The Silent Girl

“How can you replace the love of your life?” I say simply. “James is my husband. He will always be my husband.”

He takes a moment to absorb that. Then he says: “That’s the way I always thought love should be.”

“It is.”

His eyes are unnaturally bright when he looks at me. “Only for some of us.”

We reach the dumpling house, where the windows are fogged with steam. He steps forward quickly to open the door, a gentlemanly gesture that strikes me as ironic, since I am the one carrying a lethal sword. Inside, the cramped dining room is packed, and we are lucky to claim the last empty table, tucked into a corner near the window. I hang the scabbard over the back of my chair and pull off my raincoat. From the kitchen wafts the tempting scents of garlic and steamed buns, painfully savory reminders that I have not eaten since breakfast. Out those kitchen doors come platters of glistening dumplings stuffed with morsels of pork or shrimp or fish; at the next table chopsticks clack against bowls, and a family chatters in such noisy Cantonese that it sounds like an argument.

Frost looks bewildered as he scans the long menu. “Maybe I should let you order for both of us.”

“Are there any foods you won’t eat?”

“I’ll eat everything.”

“You may be sorry you said that. Because we Chinese really do eat everything.”

He cheerfully accepts the challenge. “Surprise me.”

When the waitress brings out an appetizer platter with cold jellyfish and chicken feet and pickled pig’s feet, his chopsticks hesitate over the unfamiliar selection, but then he bites into a translucent chunk of pork cartilage. I watch his eyes widen with a look of delight and revelation.

“This is wonderful!”

“You haven’t tried it before?”

“I guess I haven’t been very adventurous,” he confesses as he dabs chili oil from his lips. “But I’m trying to change all that.”

“Why?”

He pauses to think about it, a strip of jellyfish dangling from his chopsticks. “I guess… I guess it’s about getting older, you know? Realizing how few things I’ve actually experienced. And how little time there is to do it all.”

Older. At that I have to smile because I am almost two decades older than he is, so he must consider me ancient. Yet he does not look at me that way. I catch him studying my face, and when I return the gaze, his cheeks suddenly flush. Just as my husband’s did the first night we courted, on a spring evening heavy with mist, like this one. Oh James, I think you would like this young man. He reminds me so much of you.

The dumplings come, soft little pillows plump with pork and shrimp. I watch in amusement as he struggles to pick up the slippery morsels and ends up chasing them around the plate with his chopsticks.

“These were my husband’s favorites. He could eat a dozen of them.” I smile at the memory. “He offered to work here without pay for a month, if they would just give him their recipe.”

“Was he also in the restaurant business in Taiwan?”

His question makes me look straight at him. “My husband was a scholar of Chinese literature. He was descended from a long line of scholars. So no, he was not in the restaurant business. He worked as a waiter only to survive.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“It’s too easy to assume that the waiter you see here is just a waiter, and the grocery clerk is only a clerk. But in Chinatown, you can’t assume anything about people. Those shabby old men you see playing checkers under the lion gate? Some of them are millionaires. And that woman over there, behind the cash register? She comes from a family of imperial generals. People are not what they seem here, so you should never underestimate them. Not in Chinatown.”

He gives a chastened nod. “I won’t. Not now. And I’m sorry, Mrs. Fang, if I in any way sounded disrespectful of your husband.” His apology sounds utterly sincere; it is yet another reason I find this man so surprising.

I set down my chopsticks and regard him. Now that I have eaten, I finally feel able to address the subject that has been hanging over our meal. The noisy family at the next table rises to leave with a squeal of chair legs and a noisy chorus of Cantonese. When they walk out the door, the room suddenly seems silent in their absence.

“You came to ask about my daughter. Why?”

He takes a moment to answer, wiping his hands and neatly folding his napkin. “Have you ever heard the name Charlotte Dion?”

I nod. “She was the daughter of Dina Mallory.”

“Are you aware of what happened to Charlotte?”

“Detective Frost,” I say, sighing, “I was forced to live through those events, so they are embedded here, forever.” I touch my head. “I know Mrs. Mallory was married before, to a man named Patrick Dion, and they had a daughter named Charlotte. A few weeks after the shooting, Charlotte disappeared. Yes, I know about all the victims and their families, because I’m one of them.” I look down at my empty plate, glistening with grease. “I’ve never met Mr. Dion, but after his daughter vanished, I wrote him a condolence card. I don’t know if he still cared about his ex-wife, or if he mourned her death. But I do know what it feels like to lose a child. I told him how sorry I was. I told him I understood his pain. He never wrote back.” I look up at Frost again. “So yes. I know why you’re asking about Charlotte. You’re wondering the same thing everyone else did. The same thing I’ve wondered. How is it possible for two families to be so cursed? First my Laura disappears, and then two years later, his Charlotte. Our families linked by both the Red Phoenix and the loss of our daughters. You wouldn’t be the first policeman to ask me about it.”

“Detective Buckholz did, I assume.”

I nod. “When Charlotte vanished, he came to see me. To ask if the two girls might have known each other. Charlotte’s father is very wealthy, so of course she received a great deal of attention. Far more attention than my Laura ever received.”

“In his report, Buckholz wrote that both Laura and Charlotte studied classical music.”

“My daughter played the violin.”

“And Charlotte played the viola in her school orchestra. Is there any chance they met? At a music workshop, maybe?”

I shake my head. “I’ve already gone over this with the police, again and again. Except for music, the girls had nothing in common. Charlotte went to a private school. And we live here, in Chinatown.” My voice trails off and I focus on the next table, where a Chinese couple sits with their young children. In the high chair is a little girl, her hair done up in tiny pigtails that stick up like spiky devil horns. The way I used to arrange Laura’s hair when she was three years old.

The waitress brings the check to our table. I reach for it, but Frost snatches it up first.

“Please,” he says. “Let me.”

“The elder should always pay for dinner.”

“That is the last word I’d use to describe you, Mrs. Fang. Besides, I ate ninety percent of this meal.” He sets cash on the table. “Let me give you a ride home.”

“I live only a few blocks from here, in Tai Tung Village. It’s easier for me to walk.”

“Then I’ll walk with you. Just to be on the safe side.”

“Is this for your protection, or for mine?” I ask as I reach for my sword, which has been hanging over the chair.

He looks at Zheng Yi and laughs. “I forgot that you’re already armed and dangerous.”

“So there’s no need to walk me home.”

“Please. I’d feel better if I did.”

It is still drizzling when we step outside, and after the steamy heat of the restaurant it’s a relief to breathe in the cool air. The mist sparkles in his hair and glazes his skin, and despite the chill I feel unexpected warmth in my cheeks. He has paid for dinner and now he insists on walking me home. It’s been a long time since a man has been so solicitous toward me, and I don’t know whether to feel flattered or irritated that he considers me so vulnerable.

We walk south on Tyler Street, toward the old enclave of Tai Tung Village, moving into a part of Chinatown that