Min had never woken beside a man before. She suffered no moment of disorientation or surprise the next morning, though. Before her eyes opened she knew where she was, and who had crowded her to the very edge of the bed. She remembered making love the first time downstairs on the couch, and the second time, long after supper, here in Zhao's bed.
This is nice, she decided drowsily, pleased with the heat of his body, the cool comfort of cotton sheets... the novelty of not being alone in the first moments of the day.
Zhao was as greedy asleep as he was awake, she decided with a sleepy smile. He sprawled over the biggest part of the bed. One of his legs lay alongside hers, and his arm was flung over her waist as if he were claiming her. Or maybe, she thought, amused, he's just staking his claim to the small corner of the bed he's left me.
But it was nice, very nice, to lie there and watch her lover in the hazy predawn light. She could let herself enjoy this closeness as long as she didn't expect it to last.
The light had shifted from near-dark to gray when she saw Zhao open his eyes. He looked at her and smiled as if he were happy to wake beside her.
Alarm stirred, but it came from so deep inside she could almost ignore it.
His hand left her waist to cover her breast. "Good morning," he said, his voice thick with sleep, his thumb gently rubbing her nipple. And all at once she was awake, wide awake, with zippy little flashes of heat rocking through her system.
I can do this, she told herself as she smiled back and her flesh came alive beneath his slow stroking. I can have him without needing him.
"They're more sensitive now, aren't they?" He looked pleased with himself. A bit smug. He tugged the sheet down then and smiled at the sight of her breasts. After a moment his expression changed. "It won't be all that long before our baby is nursing there, will it?"
An ache moved through her. It swam up from a place too deep inside, too private, a place no one should have been able to reach-an ache that had nothing to do with sexual hunger. The feeling was rich and necessary, like taking a full breath after years of constricted breathing, and it terrified her.
He isn't going to stay, she reminded herself. She couldn't need him, not in any way except the thoroughly physical one in which they'd joined last night. So she cupped the hand that touched her breast, pressing it more firmly to her.
"At the moment," she said, "it's just you and me in this bed, and you're giving me some interesting ideas about how to start the day." She smiled, threaded her fingers through his hair and urged him closer. "How about a good-morning kiss?"
She thought he was going to turn her down. For one second he looked like a cop, not a lover- skeptical, knowing. Panic touched her. She couldn't afford for him to know what she felt-what she had almost allowed herself to feel.
He'd use it, just as he had used her before.
Then he bent to her breast and kissed her good morning that way, and soon enough she forgot her reasons for offering herself in the delight of having her offer accepted.
And it was safe, perfectly safe, to allow herself this plea-sure, because her feelings for Zhao hadn't changed at all after making love to him again.
By noon, the sun had burned off the last of the clouds that had been drizzling rain on Wutongshu the past couple of days. When Zhao pulled into Gongmu Cemetery at 1:15 that afternoon, the sky was a hot, hazy blue. Grass rolled over the acres of graves in waves of green as gaudy as a parrot's feathers.
He'd spent the morning interviewing witnesses in a celebrated murder case Special Investigations had recently inherited from Homicide celebrated because the suspects all came from two prestigious families. The rich, Zhao had discovered long ago, had pretty much the same problems the rest of the world did. Chances were good the murder had been committed for very traditional reasons: either love or money.
Zhao was putting his money on love this time. Of course, some people would argue that an emotion so twisted with jealousy that it drives a lover to kill her beloved isn't really love.
After twenty years on the force, Zhao didn't agree. Love came in all sorts of shapes and forms. Some were prettier than others, less confusing. Less elemental. He'd been reminded of that today when he tried to crack the alibi of a young woman who had probably killed her older lover rather than continue sharing him with his wife.
That's why he was at Gongmu today—because there was more than one way for a man to love a woman.
Zhao parked his Jeep in one of the lots scattered around the grounds and picked up the bouquet that lay on the seat beside him. It was a modest handful of flowers he'd bought at a florist's along the way here because it had daisies in it.
