Only she realized in the next moment that this was not her mother but Auntie Gal. "Your mother is hurt," she said, and grabbed Ruth by the arm to steer her back out the door. "Hurry, hurry, we 're going to the hospital now."
"Hurt?" Ruth could not move. Her body felt airless, hollow and heavy at the same time. "What do you mean? How did she get hurt?"
"She fell out the window. Why she was leaning out, I don't know. But she hit the cement. The downstairs lady called the ambulance. Her body is broken, and something is wrong with her head-I don't know what- but it's very bad, the doctors say. I just hope there's no brain damage."
Ruth burst into sobs. She doubled over and began crying hysterically. She had wished for this, caused this to happen. She cried until she had dry heaves and was faint from hyperventilating. By the time they arrived at the hospital, Auntie Gal had to take Ruth to Emergency too. A nurse tried to make her breathe into a paper bag, which Ruth slapped away, and after that someone gave her a shot. She became weightless, all worries lifted from her limbs and mind. A dark, warm blanket was placed over her body, then pulled over her head. In this nothingness, she could hear her mother's voice pronouncing to the doctors that her daughter was quiet at last because they were both dead.
Her mother, as it turned out, had suffered a broken shoulder, a cracked rib, and a concussion. When she was released from the hospital, Auntie Gal stayed a few more days to help cook and set up the house so LuLing could learn to bathe and dress herself easily. Ruth was always standing off to the side. "Can I help?" she periodically asked in a weak voice. And Auntie Gal had her make rice or wash the tub or put fresh sheets on her mother's bed.
Over the following days, Ruth anguished over whether her mother had told Auntie Gal what she had read in Ruth's diary, why she had jumped out the window. She searched Auntie Gal's face for signs that she knew. She analyzed every word she said. But Ruth could not detect any anger or disappointment or false pity in how Auntie Gal spoke. Her mother was just as puzzling. She acted not angry but sad and defeated. There was less of something-but what was that? Love? Worry? There was a dullness in her mother's eyes, as if she did not care what was in front of her. All was equal, all was unimportant. What did that mean? Why didn't she want to fight anymore? LuLing accepted the bowls of rice porridge Ruth brought her. She drank her tea. They spoke, but the words were about meaningless facts, nothing that could lead to disputes or misunderstanding.
"I'm going to school now," Ruth would say.
"You have lunch money?"
"Yeah. You need more tea?"
"No more."
And each day, several times a day, Ruth wanted to tell her mother that she was sorry, that she was an evil girl, that everything was her fault. But to do so would be to acknowledge what her mother obviously wanted to pretend never existed, those words Ruth had written. For weeks, they walked on tiptoe, careful not to step on the broken pieces.
On her sixteenth birthday, Ruth came home from school and found her mother had bought some of her favorite foods: the sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaves, both kinds, one with meat filling, one with sweet red-bean paste, as well as a Chinese sponge cake stuffed with strawberries and whipped cream. "Cannot cook you better things," LuLing said. Her right side was still supported in a sling, and she could not lift anything with that arm. It was hard enough for her to haul bags of groceries from the market with her left hand. Ruth saw these offerings as a gesture of forgiveness.
"I like this stuff," Ruth said politely. "It's great."
"No time buy gift," her mother mumbled. "But I find some things, maybe you still like." She pointed to the coffee table. Ruth slowly walked over and picked up a lumpy package that was clumsily wrapped in tissue paper and tape, no ribbon. Inside she found a black book and a tiny purse of red silk, fastened with a miniature frog clasp. And within the purse was a ring Ruth had always coveted, with a thin gold band and two oval pieces of apple-green jade. It had been a gift from Ruth's father, who had received it from his mother to give to his future bride. Her mother never wore it. GaoLing had once hinted that the ring should belong to her, so it could be passed along to her son, who was also the only grandson. Forever after, LuLing brought up the ring in the context of that greedy remark of her sister's.
"Wow, wow, wow." Ruth stared at the ring in her palm.
"This is very good jade, don't loose," her mother warned.
"I won't lose it." Ruth slid the ring onto her middle finger. Too small for that one, but it did fit her ring finger.
Finally Ruth looked at the other gift. It was a pocket-sized book with black leather covers, a red ribbon for a place marker.
"You holding backward," her mother said, and flipped it so the back was the front but facing the wrong way. She turned the pages for Ruth, left to right. Everything was in Chinese. "Chinese Bible," her mother said. She opened it to a page with another place marker, a sepia-toned photograph of a young Chinese woman.
"This my mother." LuLing's voice sounded strangled. "See? I make copy for you." She pulled out a wax-paper sleeve with a duplicate of the photograph.
Ruth nodded, sensing this was important, that her mother was giving her a message about mothers. She tried to pay attention and not look at the ring on her finger. But she could not help imagining what the kids at school would say, how envious they would be.
"When I little-girl time, hold this Bible here." LuLing patted her chest. "Sleep time, think about my mother."
Ruth nodded. "She was pretty then." Ruth had seen other photos of LuLing and GaoLing's mother-Waipo is what Ruth called her. In those, Waipo had a doughy face with wrinkles as deep as cracks and a mouth as severe, straight, and lipless as a sword slash. LuLing slipped the pretty picture into the Bible, then held one hand, palm up. "Now give back."
"What?"
"Ring. Give back."
Ruth didn't understand. Reluctantly she put the ring in LuLing's hand and watched as she returned it to the silk purse.
"Some things too good use right now. Save for later, 'predate more."
Ruth wanted to cry out, "No! You can't do that! It's my birthday present."
But she said nothing, of course. She stood by, her throat tightening, as LuLing went to her vinyl easy chair. She pulled up the bottom cushion. Underneath was a cutting board, and beneath that a flap, which she lifted. Into this shallow cavern, her mother placed the Bible and the ring in its purse. So that's where she also hid things!
"Someday I give you forever."
Someday? Ruth's throat ached. She wanted to cry. "When's forever?" But she knew what her mother meant-forever as in, "When I forever dead, then you don't need listen me anymore." Ruth was a mix of emotions, happy that her mother had given her such nice presents, because this meant she still loved her, yet filled with a new despair that the ring had been taken away so soon.
The next day, Ruth went to the easy chair, pulled back the cushion and cutting board, then reached her hand into the hollow to feel for the silk purse. She extracted the ring and looked at it, now a forbidden object. She felt as if she had swallowed it and it was caught in her throat. Maybe her mother had shown her the ring just to torture her. That was probably it. Her mother knew exactly how to make her miserable! Well, Ruth would not let her have the satisfaction. She would pretend she didn't care. She would force herself never to look at the ring again, to act as though it did not exist.
A few days after that, LuLing came into Ruth's room, accusing her of having gone to the beach. When Ruth lied and said she had not, LuLing showed Ruth the sneakers she had left by the front door. She banged them together and a storm of sand rained down.