My hands needed to feel a body. Would they go through it because I was staring at a ghost, or would I get stabbed in my eye?
I’m not sure how I put one foot in front of the other until I was standing just inches from my target. I was afraid to blink, otherwise the vision in front of me would vanish. My arms were heavy like lead as I lifted them to touch the person in front of me. I extended my arm as my hand slowly made contact. “My God, Nina. It really is you.” It was like looking into a mirror. My face was reflected back at me.
She nodded. “Yes. It’s me.”
I pulled her body into mine and just held her. She was alive! My sister was alive! My voice came out muffled as I spoke into the crook of her neck. When I pulled back slightly, I wasn’t sure how much longer I could contain my emotions. I was overcome by them. My voice cracked just a bit. “Get out! Everyone who is not a Lee-Xiou get out.”
*****
I waited until after the room cleared and the door closed before I let my tears fall. I pulled her into another bear hug. Nina was standing here in the flesh. I had my sister back, but how? I didn’t know. Did I care? Not really, but I couldn’t help the questions that were forming in my mind. How was she standing in front of me? Where had she been all these years? What had she been doing?
“I’m surprised you’re allowing yourself to cry.” Her voice was soft.
I pulled back from our embrace. “My heart hasn’t beat properly since the day of your funeral, and now you’re right here in front of me. It’s . . . it’s . . .” I couldn’t find the right words. “Surreal doesn’t begin to describe it. I think this deserves a few tears. My God, Nina. I have so many questions.”
“Yes. I’m sure you do.”
I took her hand in mine and led her to the nearest set of chairs. The excitement flowing through my veins was uncontainable. My words tumbled all over each other. “What happened? Where have you been? If you were alive all this time why didn’t you reach out to me?”
It seemed as if Nina looked through me as she went back into the recesses of her mind. “As long as Chang was alive, I had to pretend to be dead in order to protect the people I loved.”
“I could have helped you. We could have dealt with Chang together.”
“No. We couldn’t have. We’d all be dead. When Chang discovered that I’d deceived him and that I’d married Luciano, the anger that roiled within him was akin to madness. He couldn’t believe that I’d defied and embarrassed him after arranging my marriage to Tao Shueng. The writing was on the wall for me.”
“Tao Shueng. Yes. I remember. His is one of the four holdouts in The Family that’s trying to challenge me for leadership. Chang wanted to use that marriage to build a permanent alliance with them.”
“Yes. Well, when you came back from the United States pretending to be me until the birth of Cecily, it bought me a little time. His patience ran out shortly after she was born, and Chang wanted to set a date for the wedding.”
“Right. I know all of this. You told me to tell him no, and I did. His anger was pretty intense, and that’s why I hopped a flight back to the United States for a while.”
“Joseph tipped me off to Chang’s plans. I knew he would be angry but not angry enough to hurt me. At first, his plan was to try and force me to come home for the marriage, but I remained defiant. Then, he figured it had to be a man that would cause me to be so resolute in my decision. You know him, he had to get to the bottom of my “situation” and find out who the man was. In his digging, he discovered my marriage license, and that I was already married to Luciano.”
“Joseph told you?” It took everything not to vomit at the mention of his name. “He was probably the one who tipped Chang off in the first place, the bastard.”
“You always hated him because you both competed for Chang’s affections. I was never a threat to Joseph. We had a good relationship. Imagine what would have happened had he not told me about Chang?”
“I don’t have to imagine it, Nina. I lived it! I’ve thought you were dead for fifteen years. Do you know the hell I went through trying to deal with your death?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. At the time, I thought faking my death was the only option. Joseph told me Chang was so unhinged when he found out the truth that he was planning to take care of his problem with a car accident. Did you know Luciano was supposed to be in the car with me too? Since I knew of the plan, I was able to prevent that. If Chang had known about Cecily, he would have devised something that would have taken us all out together. I’ll always be grateful to Joseph. He saved our lives.”
Those words were hard for me to hear. “You do know he killed Luciano right?”
Quietly, she spoke. “I know. That
