Chapter 3

The jeep rode a lot smoother than the ox cart.

I pressed against the window and watched the poplars on either side of the road stream backward.

Forty miles. The ox cart had eaten up a whole morning.

The jeep did it in an hour.

The car had barely stopped at the gate of our yard before a crowd of villagers gathered to gawk.

They murmured among themselves. "Well now... isn't that the third Henson boy? Didn't he get thrown in prison? How's he coming back in a car!"

"Yeah... a car like that, only the higher-ups get to ride in one."

Inside the yard.

My father was crouched on the threshold smoking, and my stepmother sat under the eaves mending shoes for that precious son of hers.

When they heard the commotion outside, my father looked up, and the color drained from his face.

His pipe clattered to the ground.

He pointed at my uncle stepping down from the jeep, shaking all over. "You... you... how did you get out?"

My uncle smoothed the front of his freshly washed Mao suit.

He looked my father over, amused, the way you'd look at a man who'd seen a ghost, and let out a soft laugh. "Owen Henson, the debt from eight years ago... it's time we settled it today!"

My father stumbled back a step, hit the threshold, and dropped hard onto the ground.

My stepmother rushed over to prop him up, forcing a shaky smile. "What talk is this? We're all family, what debt is there to settle? Come inside and sit, I'll go boil some water for you."

She reached for my uncle's arm, but the young driver put out a hand and blocked her.

"Show some respect. Comrade Henson is a specially protected talent now. He's not someone you can put your hands on."

My stepmother snatched her hand back, terrified, and stood off to the side, not daring to say another word.

The villagers crowded at the gate erupted. "A specially protected talent? Then... the third Henson boy isn't a bad man after all?"

"I always said it wasn't right. A man with his temper, how could he ever be a counter—"

"So him going to prison... doesn't that mean... Owen Henson framed him?"

The words cut into my father's face like knives, one after another.

His face went green, then white, and with a thud he dropped to his knees in front of my uncle.

"Third brother, I was wrong! I lost my head back then... I wronged you... I wronged your sister, and I wronged Cordelia most of all! Spare me... I know I was wrong..."

My father knocked his head against the ground, thud after thud, until his forehead was red.

My stepmother knelt down too, clutching the hem of my clothes and crying. "Cordelia, after all the care I've given you day after day, help me talk your uncle round... your little brother is still small, he can't grow up without a father!"

5

Watching my stepmother cling to my clothes and sob, I felt not a shred of pity. Only disgust.

Eight years. When had she ever cared for me?

From the day she married in, I was driven out to live in the woodshed.

Winters I shivered until my whole body shook. Summers the mosquitoes bit me until I was covered in welts.

Her son ate fluffy white bread rolls. I gnawed coarse cornbread, and I had to count out each piece I was allowed.

The slightest thing that didn't please her, and out came the rolling pin.

This was the care she was talking about?

Ha.

What a joke.

I flung her hand off and stared at her, cold. "Care for me? From the day you married in, the washing, the cooking, feeding the pigs, hauling the water, which one of those wasn't me? Last winter my hands were cracked with frostbite and you still sent me down to the river to wash your son's diapers. That's caring for me? My father strung me up from the rafters and beat me, and you stood there egging him on to hit me a few more times. That's the care you're talking about?"

The moment the words were out, my stepmother's face went bone white.

She slumped to the ground and forgot even to cry.

The muttering around us grew louder.

Every look turned toward my father and stepmother now carried contempt.

Hearing all this, my uncle grew angrier still. He grabbed me and pulled me behind him, shielding me.

Then he fixed my father with a cold stare. "Owen Henson, back then, to marry this woman and get your hands on the little dowry my sister left behind, you framed me and put me away for eight years. My sister can't rest easy even in her grave. Every bit of suffering Cordelia has taken under your roof these years, I'm going to collect on it, one account at a time, starting today!"

When he finished, my uncle lifted his chin toward the driver beside him.

Allan Gray reached into his bag at once, drew out a letter stamped with a red seal, and handed it to the district head standing nearby.

The moment the district head saw that red seal, his hands started to tremble.

He turned to my father at once. "Owen Henson! I knew back then the materials you handed in weren't right. So it was a false accusation! Get up! You're coming with me to the county administration office to cooperate with the investigation, right now!"

He had barely finished when two militiamen from the county walked in.

They hauled my father up on the spot and dragged him out.

Only now did my stepmother truly panic. Wailing, she threw herself around my uncle's legs. "Third brother, have a heart, let us off... you've had the children's father taken away, how are the two of us supposed to live..."

But my uncle paid her no mind. He turned to me instead. "Sweetheart, go pack your things. We're going home to Los Angeles. That's where our real home is."