Chapter 2

My living allowance in college was three hundred dollars a month.

Not from my family. From what I scraped out of my scholarship money.

My mother never gave me a cent.

What she did do, every time she called, was ask me: You still have money over there? If you do, send some to your brother. He's in Ashford City, his expenses are high.

If I said nothing, she'd keep going on her own: Your brother isn't like you. He's a boy, he's thin-skinned, he can't look shabby.

I told her I had no money.

She called me a tightwad, said my wings had grown hard, said I'd turned my back on the family.

Once I couldn't hold it in and said: My own living money comes from what I save out of my scholarship, I eat the cheapest thing in the dining hall every day, where am I supposed to get money for him?

She went quiet for two seconds, then said: You're a girl, why do you need to eat that well?

I hung up and lay in my dorm bed the whole night.

The next day I went to the school's work-study center and applied for a part-time job at the library.

Five dollars an hour. I went four hours a day.

Not one dollar of that money went to Nicholas.

My senior year, the school had a government-funded overseas program. Graduate study in the United States, full scholarship, only a few spots.

I applied.

The whole department had only two spots. I was one of them.

The day I got my acceptance, my advisor said to me: Sharon, work hard. You're every bit as capable as anyone.

I nodded, and my eyes stung a little.

In twenty-one years of living, it was the first time anyone had ever told me I was good enough.

I called home to tell my mother the news.

She was silent on the other end for a while, then said: Abroad? So are you even coming back?

I said: We'll see after I finish.

She said: Then before you leave, give me that card of yours.

I froze for a second.

That card was one my mother had opened for me with her ID when I started college. At the time she said it was so the family could send me living money. In truth, in all those years the family never put in a cent. I put in everything myself.

Scholarships, part-time wages, and later my pay from interning at a company, a little here and there, over twenty thousand saved up.

"Why?" I asked.

"You're going abroad. The card stays with me, just in case," she said. "Besides, your brother's about to graduate. He has to find a job, he has to rent a place in Ashford City, everything costs money."

I gripped the phone, my knuckles white.

"Mom, that's my money."

"Your money? You're out there on your own, what do you need that much money for?" Her voice rose. "Your brother's different. He's a boy. Someday he has to marry a wife, buy a house..."

I hung up.

That night, I transferred every dollar on that card into a new one I'd just opened for myself.

The next day, my mother called to curse at me.

"You ungrateful animal! Your wings are hard now, is that it? I raised you for twenty years, and this is how you treat me?"

I said: "Mom, you never raised me. From the day I was born until now, I've never spent a cent of yours."

That choked her. She couldn't get a word out for a long time.

Then she said one thing. One thing I'll never forget as long as I live.

"What right do you have to say that? You're a stray girl we picked up. I let you grow up in this family, you should be down on your knees with gratitude."

Picked up.

I stood there, my mind gone blank.

"What do you mean?"

She realized she'd let it slip, and stammered, backpedaling: "I mean... I mean you, girl, you don't know a good thing when you see it..."

I hung up.

That night I lay in my dorm bed with my eyes open until dawn.

Picked up.

Those two words were a thorn, lodged in my chest.

Life after I went abroad was harder than I'd imagined.

The language, the coursework, the daily living, one hurdle after another.

I rented the cheapest place I could find, a basement, three hundred dollars a month. Sunlight never reached the room. There was a patch of mold in the corner, and on rainy days water seeped through.

But I didn't care.

I got up at six every morning and studied until two in the morning. Weekends I worked at a Chinese restaurant, carrying plates, washing dishes, clearing tables, eight dollars an hour.

Those two years, I never once called home.

And no one at home ever called me.

Not until Nicholas got married.

That was my third year abroad. One day an email showed up in my inbox out of nowhere.

My mother had a neighbor send it for her. My mother doesn't know how to use a computer.

The email was short, just one line: Your brother's getting married. As his older sister, surely you should do something? Don't worry about the bride price, but the dowry money, you put in a hundred thousand. That's not too much to ask, is it?

A hundred thousand.

Back then I was interning at a company in Silicon Valley. Once I went full-time, the salary was sixty thousand a year. After taxes and living costs, I could save a little over twenty thousand a year.

A hundred thousand yuan, close to fifteen thousand dollars.

Every dollar I had.

I didn't reply to that email.

Three days later, my mother's call came through to my phone.

"Did you get the email?"

"I got it."

"Then when's the money coming? Your brother's getting married next month. The wedding costs money, the banquet costs money..."

"Mom, I don't have that kind of money."

"Don't give me that! You earn dollars in America, thousands a month, and you're telling me you have no money?"

I drew a deep breath. "I just started working. I'm still paying off my student loans."

"Loans, loans, what loans. Your brother's marriage is a big deal. As his older sister, you..."

"Mom, I really don't have it."

The line went quiet for a few seconds.

Then she said: "Sharon, let me tell you. If you won't give this hundred thousand, then don't come back to this house again."

My hand tightened on the phone, my knuckles white.

"Fine," I said. "Then I won't."

I hung up and switched my phone to silent.

That night, I sat in the company parking lot until well past midnight.