“I curse you,” my mother-in-law swore, her face red with anger and grief. “I hope you die. If you don’t die—but please, Goddess, make her suffer—Master Lu will marry you out by fall. But if I had my way, you would not live to see daylight.”
With that my mother-in-law, who had not once acknowledged my presence, spun away, grabbed the wall for support, and staggered out of the room. I turned back to my sister-in-law, who still seemed lost to this world. Everything told me that what I was about to do was wrong, wrong, but I reached out, put my arms around her, and guided her to a chair. I set water to heat, then with all the courage I could find I dipped a cloth in a bucket of cool water and wiped my sister-in-law’s face. I threw the cloth in the brazier and watched it burn. Once the water boiled, I made a pot of tea, poured a cup for my sister-in-law, and set it before her. She did not pick it up. I did not know what more I could do, so I began to make the congee, patiently stirring the bottom of the pan so the rice wouldn’t stick or burn.
“I strain to hear my children’s cries. I look everywhere for my husband,” Third Sister-in-law murmured. I turned to face her, thinking she was speaking to me. Her eyes told me she wasn’t. “If I remarry, how can I meet my husband and children in the afterworld?”
I had no comforting words to offer, for there were none. She had no great tree for protection and no faithful mountain standing behind her. She stood and swayed out of the kitchen on her delicate lily feet, as frail as if she were a lantern that had been released during the lantern festival and was drifting away. I went back to my stirring.
The next morning when I went downstairs, it seemed as though there had been a shift. Yonggang and two other servants had returned and were cleaning the kitchen and restocking the pile of firewood. Yonggang informed me that Third Sister-in-law had been found dead earlier that morning. She had killed herself by swallowing lye. I often wonder what might have happened if she had waited a few more hours, because by lunchtime my mother-in-law was down with fever. She must have already been sick the night before when she had been so cruel.
Now I had a terrible choice to make. I had kept my children protected in my room, but my duty as my husband’s wife was to his parents above all else. To serve them did not just mean bringing them tea in the morning, washing their clothes, or accepting criticism with a smiling face. Serving them meant that I should esteem them above everyone else—above my parents, above my husband, above my children. With my husband away, I had to forget my fear of the disease, expel all feelings for my children out of my heart, and do the correct thing. If I didn’t and my mother-in-law died, my shame would have been too great.
But I didn’t abandon my children easily. My other sisters-in-law were with their own families in their own rooms. I didn’t know what was happening behind their closed doors. They might have already taken sick. They might have already died. I couldn’t trust my father-in-law with the care of my children either. Had he not spent the night beside his wife? Wouldn’t he be the next to get sick? And I had not seen Uncle Lu since the epidemic began, although he left his empty bowl outside his room each morning and evening for me to refill.
I sat in the kitchen, twisting my fingers with worry. Yonggang came over, knelt before me, and said, “I will watch your children.”
I remembered how she had escorted me to Snow Flower’s house just after my wedding, how she had cared for me after I’d given birth to my babies, and how she had turned out to be loyal and discreet in carrying my letters to my laotong. She had done all this for me, and along the way, without my noticing, she had grown from a ten-year-old girl into a big-boned, big-footed young woman of twenty-four. To me, she was still as ugly as a pig’s genitals, but I knew she had not yet fallen ill and that she would care for my children as though they were her own.
I gave her exact instructions for how I wanted their water and food prepared, and I gave her a knife to keep with her in case things got worse and she had to guard the door. With that, I left my children in the hands of the fates and turned my attention to my husband’s mother.
For the next five days, I cared for my mother-in-law in all the ways a daughter-in-law can. I cleaned her lower half when she no longer had the strength to use the chamber pot. I made her the same congee that I had made my children; then I cut my arm as I had seen my mother do so that my vital fluid could be stirred into the porridge. This is a daughter-in-law’s supreme gift and I gave it, hoping that through some miracle what had given me vitality would replenish hers.
But I don’t have to tell you how terrible this disease is. You know what happens. She died. She had always been fair, and often kind, to me, so it was hard to say goodbye. When her last breath seeped out, I knew I couldn’t do everything that should be done for a woman of her stature. I washed her soiled and desiccated body in warm water scented with sandalwood. I dressed her in her longevity clothes and tucked her nu shu writing in her pockets, sleeves, and tunic. Unlike a man, she had not written to leave a good name for a hundred generations. She had written to tell her friends of her thoughts and emotions, and they had written her in the same way. Under other circumstances, I would have burned these things at her grave site. But with the heat and the epidemic, bodies had to be buried quickly with little thought given to issues of feng shui, nu shu, or filial duty. All I could do was make sure my mother-in-law would have the comfort of her friends’ words for reading and singing in the afterworld. As soon as I was done, her body was carted away for a hasty burial.
My mother-in-law had lived a long life. I could be happy for her in that regard. And, because my mother-in-law died, I became the head woman of the household, though my husband was still away. Now the sisters-in-law would have to answer to me. They would need to remain in my good graces to receive favorable treatment. With the concubines also dead, I looked forward to more harmony, because on one thing I was very clear: There would be no more concubines under this roof.
Just as the servants had intuited, the disease was leaving our county. We opened our doors and took stock. In our household, we had lost my mother-in-law, my third brother-in-law, his entire family, and the concubines. Brothers Two and Four survived, as did their families. In my natal family, Mama and Baba died. Of course I regretted that I had not spent more time with them on my last visit, but Baba and I had stopped having much of a relationship after I had my feet bound, and things had never been the same with Mama after our argument over the lies she had kept about Snow Flower. As a married-out daughter, my only obligation was to mourn my parents for a year. I tried to honor my monkey mother for what she had done to and for me, but I was not heartsick with grief.
All in all, we were lucky. Uncle Lu and I did not exchange words. That would have been improper. But when he came out of his room he was no longer a benign uncle idling away his retirement years. He drilled my son with such intensity, focus, and dedication that we never had to hire an outside tutor again. My son never shirked in his studies, buoyed by the knowledge that the night of his wedding and the day his name appeared on the emperor’s golden list would be the most glorious of his life. In the former, he would be fulfilling his role as a filial son; in the latter, he would leap from the obscurity of our little county to such fame that the whole of China would know him.
But before any of that happened, my husband came home. I cannot begin to explain the relief I felt as I saw his palanquin come up the main road, followed by a procession of oxen-pulled carts loaded with bags of salt and other goods. All the things I had worried about and cried about were not going to happen to me—at least not yet. I was swept up in the happiness that all of Tongkou’s women showed as our men unloaded the carts. We all cried, releasing the burdens, fear, and grief we had been carrying. For me—for all of us—my husband was the first good sign that any of us had seen in months.