looked at the scones. “I hadn’t consciously thought of this when I decided to serve you scones, but we’re enjoying refreshments from both sides of your ancestry. McElroy was Scottish, right?”

Apparently none of the Chins had thought about their Scottish ancestry because they all looked at her with various expressions of stunned surprise.

“Mei Lien should’ve embroidered a kilt,” Cassie quipped.

Margaret turned to her mother-in-law. “Why did we believe the family stories going back to ancient China? Who came up with them?”

Vera’s lips pressed together and her gaze darted out the window. “Perhaps the stories from Ken’s wife’s family got mixed up with his. She was the daughter of one of the wealthiest and most influential Chinese families in Seattle at the turn of the century, you know.”

They all nodded as though her explanation made sense, but Inara saw the way Vera avoided looking directly at any of them. Perhaps it had been Vera herself who’d made up the stories.

“Vera,” she ventured hesitantly, because the woman still hadn’t warmed up to her. “Can you tell us more about Ken, your father-in-law? What was he like?”

Vera’s scrunched-up eyes were locked on the windows and the driveway outside but Inara knew she was looking back in time. “He was a man who carried the weight of a heavy past everywhere he went.” Her arthritic fingers absently rubbed together on her lap. “I once asked him about his parents, hoping he’d slip and admit to being a paper son or, at best, tell me about his childhood in China. He did neither. He turned away from me without saying a word but not before I saw sadness come over him. It was as if the thought of his parents caused him physical pain. My husband told me never to ask such questions again. I didn’t.

“But some things I did know,” she went on, looking directly at Inara. “He was fascinated by water but was deathly afraid of it. He loved fountains, going for walks along the sound or lakefront, even loved washing his hands in the faucet, but he flatly refused to go swimming. No one ever knew why.”

“Because the water took his father away,” Inara breathed, caught up in Vera’s description. For several long moments no one spoke.

Finally, Margaret shook her head and whispered, “That poor boy.”

Now it was Inara’s turn to look out the windows, her mind roaming the property, wondering if Mei Lien was buried out there somewhere. Had her son watched her die by Duncan Campbell’s hand? Would they ever know for sure what had happened?

“His time spent in this house must have been happy, I think,” Daniel said, breaking the heavy stillness. “For seven years he had both his father and mother and all this land to play on.”

Inara turned away from the windows to see Vera nodding matter-of-factly as though she’d made up her mind that Daniel spoke the truth.

She cleared her throat of the lump still there and forced lightness in her voice when she said, “How about a tour of the estate?”

The Chin women jumped to their feet as if they’d been waiting for her to ask.

She started with Dahlia’s house, showing them where she’d found the sleeve under the stairs. Everyone took a turn peering into the hole with a flashlight. Cassie asked about the scratch marks and dents on every stair tread, imperfections that Inara had only recently discovered after Tom ripped out the carpet runner. “Maybe the marks were from Mei Lien’s time in the house,” she mused. “It’s possible.”

Then she showed them the upstairs and explained how later generations had added the wing to the main house, which changed the configuration of the tiny bedrooms and added a sitting room for the servants who lived there.

She then showed them the kitchen garden since she was confident Mei Lien and Yan-Tao had worked here, judging by the picture on the robe. Margaret spent several minutes poking through the herbs and vegetables Dahlia had planted and Inara had resurrected. She was so enthralled with them that Inara promised her a bag of whatever she wanted to take home with her.

She was just about to lead the group into the main house through the kitchen door when she changed her mind and instead led them around the back and into the forest. When they reached the crumbling cabin she stopped. “This is where I believe Joseph and Mei Lien first lived together before he built the house.”

“Was Ken born here?” Margaret, in her cream-colored slacks and gold blouse, looked out of place standing in dappled sunlight on a carpet of fir and cedar needles.

Inara shook her head. “The property records I’ve been able to find say the house was built in 1886. He was born the following summer, so it’s safe to say he was born in the new house.”

Vera stood with her hands on her narrow hips, her eyes taking in everything that surrounded them. “How did they make a living here? It’s nothing but forest.”

“Joseph was a farmer,” Inara explained. “Where the main house and garage stand now is where I believe the McElroy’s had a barn and animal pens. The garden was probably bigger than it is today too.”

