Archive of Our Own ^beta

On Wil’s first birthday it rained. Her grandfather griped about it all morning, lamenting that the guests would be late. On the phone Lao-Yu assured him that rainfall was a sign of good fortune to come. In any case, Hwei-lan already had the umbrella stand prepared, warm tea steeped and ready to be served. Wil was in her crib, ogling the raindrops as they came down against the window, landing in funny shapes on the glass. On the carpet in the living room, seven objects were arranged in an evenly spaced circle. Everything was in place. Everything—except Hwei-Lan’s hair, held up in her hand as she fumbled through the drawers in the bathroom. Her reflection in the mirror was too pinched, face tight. She didn’t look at it for long.

“My clasp,” she muttered to herself, and then, louder: “my hair clasp. Have you seen it?”

Her husband’s reply was a mumble from the other room. “How would I have seen it?”

By then, the first guests were beginning to arrive. She left her hair down.

The guests swept into the house in a flurry of sodden umbrellas and a burst of chatter, all of which Hwei-lan took with a gracious smile on her face, hanging up wet coats and returning greetings, accepting gifts and offerings of gossip that she’d missed out on in her new livelihood as a mother. Later she emerged from the bedroom with Wil in her arms, setting off another round of commotion, all cooing and cheek-pinching. Eventually when all was finally settled Hwei-lan set Wil down in the center of the circle, and the ceremony began.

On the carpet, Wil blinked at the items laid before her: a calligraphy brush, a book, a ten-dollar bill. She shifted, scratched her nose. Looked unsure of how she’d gotten there.

“The spool of thread,” gasped Mrs. Chen. “She’s going to make a wonderful housewife!”

“The rattle drum,” gasped Mrs. Wong. “She’s going to live a life full of pleasure and joy!”

“Quiet,” ordered Wil’s grandfather. “Let her make her choice.”

And Wil wouldn’t remember this, but her mother would tell the story over and over, at dinner parties and hair salons and mahjong games, to those who hadn’t heard it and to those who’d heard it before and even to those who were there at the time. In the hush of anticipation, all the guests holding their breath, Wil crawled out from the circle and stuck her hand under the couch.

She pulled it back out holding a golden hair clasp, affixed with a red jeweled flower.

A pause.

“She’s going to be a beauty,” Mrs. Wong said. “The envy of the world!”

“She’s going to be wealthy,” Mrs. Chen said. “Prosperous in both money and child!"

“That’s mine,” Hwei-lan said. Her hand going to the back of her neck. She stared down at her baby daughter on the floor, and repeated, faintly stunned: “Mine.”

Wil put the hair clasp in her mouth and tried to bite it. Outside, the clouds rumbled; the heavens opened. A storm.

*

Like any household secret, you didn’t talk about it, but everyone knew it was there. The way Wai-gong always knew the time, without having to look at a watch or a window or even the shadows of the trees; the way Wai-po always knew the perfect amount of spice or salt or sauce to add to a dish, no matter the serving size. Not even Ma’s cooking ever tasted the same. As for Wil—she never even bothered trying to learn. Through her residency she lived off KFC and pizza and even the occasional General Tso’s chicken, cheap and greasy and appealing precisely for its deliberate wrongness, for being so blatantly what it advertised itself to be.

Of course, all that changed when Ma got knocked up, and moved in, and took over her kitchen. Wil would stumble through the front door to the smell of stewed fish and pickled mustard greens and stinky tofu, abruptly chasing away any lingering traces of disinfectant or the garbage stench of the street. You’ll never get it right, she thought at first out of some misplaced pity, watching her mother putter busily around the kitchen in an apron, hair pinned up out of the way; later the thought turned into, you can’t seriously still be trying. All the steam and the scent in the air taking up the space for anything else that might be said.

Even when Wil got home late, there would be a bowl left in the fridge, covered with a lid. Sometimes Wil would pretend not to have seen it. Then sometimes she would eat it, every last grain of rice in the bowl; and she would put away the dishes, and go to bed still hungry.

*

“My mom always knows where everything is,” Vivian said three days into their relationship.

Wil squinted up at the bedroom ceiling. Her brain was still fuzzy, recovering from the past few minutes, and her body was sprawled under the covers, lazy and sluggish. “Like... in her room? Is she really organized?”

Vivian smacked her shoulder. She propped herself up sideways onto one elbow, her hair falling across Wil’s face. “No. I mean, she knows where everything is. She can walk into a new neighborhood or city and know instantly where she has to go, without even looking at a map.”

