Invisible Orphans

Jade Moon Le

Description

A young kindergarten teacher from Hong Kong and an American expat meet serendipitously on China’s southernmost island of Hainan, a paradise where the boundless sea meets the wide sky. Soon after, young Vivi and Matthew marry and set off to live out their dreams on an organic farm in Indiana. Then, an unexpected tragedy leaves Vivi devastated. 

Struggling to maintain the farm as well as the bonds she has formed with Matthew’s family, Vivi wrestles with Matthew’s sudden absence from her life in this emotional investigation via a series of remembered conversations, letters, inner monologues, and journal entries that span over twenty years. 

Invisible Orphans delves into the universal feelings of love and loss, capitulation and perseverance, and as the dust settles, an appreciation for the strange mystery of being alive. 

Sujets

• Asian American
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Rare Bird Books
• Date de parution: 15 novembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781644283400
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

This is a Genuine Rare Bird Book
Rare Bird Books 6044 North Figueroa Street Los Angeles, CA 90042 rarebirdbooks.com
Copyright © 2022 by Jade Moon Le
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, including but not limited to print, audio, and electronic.
For more information, address: Rare Bird Books Subsidiary Rights Department 6044 North Figueroa Street Los Angeles, CA 90042
This is a work of fiction and a product of the author’s imagination. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental
Set in Minion Printed in the United States
first hardcover edition isbn: 9781644283141 epub isbn : 9781644283400
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request


For some of you, to endure means to be alive. For others, to give up means to be free from torment.


Contents
Prologue
The Encounter
Courtship
China in the Eighties
Arrival in Indiana
Honoring Rachel
Dori
Jerry
Invisible Orphan
Matthew
Turning Point
Abscota
Goodbye
Experiences of Death
Emotional Awakening
Rediscovered Suicide
The Myth of Mental Illness
The Promise
The Farm
Letters, 1985
Separations, 1991–1992
Expectation
Family History
Group Counseling
Mixed Emotions
Guilt
Finding the Way
Roots
Almost Forgotten
Another Journey
Acknowledgments



Prologue
Memory fascinates me. A word, sound, or smell recalls it. I have no control of its coming. My memory plays like a movie making itself as I watch; as if I were walking right onto a set, observing this distinct segment of the story unfold, not worrying about how it fits into the chronological order of the plot.
Memory scares me when I realize I have lost some of it and have no way to bridge what is gone.
Memory is perpetually alive with mental wandering.
Memory lives on its own; all the beauty and experience uniquely mark each of us as individual human beings, a gift and a blessing.
My memories are like a ball of yarn inadvertently cut by scissors with multiple loose strands. For each strand I pull, memory appears like a flashback in a movie: I can see the whole scene before me, filling in the gaps with my mind’s eye. As each string is unknotted, my narrative connects like a puzzle being put together, one piece at a time; a chronicle displays, a tale untangles, and a future awaits.