Shi Yun had loved daisies.
In a world of straight lines and right angles, the shapes here at the cemetery were different. Paths wound around the grounds in curves, bending here, dipping there; plantings were scattered, not locked behind straight lines or in square beds. The graves themselves were gently rounded mounds.
The path he walked now was bleached gravel, unreasonably white in the afternoon sunshine. It crunched beneath his feet, a vaguely satisfying sound that blended pleasantly with the occasional song of a bird. The noise and haste of Wutongshu faded here, cushioned by the trees surrounding the place... and, perhaps, by something timeless and immaterial that rested here, along with the dead.
He paused by an elm that looked as if it had stood vigil there for a hundred years. That tree was the main reason for the spot he'd chosen to lay her to rest. He'd wanted her to have the shade and the birdsong.
He set his palm against the trunk of the tree. His eyes closed for a moment.
She wasn't here. He knew that. Whatever mysteries death concealed, Zhao knew Shi Yun was gone from this world. Yet love isn't logical. Whenever he came here he stopped by the elm and placed a hand on its trunk, glad it was here for her.
When he reached her grave he went down on one knee to lay the bouquet in the grass. He was supposed to get the groundskeeper to provide a vase and water for the flowers, but he never did. He wanted them to rest right on top of the earth that covered her, and if the flowers faded and died a bit more quickly this way, what did that matter? Shi Yun, too, was dead.
"Hi," he said softly. The ground was damp. He felt it through the denim of his jeans. "I'm not sure why I'm here today. I guess...do you know about Min? If you do, then you probably know more about why I'm here than I do." She'd often understood what he felt before he did. Zhao fell silent, remembering. Shi Yun and he had grown up together, so he had a lot of memories to call on. They'd drifted apart as young adults, then come back together years later as if they'd planned it that way.
She hadn't been perfect. Not a perfect woman, or the perfect wife for a policeman. He was beginning to understand that she'd been too dependent in some ways, fearful about his job and so oblivious of mechanical matters that she'd run her car out of gas every two or three months and called him at work to come get her.
She'd also been gentle and funny and loyal, and incredibly dear. "You were so easy to love," he told her. "I was the hard case. Isn't that what you used to tell me? That I was a hard man to love, but worth it? Well," he said un-evenly, "I've found another hard case, and I... dammit, 1 never expected to care again. I don't know how to handle it."
For several minutes he knelt there in silence. A bird called from nearby. Another answered. His pant leg grew damp from the ground beneath him.
Zhao didn't receive absolution, or feel the comfort of his old love's presence one last time. He didn't imagine her whispering her blessings to him. Mostly he felt quiet and private and alone as he knelt there, and yet... not entirely alone.
When he stood, he stared at the flowers he'd brought her for a moment longer. He smiled then, but it was a sad smile, because he understood some things he hadn't before. Guilt, like grief, can become a way to hold on to someone who's gone.
Sometimes, the answer was as simple, and as sad, as saying goodbye.
When Zhao walked in the front door at eight o'clock that night, Min was pacing the living room.
"I should have called," he said automatically, setting his hat on the small table in the entry. He had to set what he carried on the table, too, so he could take off his jacket and begin unbuckling his shoulder harness. "Sorry I'm late."
"What?" She stopped, looked at him, and shook her head. "Oh. No problem." Belatedly she added, "I hope you didn't have a bad day?"
And that, he thought, amused, ought to teach him about making assumptions. Min's mind was obviously occupied by more important things than whether he was on time for supper. He hung his shoulder harness next to his jacket.
"Not bad, but frustrating. I was trying to track down a lead and kept hitting dead ends." He picked up what he'd set on the table a moment ago.
"I know how that feels," she muttered, adding, "There's some Moo Shoo Chicken in the refrigerator if you're what's that?"
"Flowers," he said. "I think they're called 'bird of paradise.'" He walked over to her and held out the elegantly exotic stalks wrapped in green florist's paper.