Wil blew the hair out of her face. “Oh. Huh.” She paused. “You guys talk about that stuff?”

“Yeah,” Vivian said, in that patient tone of hers that meant she felt it very generous of her to refrain from saying duh. “I’m so jealous. That’s a really useful skill. Me, I never get dizzy. It explains the dancing, and I can ride roller coasters forever, but that’s where the practicalities end.”

“Wow, no, what are you talking about, that is the greatest power ever,” Wil said, but she couldn’t keep a straight face, and Vivian smacked her shoulder again.

“What can you do?” Vivian said, and the smile wiped itself off Wil’s face.

“I find things,” Wil said with a shrug. “Lost things. Keys, mostly, and change. The occasional wallet.”

“Are you serious?” Vivian’s eyes were shining, corners of her mouth creeping upward as though in laughter at a joke Wil didn’t know yet. “How does it work?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really think about it. It just happens, sometimes.”

“It just happens,” Vivian repeated in disbelief. “Oh, come on. That’s amazing. How can you tell, where you’ve left whatever it is?”

Wil shrugged again. She’d never really talked about this before, and amazing seemed too big a word for digging old socks out from under the bed or remembering halfway to work that she’d forgotten her umbrella and—worse—knew exactly where it was currently lying and not helping anyone. “It’s just a feeling, I guess.”

“Ooh, a feeling, that explains it,” Vivian said, but maybe she could tell Wil was starting to squirm, because she dropped the topic and instead leaned in close to murmur in her ear: “You put that skill to use and found your strength for round two yet?”

“Oh my god, that was awful,” Wil yelped, shoving at her, but Vivian was giggling and ducking back down under the covers, eyes dark with intent, and then nobody really said anything else of worth for the next little while.

*

On the day Wai-po passed away, the sun had risen early, and shone bright.

No one could have known.

It didn’t stop Ma from looking at Wil once, on the way out of the hospital. The two of them sharing a single sharp glance, and Wil knew they were both seeing, hearing, reliving the same thing: the low, quiet words that had been said that night in the dark, over the steady drone of the television. Any fortune-teller worth their salt could have said: a bad omen, a portent, a sign of things to come. It might as well have been a curse. This was all the good that came from speaking secrets to life.

Then Ma turned away, helping Wai-gong down the hall, and Wil left to go home to an empty apartment.

Turned out loss was bigger than keys and socks. It settled itself into a hollow spot in her chest like a cold lump and stayed there. But there was nothing to find, nothing to recover, so all Wil could do was feel it, until she fell into a numbing sleep.

*

On Friday morning Wil woke up to a ringing telephone.

“Bleh,” she said into the receiver, after fumbling with it for a good minute. “Hello. Who is this.”

“Don’t forget,” Ma said, bright and cheerful. “You’re coming to the party tonight.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Wil said, rolling her eyes.  

“Don’t be late. You have to come.”

“I said I would already, okay?”

“And bring an umbrella,” Ma said.

Wil squinted out the window. “Why? The sun’s out.”

“It’s going to rain,” Ma said. Something in her tone, urgent. “Trust me.”

Wil checked her alarm clock. She was going to be late. “Sure, Ma,” she said, “see you later.” She hung up the phone, rolled out of bed. Threw on her clothes, washed her face, brushed her teeth. Found her umbrella stashed under a pile of her clothes before leaving for work.

Later that night Wil and Vivian burst out of the building doors to a storm. They stared, blinking, at the downpour before them, as though they had come into an entirely new world. The rain sluicing from the rooftop drainpipes and down the windshields of parked cars on the street, pattering against the sidewalk. They weren’t wrong, Wil supposed. She was clutching Vivian’s hand. Everything was different, now.

“I’ve got it,” Wil said, digging her umbrella out from the bottom of her bag.

“So prepared,” Vivian said. Her tone still kept a little cautious, as though not daring to hope, but she couldn’t keep the sly grin from creeping over her face. “It’s not like you.”

Wil shrugged. “I learned it from my Ma,” she said, and she opened the umbrella in one swift motion, raised it over their heads, and they ran headlong into the wonder of that changed new world.

*

It was a rare evening at home. Wil could have been doing anything—watching TV, eating at a nice restaurant, kissing the dimples in Vivian’s cheeks—but instead she was sweating and cursing in front of a stove, phone balanced between shoulder and ear, Ma’s voice leaking tinny and impatient from the receiver. “You must not have marinated the fish properly,” Ma said.