She pointed to the east. “The tract of land across the road where my builder Tom lives now used to be the McElroy family’s orchards. Maybe he’ll let us walk over there later, if you’re interested.”

Vera nodded. “I am.”

“Want to see the beach?” Inara asked, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. Here she was showing this family around property that had been in her family for over a century, yet she felt it belonged more to them than her. This was Mei Lien’s land, not Campbell/Erickson land.

And soon it could be someone else’s land.

But she couldn’t think about that now. Today was about the Chin family. She turned toward the path leading to the beach. “Come see the bay. It’s my favorite place on the whole estate.”

They fell into single file behind her as she led them through the forest to the crescent-shaped beach where she’d spent much of the past two days thinking.

The instant she stepped down the slight embankment onto the rocks, she felt a sense of peace come over her.

This beach was special. She was going to miss it the most.

Blinking to clear her mind, Inara turned and found that Margaret and Vera had spotted the eagle nest high above the beach and were looking up and pointing to it. Cassie had wandered along the shoreline and was throwing rocks into the water. Daniel smiled at Inara, his eyes full of gratitude, and squeezed her hand.

She smiled back and leaned into his side. This was the family who should own this property, she thought. Daniel and Cassie carried Mei Lien’s blood in their veins. They were the ones who should move in and make this place something meaningful again. They should carry on where Mei Lien left off as though the Campbell/Ericksons never existed.

But could they afford it? Sure, Margaret owned two successful restaurants but Inara had seen her house. The woman wasn’t wealthy and the person to invest in Rothesay needed deep pockets to keep it afloat until the hotel hit black.

And yet… Inara swallowed as a new thought struck her. Maybe she’d been going about this all wrong. Maybe it wasn’t a hotel investor she needed, but a restaurant investor. Someone looking to open a fabulous new location on Orcas Island that also happened to have a boutique hotel attached to it. Even if they didn’t provide enough capital for the entire hotel project, it would be a start.

And maybe they could focus on opening the restaurant this fall while construction continued on the hotel. If she planned carefully, and maybe found a roommate to share living expenses, income from the restaurant could help them qualify for a business loan for the rest.

But what about her student loans, the first payment due next month?

A deferment. Why hadn’t she thought of that sooner? She’d apply for a deferment of her payment due to financial hardship to put off having to pay for a few more months. Hopefully, until the hotel was making money.

And she wouldn’t have to sell right away, after all.

Hope, however tiny it might be, sprang back to life in her heart and she welcomed it. She turned to tell Daniel but saw Vera making her way to them, so she kept silent.

“Thank you for bringing us here,” Vera said, her sad expression reminding Inara of all this family was going through as they learned of their history. She watched as Vera turned back to face the water, her eyes searching the glossy surface.

Was the old woman searching for her lost great-grandmother?

• • •

As Inara let herself and Margaret into the main house’s kitchen, tendrils of fog curled through the trees, playing hide-and-seek with the morning sun that would soon burn it away. They were there to give Margaret another chance to see the restaurant space since fading light and a quickly approaching dinner hour had cut their time short the night before.

Inara flipped on the panel of light switches and watched with satisfaction as Margaret’s face lit up. Except for the finish work, the kitchen and restaurant space that now took up the back half of the first floor was complete.

Margaret clearly delighted in everything she saw as she moved purposely through the space, touching vent hoods, prep stations, bakers racks. “You have a Vulcan Hart range! It’s what I use in my own restaurants. Are you working with a professional chef?” Margaret ran her fingers along the cold steel edge of the stove.

Inara wrapped her own freezing hands around the mug of tea she’d carried over with her. “No. I researched what was the best on the market right now.”

Margaret nodded and moved to the walk-in cold storage and then the dry pantry, peppering her with questions as she went. Inara answered every one, growing more and more certain of her next steps.

She’d had three days to get used to the idea of losing the hotel and she was far from accepting it. She didn’t want to leave for many reasons but the biggest was that she had unfinished business here. She owed it to Mei Lien to keep discovering her story. She owed it to Dahlia to see her dream come to life. She owed it to her mom to fill Rothesay with happy voices and life.