"I don't need flowers." But she took them from him quickly and held them up to her face.
"There's not much scent, I'm afraid."
"No," she agreed, staring at the flamboyant orange blooms, her expression soft and surprised. "But they're beautiful."
"They reminded me of you."
Now she looked up. Wariness warred with the pleasure on her face. "I would have pegged you for a roses man. These are... different."
"You don't like them?"
She didn't look at him. After a moment she shrugged,
"What's not to like? They're spectacular. I'd better get them in water." She hurried into the kitchen.
Zhao followed, wondering what he'd done wrong. Were the flowers too showy, and she didn't like that? Had she wanted the traditional roses? Or was she still so uncertain of him that anything vaguely tender or emotional made her pull up the drawbridge?
He thought about their lovemaking that morning. Min accepted one sort of emotion from him now, but she might be using their mutual passion to block out other, more dangerous feelings. "So why were you pacing when I got here, if you weren't upset over me being late?"
She knelt beside the one unpacked box in the kitchen, rummaging through dish towels and miscellany until she came up with a tall, green vase. "I'm a little edgy, I guess."
"Something wrong?"
"No." She went to the sink to run water into the vase.
Both his eyebrows went up. "Well, that's good." He went to the refrigerator and took out the little white boxes from the Chinese place a few blocks away. He grabbed a beer to go with it, turned around and dangled the bait. "I'd ask if it was that time of the month, but it can't be, can it?"
She rose to it beautifully. Eyes blazing, she rounded on him. "Oh, if that isn't just like a man! As if everything in a woman's life is tied to her hormonal clock!"
He smiled. "So," he said gently, "if it isn't your hormones tying you up in knots, Min, what is it?"
She just looked at him for a moment. The water filled the vase in the sink behind her, then overflowed. She turned around and shut it off. She took her time pouring out the excess water, then fussed with the way the tall stalks sat in the vase.
Finally she spoke. "I learned my mother's name today."
"Min." He crossed to her quickly and set his hands on her shoulders. She was stiff, resistant. He didn't care. He turned her to face him. "That's big news."
Her eyes shone, but it was an angry sort of pain he saw, not happiness. " Sichun Weiguang. What kind of a name is that, Sichun?" She pulled away and started to pace.
Zhao didn't know what to say. "How did you find her?
Was she one of the women who took her baby home before naming it?"'
"The Weiguang baby left the hospital still unnamed, but I don't know who took it home. The records mention a birthmark on the left hip, like mine. And there's the foot-prints." Thirty-one years ago the nuns had needed to establish an official identity for an infant whose origin was unknown. It hadn't been simple. Among other things, they had foot printed their new charge. Min had a copy of that record to compare with the newborns' footprints in hospital records. "It's not definite, of course. I'm no expert at matching footprints."
But it must be pretty certain, to have her wound up this way. "So you looked at her record," he said carefully.
"What did you learn?"
She stopped and looked at him, but the woman who made her living putting things into words apparently couldn't speak of this. She turned and headed to the living room.
Zhao followed.
"See for yourself," she said, taking a large envelope from the folder where she kept her search materials. "I've got a copy of her record. You look."
He took it from her and pulled a blurry photocopy out of the envelope. There was little enough to read. On June first, thirty-one years ago, Sichun Weiguang had been delivered of a baby girl. Then she'd hemorrhaged, and died.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly.
Min stood near the patio door, staring off into some private distance. Her arms hugged her waist. Her voice was tight with anger. "She was only nineteen years old, Zhao.
She was only nineteen years old when she died."
Zhao had to guess, and hope he guessed right. Min's anger might be born of fear. Her mother had bled to death in childbirth. It would be only human for Min to be afraid now that she faced the same ordeal. Or her anger could be part of the enormous disappointment of learning her mother's identity, only to discover that it was forever too late to get to know the woman.
Or her anger might be rooted in guilt. Zhao chose instinctively. "It wasn't your fault, Min."
