“Thank you, Valentine,” Rose declared. “I think that’s enough of a walk down history lane.”
Now it was Mercy’s turn to speak her mind. She started out slowly, sweetly, “Ma’am Rose? I know you’re ill and all, but have you… we were wondering… you thinking you might rebuild?”
Rose sighed. “You girls are welcome to stay on till you get your footing and I get mine. But when I say nix, it’s nix. All right?”
Nervously, they picked at their cuticles.
“All right?”
Each nodded. And with that, they were dismissed.
“Vera,” Rose said, “why don’t you stay.”
Cap was the last one out; she brushed my hand and closed the door.
“I see Capability has been doing your hair,” Rose said. Lifang tittered into her cupped hand. Rose touched Lifang’s knee to silence her. “That’s all right,” she said. “Just tell her next time, less.” Rose cleared her throat. “How are you getting on?”
“Fine. I’m fine.”
“That’s a lotta mouths to feed. Including that boy you got out back.” As she spoke, Rose glanced at Lifang; just as I expected, she’d been filling her in on all the doings in the house.
Rose examined the state of her fingernails. “So, what are you thinking? These are my best girls. You’ve got the goods under one roof, maybe you think you could start a little business of your own.”
“Me? God no!” I cried. “They… they had no place to go. There’s nothing but burned houses between here and The Rose. Tell her.” I waved at Lifang. “Tell her how bad it is.”
Biting her lips, Lifang picked up her scissors and ripped a seam.
Rose shook her head. “If it’s a charity you’re running, let me tell you something: where those birds flock, men follow. One way or another, those girls are going to be doing the one thing they know how to do. So, I’ll ask you again, what’s your plan?”
“I have no plan,” I admitted.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” she said. “Where there’s no plan, time has a way of making its own arrangements.” She leaned against her pillow and her turban tipped to one side. “All right, then. Go on. Send up Tan, will you?”
“Why do you need Tan?”
“Why? I don’t believe I need a why,” she declared. “I need him to fetch something for me downtown.”
“What do you need fetched?”
Rose considered what, of her endless list of secrets, she was willing to share with me. “The safe at The Rose,” she said. “It was meant to be fireproof. We’d better dig it up and see what’s left, before someone else finds it.”
“I’ll take care of it,” I said, and my heart skipped at the thought that the cash inside the safe might save us. I had a half basket of potatoes and eleven mouths to feed; the last of the chickens had gone under Tan’s cleaver two nights earlier. But in her room, there was toast and tea and flowers—and Lifang.
“You’ll handle it?” she asked, her mind trying to run ahead of me. “Ah, the boy out back. You’ll send the boy and his horse.”
“Yes.”
The one eye tick-tocked. “Tan will need to go too.”
Lifang looked up. “But, Rosie, it’s not safe for Father,” she whispered. “A Chinese cannot go downtown.”
“It’s safe enough,” Rose replied. “Folks on the street know Tan. He may need to vouch for me, should there be questions.”
Lifang thought to protest but decided against it. Instead, she tore the hem on one of Rose’s fine silk dresses.
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Lifang,” Rose said, “go on, now. Go help with supper and have some yourself.”
Lifang sighed. It was in fact the opposite of a sigh—not a lessening of tension, but a gathering, a combustible storm of all the things Lifang could not do. She dropped her scissors in the drawer beside the bed and slapped the drawer closed. After she left, the room was so full of her silent protests, for a moment we didn’t move.
“Come here, you,” Rose said at last, and patted the bed beside her. I stayed where I was, perched on the edge.
“You know, I’m only blind in one eye,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I see you.”
“And I see you.” Trying to make my voice sound reasonable, I added, “Why do you like her more?”
“Not more,” she corrected, pointing her finger. “Easier. I can’t explain better than that. It’s easier.”
I nodded, not because I wanted to agree, but because I couldn’t deny it. Easier would never be me and Rose.
“She soothes you,” I said, trying it on.
“Why, yes. That’s it,” she agreed. “Lifang has a way of soothing my mind.”
“Don’t you ever miss… having, you know, family?”
“Never,” she declared.
“But,” I started saying.
“What? What but?”
“You kept a box of my baby things. When I was putting your room to rights, I found it.”
She rubbed her hand across the quilted silk coverlet. “Those dresses… I had them made special. With good lace in them. For you,” she added, and she turned her hand over to show me her empty palm.
I said, “I want a family. Sometime.” And I was seized with a longing so deep and wide, it took my breath.
“Then you shall have it.” Her hand closed into a fist. “I hope you do.”
“But not with you.”
She shook her head. “I have no talent for it. That kind of feeling I don’t ever recall. I felt responsible for you, but that’s all. I suppose I’m more like a man that way.” Rose chewed her lip, trying it on. “Hmm. The madam is a hard nut, eh, Vera?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think the madam is used to hiding out.”
“Ha!” She snorted. “Well, with this face, I suppose I should. You know, when I was a little girl in Mexico City, living on the street, the old slum dogs you’d see, the true mutts, why, they’d have one eye or an ear lopped off. No bother, no fuss. They’d be wheeling down
