“But those things made me who I am,” I cried.
“Exactly,” Grandmother said.
“Be quiet,” Mama ordered, and not very politely. “You’ve caused this girl enough heartbreak and confusion.”
( 2 4 0 )
Grandmother set her jaw, looked away, and said, “And I’m sorry for that. I didn’t know—”
Mama touched her mother-in-law’s sleeve to keep her from saying any more.
“Peony,” Mama went on, “if you’d listened only to me, you wouldn’t be the daughter I’m so proud of today. Every mother is afraid for her daughter, but I was terrified. I could only think of all the terrible things that could happen. But what’s the worst thing that could happen? What happened to me in Yangzhou? No. The worst thing was losing you. But look what you’ve done these past years. Look at what your love for Wu Ren has caused to flower in you. I wrote a poem on a wall in fear and sadness. When I did that, I closed myself away from all the things that had made me happy. Your grandmother and I, and so many other women, had wanted to be heard. We went out and it started to happen for us. Then the one time I was truly heard—the poem on the wall—I wanted to die. But you’re different. In death, you’ve grown to be an admirable woman. And then there’s your project.”
I drew back instinctively. She’d burned my books and hated my love of The Peony Pavilion.
“So many things you didn’t tell me, Peony.” She sighed sadly. “We lost so much time.”
We had, and there would never be a way to get it back. I blinked back tears of regret. Mama took my hand and patted it comfortingly.
“When I was still alive, I heard about Ren’s commentary on The Peony Pavilion, ” she said. “When I read it, I thought I heard your voice. I knew that couldn’t be, so I told myself I was just a grieving mother. It wasn’t until your grandmother met me on the Viewing Terrace that I learned the truth—all of it. And of course, she had to learn a few things from me too.”
“Go ahead,” Grandmother urged. “Tell her why we’re really here.”
Mama took a deep breath. “You need to finish your project,” she said.
“It won’t be the scribble of a desperate woman on a wall. Your father and I, your grandmother, your whole family—those here in the earthly realm and all the generations of ancestors who watch out for you—will be proud of you.”
I thought about what my mother said. My grandmother had wanted to be heard and appreciated by her husband, only to be relegated to false martyrdom. Mama had wanted to be heard, only to lose herself. I wanted to be heard, but only by one man. Ren had asked this of me in the Moon-
( 2 4 1 )
Viewing Pavilion. He wanted this from me. He’d created the possibility for me, when the world, society, and even my mother and father would have preferred me to keep silent.
“But how can I possibly take it up again after everything—”
“I almost died to write my poem; you did die writing your commentary,” Mama said. “I had to be cut to the bone and have my body invaded by many men to write the words on the wall. I saw you waste away as the words sapped your qi. For so long I thought, Maybe this sacrifice is what’s needed from us. Only after watching you these last few years as you’ve been with Yi have I realized that maybe writing doesn’t require sacrifice.
Maybe it’s a gift to experience emotions through our brushes, ink, and paper. I wrote out of sorrow, fear, and hate. You wrote out of desire, joy, and love. We each paid a heavy price for speaking our minds, for revealing our hearts, for trying to create, but it was worth it, wasn’t it, daughter?”
I didn’t have a chance to respond. I heard laughter in the corridor. The door swung open and my four aunts, Broom, Orchid, Lotus, and their daughters entered. They’d been brought together by my father to make sure I was treated like a real bride. They made adjustments to the dummy, setting right the pleats in the skirt, smoothing the silk of the tunic, and using a few kingfisher feather hairpins to help hold the headdress in place.
“Quick!” Grandmother said as cymbals clanged and drums banged.
“You have to hurry.”
“But my tablet—”
“Forget about it for now,” Grandmother ordered. “Experience your wedding as best you can, because it will not happen again—at least not in the way you imagined when you were alone in your bed all those years ago.” She closed her eyes for a moment and smiled knowingly to herself.
Then she opened her eyes and clapped her hands crisply. “Now, hurry!”
I remembered everything I was supposed to do. I kowtowed to my mother three times and thanked her for all she’d done for me. I kowtowed three times to my grandmother and thanked her. Mama and Grandmother kissed me, and then they led me to the dummy. Since my tablet wasn’t dotted, I couldn’t step inside so I wrapped myself around it.
Grandmother was right. I had to enjoy this as best I could, and it wasn’t hard. My aunts told me I was beautiful. My cousins apologized for their girlhood ways. Their daughters told me they regretted that they’d never known me. Second Aunt and Fourth Aunt picked me up, placed me on a chair, and carried me out of the room. Mama and Grandmother joined the procession of Chen family women through the corridors and past the ( 2 4 2 )
pavilions, pond, and rockery to the ancestral hall. Above the altar table, next to the scrolls of my grandparents, hung an image of my mother. Her skin had been painted in a translucent style, her hair pinned up as a young bride, her lips full and happy. This must have been what she looked like when she and my father were first married. She might not scare anyone into conducting themselves well, but she would inspire them.
On the altar table everything had been grouped into uneven lots to sig-nify that this wasn’t a typical marriage. Seven sticks of incense stood in each of three braziers. Baba’s hands trembled as he poured nine cups of wine for various gods and goddesses, and then three cups of wine for each of my ancestors. He set out five peaches and eleven melons.
Then my chair was lifted and I was carried to the wind-fire gate. For so long I’d wished to pass through this gate to go to my husband’s home, and now it was happening. In a tradition unique to ghost marriages, Willow held a rice-winnowing basket over my head to screen me from heavenly sight. I was helped into a green rather than a red palanquin. Bearers carried me around the lake and up Wushan Mountain past the temple to my husband’s home. The door to the palanquin opened and I was helped out and put on another chair. Mama and Grandmother stood on the steps next to Madame Wu, who greeted me in the customary way. Then she turned to welcome my father. In ghost marriages, parents are usually so happy to see the ugly thing leave their home that they stay behind to rejoice privately, but my father had come with me, trailing behind my green palanquin in one of his own, letting all Hangzhou know that his daughter—the daughter of one of the city’s most respected and wealthy families—was finally marrying out. As I was carried over the Wu threshold, my heart was so full that the pearls overflowed and filled the Wu family’s compound with my happiness.
The procession of the living and the dead went to the Wu family’s ancestral hall, where the shadows of red candles dappled the walls. Ren waited there, and when I saw him I was overcome with emotion. He wore the wedding clothes I’d made for him. He was man-beautiful to my ghostly eyes. The only thing that set him apart from any other bridegroom were his black gloves, which reminded everyone present that this ceremony—as joyous as it was for me—was associated with darkness and se-crecy.
The ceremony was performed. Servants picked up my chair and tilted it, so I could join my husband in bowing before my new ancestors. With that, I officially left my natal family and joined my husband’s family. A full ( 2 4 3 )