"Wasn't it?" She swung around, her arms wide. "I've blamed her. All these years I've blamed her, only she died, She took medicine to help her give me a chance to be born, and then she died giving birth to me and I-I- Do you know what I thought when I was little?"
"Tell me."
Unable to be still another second, she paced a few jerky steps before she stopped, one hand resting on her stomach.
She rubbed it as if she were trying to soothe the tiny life growing inside her, to protect it from the wildness of her own emotions. "Did you ever wonder why I wasn't adopted? Babies, even mixed-breed babies, could usually find a home. Not me. She didn't relinquish her rights to me, you see. No, she or someone— just dumped me on the steps of St. Mary's like an unwanted kitten. It was years before the court would formally terminate my unknown mother's parental rights. Courts were very careful of parents' rights in those days," she finished bitterly.
"If you feel guilty for thinking it was your mother's fault, you should a real home. had made it impossible for you to be given a real home. What was more natural than to think it was your mother— even to hate her for it?"
"But I didn't hate her," she whispered. "Not for a long time. Not until the day when I turned seven and something one of the older girls said well, you might say she gave me a reality check. Until then...I knew why the courts wouldn't let me be adopted, you see. There was a chance she would come back for me. And... for a long time, I believed she would."
Oh, God. Zhao could imagine it all too easily. Min at five or six had probably been all hair and bones and scratched-up skin from a dozen scraps or tumbles. The green eyes and dusky skin would have made her look exotic even then. Different. It was hard on a child to be different.
And so she'd told herself tales. Tales about the mother who had given her into the care of the nuns but would return someday, and then she would have the family she craved.
Zhao would have gone to her then. He wanted to, badly, but some instinct honed from years of asking questions and listening for the answers, spoken and unspoken, held him still. Min wasn't finished.
After a moment, she sighed and looked at him. "All these years," she said. "All these years, I've been sure my mother must have been the different one, the one from Mexico or Italy or wherever. Look at the name she gave me. Only it wasn't her, was it? Now I find out her name was Weiguang." She smiled, but it was a wretched effort.
"What kind of a name is that for an Italian, Sichun Weiguang?"
She was so bright and brave and stubborn. She wasn't going to come to him, wasn't going to admit to either of them she needed comfort.
But when he went to her and put his arms around her, she leaned against him. It's a start, he thought as he slowly combed his fingers through her hair. "I imagine that thinking of her as being different, the way you felt you were different, made you feel a little closer to her."
She gripped the sleeve of his shirt in one hand and laid her cheek against his chest. "So," she whispered. "What do I do now? Do I keep looking? I had a father. Sichun must have had relatives. Do I look for him, for them?"
"Only you can answer that, Min. If you decide you want
She was silent for so long he gave up on getting an answer and just stood there, running his fingers through the wild curls that trailed past her shoulders. For once she was willing to let him hold her when they weren't having sex, and he was guiltily aware of how much pleasure that gave him.
Zhao didn't dare push her this time. He didn't know exactly what Min needed, or how she could find it. He knew what he wanted, though. If she could find a way to forgive the first, most terrible abandonment, maybe she could come to forgive him, too.
"Someone dumped me on St. Guer Cun's steps two months after Sichun died," she said at last.
"I want to know who
it was, and why. Do you think we can find out anything after so much time has passed?"
"Oh, yes." He grinned with a hunter's disciplined elation. "If there's any kind of trail, I'd bet on us to find it.
After all, I'm a damned good cop and you aren't so bad at what you do, either."
He knew the muffled sound she made was a chuckle when she punched him in the stomach.
For the next week, Min attacked her new search with the single-mindedness that had made her a top reporter, but this investigation was different. This time she had to know.
She'd spent most of her life persuading herself that who she came from was unimportant compared to what she did with her life. She still believed that was true professionally.
But on a personal level...on a personal level she was lost. Maybe it was the new life she carried that created her obsession with the past.
