Brother

No one told a better story -- a scarier story -- than Zhou Lei, my Chinese teacher. On Sunday afternoons, five or ten minutes before our parents were scheduled to pick up their adopted Chinese daughters, Zhou Lei would look around the conference table in the basement of Temple B’nai Chaim, tell us to put away our pinyin workbooks, open a seemingly inexhaustible tin of butter cookies, and say, “Now I tell you something.”

The cookies were as dry as aspirin and we ate them to quell our fear more than our hunger.

“You believe in ghost?” she’d ask, as her eyes swept from face to face. The question was rhetorical; even Mei Qui, oldest among the six of us, didn’t dare answer. “If not,” Zhou Lei would continue, “maybe you believe after this.”

“Happen someplace not far from here,” she’d start:

Young girl about five-year-old. Adopted from China. She very nice girl to new mommy and daddy, except for one thing. Just before this girl -- her name Yu Tian, but called ‘Lilly’ in America -- start school, she begin acting strange. Her mommy watch her outside in yard talking to somebody. Only nobody there. When mommy ask, Yu Tian say, “That Bohai. My brother from China. He big. Almost teenager. With beautiful blue eyes.”

Well, mommy worry about this, but daddy tell her it’s nothing. Daddy say, “Soon Lilly start school and have many real friends. No need for make-believe friend any more.” But Yu Tian doesn’t want to go to school. She tell mommy, “I want to go away with Bohai. Bohai say he take me with him.”

When day come that Yu Tian finally start school, mommy very happy. She pack big lunch and put daughter on school bus. But she also still worry about Bohai, so she decide to talk to Mrs. Hong who run flower shop. Mrs. Hong very smart woman who know all about Chinese way. 

“Could be ghost,” Mrs. Hong tell mommy.

Mommy look at her like she crazy.

“Sometimes,” Mrs. Hong explain, “family keep son but abandon daughter. Son see this and feel very guilty. Maybe so guilty, he even decide to end life. Maybe he take poison. Or hang by neck. If he from village by the sea -- like where Lilly born -- probably he jump into water and drown.”

Mommy don’t believe in ghost. But she still very worried about Yu Tian. She decide to pick her up early from school. Make her special cake she like. Except on the way there -- boom! -- tire on car blow out. Mommy get somebody to help her fix tire, and she arrive at school just as children are getting out.

“I here to get Lilly,” she tell teacher helping children get on bus.

“Lilly already leave,” teacher tell her. “Her brother pick her up.”

“What brother?” mommy ask.

“Big brother with eyes like the ocean,” teacher say.

At this point, Zhou Lei would close the cookie tin, stand up from the table, and remove a folded paper towel from her tote bag.

“Take your time, nieces,” she’d say as she swept the crumbs into a pile on the table. “Take all you need.”

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