“I did everything you said—I don’t understand why this has to be so difficult—” Wil glanced up. Vivian was watching from the table. “You don’t have to be here for the process, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” Vivian said, chin propped up on one palm, looking fascinated.

“I mean it, you know,” Wil said. “I said I would cook dinner for us, and I’m going to.”

“Okay, babe,” Vivian agreed. “You do that.”

Wil returned her attention to the pan. Somehow, she didn’t think it was supposed to be smoking like that.

“It’s going to snow,” Ma said on the phone, out of nowhere.

“What? It’s almost spring.”

“It’s going to snow,” Ma insisted. “Did you add the sauce yet?”

“Oh, shit.”

“Don’t speak to your mother like that!”

“I was talking to the fish, not you.”

“Doesn’t Vivian know how to cook? She made that chicken last time I came over. It was very nice.”

“I just thought,” Wil said. Something was burning. “I just wanted. You know. To learn. I wanted to try.”

“Ah,” Ma said. A pause. “Well, why didn’t you say so. Next time, you come over to my place, and we’ll do it together.”

“Oh.” Wil straightened up. “That sounds... good, actually. Yeah. Let’s do that.”

“Good,” Ma said, and then, “snow! Remember! I’ll see you later.”

“Later?” Wil repeated, but Ma had already hung up.

“Babe,” Vivian said. “I think your fish is on fire.”

Wil switched off the stove. Smoke was everywhere. She sighed. “This was stupid.”

“I think it’s sweet,” Vivian said.

“Shut up.”

“Aww. Is now a good time to say that I ordered KFC ten minutes ago?”

“God, you’re a lifesaver.”

“Really?” Vivian laughed. “How are you going to repay me, then?”

“Oh, I can think of a few ways,” Wil said, taking a step closer, and then another. Vivian watched her back, eyes shining in anticipation. Sitting in the kitchen of Wil’s apartment like she belonged there. How had they tumbled into this, Wil wondered; how had they found each other at all? Some things weren’t magic. Some things just were.

She slid into Vivian’s lap, drew her forward by the shoulders, and mouthed at her ear, down the line of her jaw, to the dimples of her smile. Jackpot.

The telephone rang.

Wil startled so badly she toppled the both of them over onto the kitchen floor.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Wil groaned, burying her face in Vivian’s chest.

Vivian pushed her off. “I’ll get it,” she said, getting to her feet. Wil rolled off her and onto the floor, sprawling dramatically over the tiles.

“Hello, you’ve reached the residence of Wilhelmina Pang,” Vivian said into the phone. Wil shot her a dirty look. “Yes, she’s here. Who is it? Oh.” A pause. “Oh. Really? Right now?”

Something caught Wil’s eye outside the window. She squinted, looked closer.

Huh. That was snow.

“You’re on your way to the hospital?” Vivian said, and Wil snapped back to attention.

“Oh, shit,” she said.

*

When Lillian was born it snowed. Wai-gong griped about it in the hospital waiting room, complaining that it had taken him so long to get there through the storm. Lao-Yu assured him that snowfall was a sign of good fortune to come. “Most things seem to be,” Vivian muttered in Wil’s ear; Wil swatted her away because it tickled and not because anyone was watching, though fuck ’em if they were.

Xiao-Yu burst out of the hospital room. “It’s a girl!” he announced, and then promptly burst into tears.

When Wil could finally enter the room, Ma was flushed pink and pleased. The baby in her arms was considerably less so, face wrinkled and pinched. Wil winced at the sight as she perched herself on the chair next to the bed.

“She looks just like you did,” Ma said, which made Wil wince again.

“Gee, I hope not,” Wil said.

“Just look at her,” Ma said, voice hushed. “Look at you.”

They sat there doing just that.

“Did I ever tell you that story,” Ma said after a while. “Your choosing ceremony.”

“Oh god, Ma, please don’t. You’ve told it so many times by now, I know, I know. I didn’t choose anything in the circle, I found your hairpin instead. I know.”

“Hair clasp,” Ma corrected. “You were always doing the unexpected, right from the start. I knew you were special.”

You didn’t talk about it, but everyone knew it was there. Magic was like that, but family was, too.

They watched Lillian gurgle for a while, shifting around and scrunching her face up tight.

“What do you think she’ll choose?” Wil asked. “When her ceremony rolls around?”

Ma shrugged, rocking Lillian in her arms. Humming slightly to herself. “Some things I like to be kept a surprise,” she said.