Or maybe it was Zhao, and what he made her feel both in bed and out of it. She tried not to think about that.
She had a name. That was the center of their search, her mother's name, because the hospital records were incomplete. Nothing on them indicated who had taken the tiny baby home. For the next eight days, though, that name didn't seem to do them much good.
Oh, they got a little more information. It only took two days for Zhao to get confirmation of the footprint ID from an FBI expert who owed him a favor, so they knew for certain that this woman, this Sichun Weiguang, had truly been her mother.
By checking with the funeral homes nearest the hospital, Min learned who had paid to have her mother's body readied for burial: Huang Weiguang, Sichun's father. But they found no Huang Weiguang in area phone books or property tax rolls. Nor did the man have a Texas driver's license or vehicle registration.
The garage apartment where Sichun had lived before going to the hospital had been torn down fifteen years ago, and her former landlord was dead. Zhao had walked the block, looking for older residents who might remember her, without luck. A contact at the electric company confirmed that Huang Weiguang had lived in Wutongshu, and that he'd worked at a service station. But he'd discontinued electric service right after his daughter's death, and they didn't have a forwarding address.
According to hospital records, Sichun had gone to a free medical clinic during her pregnancy, but it had been a shoestring operation that folded in 1970. So far they hadn't tracked down anyone who had worked there, but Zhao was following up a lead on one of the nurses.
On Thursday, Min turned into her parking space at the apartment after running a few unavoidable errands. She turned off the ignition and sighed. She did know a little more than she had eight days ago, she told herself. She knew that Sichun hadn't lived with her father, though she had been young and unmarried and, as far as they could tell, unemployed. They didn't know whether she'd been living on her own, with a roommate, or, just possibly, with Min's unknown father... the one who was different, like her.
Huang Weiguang had apparently left town right after his daughter's death. He hadn't waited around long enough to take his new granddaughter home from the hospital. So she also knew he hadn't wanted her. He wasn't the one who had named her and left her on the orphanage steps.
Min was distracted as she climbed out of the Mustang, carrying a department store shopping bag. She was halfway to the apartment when someone said her name. She jumped.
"I hope I haven't come at a bad time."
She turned to find Haoran Yang watching her. His expression was so like Zhao's it reinforced the thoughts of character and heredity that had preoccupied her lately.
"No," she said a bit warily. She hadn't seen Zhao's father since the night of the party, though Ashi had kept in touch.
"You've got pretty good timing, actually. I've got another forty minutes of 'up' time long enough to put some coffee on, if you'd like to come in and have a cup."
"Thank you. I'd like that."
"It's decaf," she warned as she started for the front door.
"My doctor would be pleased. You're feeling well, Min? My wife tells me you're very faithful to the regimen the doctor has you on."
"No problems, aside from a tendency I've recently developed to doze off whenever I stop moving for long. Ashi and my books agree that's normal for this stage." The occasional drowsiness wasn't the only recent change. Three of the purchases in the shopping bag she carried were bras in a larger size, but she didn't care to mention that to Zhao's father.
They talked about unimportant things while Min got the coffee started. Once they both had a mug, though, Haoran spoke with a bluntness that again reminded her of his son.
"Min, I told you on the night of the party how sorry I am for what you overheard. I wanted to do something to make it up to you for whatever hurt I caused, so...I hope you don't mind. Zhao has told me some of the details of your search, and I took it on myself to do a little digging." Her heart pounded with a mixture of alarm and anticipation. "What do you mean?"
He set his mug down. "I had an idea. It was a long shot, but I wondered if the Weiguang might have been immigrants. The names are distinctively Irish. 'Huang,' in particular, isn't uncommon in Canada, but is almost unheard of here. I have a few contacts still, and-well, to make a long story short, I tracked Huang Weiguang to Chengdu through his visitor's permit. He became a naturalized citizen there."
He took a deep breath. "I found your grandfather, Min. Huang Weiguang is still alive."