The Encounter
How do you react when you realize that you have lost memories? For me, tears come first without thinking of them. Then I don’t know what to do. I try to think, searching for when and what I can remember. Sometimes pieces and pieces of memories gradually surface while I am working in the garden, either tying up the tomatoes; building expansions to hold up the sunflowers; harvesting beans, cucumbers, peas, squashes, different greens; or simply weeding.
The garden has been my retreat. Feeling the serenity of being surrounded by beautiful plants, listening to the leaves susurrate and dance with the wind, and watching branches with waves of shadowy sunlight in early evenings has given me a sense of dreaming, a sense of belonging, and a sense of voicing myself. Most importantly, the garden has brought back memories that I lost years ago, but I do not know if they are in sequence.
The memories contain an unspoken promise, to Matthew. I have a story to tell; a love story evolved by serendipity with a twist of fate.
It is a distant time, back in late January 1984, the winter days just before Chinese New Year.
I was a kindergarten teacher and wanted to go somewhere that I could afford during the holiday break. In fact, I already had a place in mind. When I was in second grade, my geography teacher taught us about Hainan Island in southern China. He told us that Hainan was different than the rest of China, being the top coffee-producing area in the country. For me, growing up amid the Portuguese in Macau, the smell of coffee and the sensation of a scoop of ice cream in a glass of iced coffee on a sweltering day with eighty-seven percent humidity brought incomparable joy. My teacher also told us that in Hainan the locals’ first choice of beverage was coffee, second was cocoa, and third was tea, which was a very different preference from that of the Chinese culture I had known. I vowed that someday I would see Hainan for myself.
Hainan had just recently opened for tourism, so I bought my train and plane tickets. Lodging was not in the plan, however. Without any travel agencies servicing the island, I had no information about it. I figured that somehow I would find lodging once I got there.
Tony, my ex-boyfriend, was a calm person. Most of the time, I got my way when we spent time together. But I didn’t feel anything special, except appreciation that if I wanted to see him, he would be there at any time, no complaints. I seldom found myself thinking of him. He was merely a useful tool. He didn’t bring me excitement or make my heart jump into my throat. Clearly, this was not the romantic relationship I had envisioned.
Tony asked me to marry him in the spring of 1983. I told him that if we weren’t married by December, that meant I wouldn’t marry him. I broke up with Tony in October 1983.
❧
Ten days before my trip, Tony called and wanted to know my plans for Chinese New Year. I told him. Two days later, he informed me that he would like to join me. I said okay.
We took the train from Hong Kong across the border into the People’s Republic of China and flew from Guangzhou to Haikou, the capital of Hainan. Before boarding the plane, a businessman sat next to us in the waiting area. He told us that he was going to Hainan on behalf of his wife, who was an illegal immigrant and didn’t have proper identification and travel documents to leave Hong Kong to visit her parents in Hainan. By the time we landed on the island, the businessman suggested that we have dinner together.
When we entered the dining hall, the businessman was talking to a Caucasian. We went to his table, and he introduced Matthew to us. Matthew had traveled by boat from nearby Zhanjiang and had been guided by a People’s Liberation Army officer to the guest house, which turned out to be the designated place for all visitors to Hainan Island.
The next morning around seven o’clock, the lobby was crowded with guests. Apparently, most of the guests were just like the businessman—visiting relatives on the island. Only Matthew, Tony, and I were real tourists. By the time I reached the front desk, I heard the businessman saying to Matthew, “Don’t worry, my two friends will travel with you.”
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
Matthew looked at us. “The service manager told me that I can’t travel alone on this island. I can either join a tourist group or have a tour guide with me. Otherwise, I have to leave the island in the next few hours.”
The businessman waved his hand to the service manager and without consulting us said, “Comrade, these are my friends. They will all travel together.” He pointed to the three of us. Apparently, the service manager didn’t speak English. He pointed at Matthew and us and asked in Mandarin, “You know each other?”
I nodded.
He pulled out a form. “Fill in all the information and make sure to report to all local guesthouses with the same information.”
After completing the paperwork, we were sent to a minivan with six other guests, all of whom were visiting relatives on the island. We left the guest house around eight o’clock after a small breakfast. We had no food, no water, or any other beverage to bring with us. Along the semi-paved road, there were no vendors. But there was a beautiful blue sky and palm trees as far as the eye could see. The morning was already warm, and soon we heard the sounds of whispering waves in the distance.
After almost three hours of driving, we were thirsty. The other guests asked the driver if we could get some water somewhere.
The driver replied, “No guest houses or shops from Haikou to Sanya.”
I couldn’t imagine how parched I’d feel by the time we finally reached the other side of the island. Eventually, the driver stopped the van. He took out a machete and some ropes and walked toward a cluster of palm trees. We followed him. The sound of the waves got increasingly louder, and the palm trees seemed to shrink as the road gradually got wider. Before I knew it, we were walking on sand beneath the sun’s golden rays. In front of me was a field of coconut trees not far from shore. White flowery waves danced against the rocks, creating a harmonious contrast with the glittering emerald sea.
The driver asked one of the guests to belay him, and he swiftly climbed up a coconut tree. In no time, coconuts whooshed to the ground. Drinking fresh coconut water under the sparkling sun cured my thirst. The clean taste and feeling alive in such a splendid environment elevated my whole being.
We resumed our trip. Gradually, other passengers got off one by one. Now, only three of us, the real tourists, were left. I moved up to the front row and said to the driver, “You were so skillful and at ease climbing the coconut tree. Do you gather coconuts often?”
“Collecting coconuts became very helpful for my family. My mother learned from the natives how to make all sorts of things from the coconuts, which saved our scarce resources for other needs.” He stopped talking and looked up at the rearview mirror. I’d been listening so intently that I hadn’t realized I was leaning forward into the space above the armrest console. “I was the one to collect the free coconuts. I went to all the