Red Butterfly Read online

  startled

  or sad

  from all the commotion,

  because Mr. Gurnsey says,

  Let’s not

  overwhelm her, kids.

  Go back to your own

  rooms

  and give Kara

  a minute.

  But you told us we had to be in here

  to say hello.

  Emily has a whiny

  voice that sounds like

  it belongs to one

  of the little kids

  from the orphanage’s

  lower floors.

  There’ll be plenty of time

  for getting to know each other,

  he answers,

  no-nonsense firm.

  The kids,

  my new sisters and brothers,

  file out.

  Miss Li

  smiles

  when the room is quiet

  and gives directions

  for the next few days.

  While the translator translates

  I sit straight on the edge of the bed,

  letting my backpack

  slide from my shoulders, but

  still holding

  tight to the handle

  because it feels

  as if my old life

  is fluttering

  away,

  every shred of it.

  Mrs. Gurnsey

  She

  tucks me

  under hotel sheets,

  my backpack cuddled

  next to me.

  What’s in there?

  she asks.

  Books,

  I whisper.

  Oh?

  Which ones?

  Pride and Prejudice

  is the only title I can remember

  right now,

  my brain

  a whirling

  fog.

  I’ve been meaning to read that

  for years,

  she says.

  Me too,

  I say.

  I’ve seen the movie

  several times,

  she says.

  There’s a movie?

  She nods.

  A movie in English?

  She laughs.

  Quite a few movies, actually.

  And yes, they’re in English.

  What if we read your book together?

  I nod,

  a slow

  warm trickle

  of hope

  filling my chest.

  That would be fine.

  Part Three

  Fly

  A Window to the World

  I watch the earth fall away,

  watch everything big turn

  tiny.

  A race of small vehicles,

  weave of roads,

  curve of rivers,

  wedge of

  shimmering canals.

  I press my nose to the cold glass,

  straining to make out—

  that is where I walked,

  that is where I rode my bike,

  there is our apartment,

  or is it a neighborhood that looks

  just like ours?

  I can’t be sure.

  All I know is

  I’m flying.

  Now the city fades

  behind a haze of clouds

  that from below looked cottony,

  but are actually thick air.

  Tianjin,

  my city, vanishes

  beneath us

  and there is nothing yet

  to replace it.

  Torn Paper

  Their kids are in other rows,

  two here,

  two there.

  Mr. and Mrs. Gurnsey sit with me.

  The boys play games

  on their phones.

  The girls pore

  over books filled with pictures

  of beautiful girls’ faces

  with stickers of earrings

  bracelets

  hair bows

  and argue over the prettiest jewelry.

  Mrs. Gurnsey gave me a book too,

  but I’m saving mine, wondering

  if she’ll let me

  mail it to Yang Zi

  so she can decorate

  the girls herself

  and show the pictures

  to Lin Lin.

  Mrs. Gurnsey rests her warm hand on my back

  as she leans to look out the window.

  There goes Tianjin.

  Will you miss it?

  I nod once,

  wishing I could shrug away her hand

  without being rude.

  I cannot explain how my emotions

  are split down the middle, like

  a piece of paper torn

  in two:

  missing Tianjin,

  hating Tianjin,

  the home of my happiness and

  of my loss.

  Fast

  In the Guangzhou hotel room,

  I sit on the windowsill

  and run my fingernail over the

  air-conditioning grate.

  It makes a sound like an instrument,

  this way going higher,

  this way going lower.

  Cool air poufs out my hair,

  blows under the sleeve of my shirt.

  I sit still.

  Everyone else moves

  so fast,

  clattering,

  talking.

  The girls argue

  because they want to go shopping

  now!

  More noise

  than the fifteen children

  crammed in the large room

  I left behind.

  Made in China

  When the girls come back

  from shopping

  they’re giggling, heads

  tucked together like

  nesting pigeons.

  You show her.

  No, you show her.

  No, you.

  Rosalie trips forward,

  pushed by Emily.

  We got one for all three of us,

  she says.

  Look!

  She unfurls

  a T-shirt

  rolled into a

  white ball.

  MADE IN CHINA

  say red words across the chest.

  She laughs.

  We’re all three made in China,

  get it?

  Mrs. Gurnsey on the bed

  props herself on one elbow.

  She looks tired when she says,

  Maybe Kara doesn’t understand.

  In America it’s a joke,

  Mr. Gurnsey says,

  that everything people buy at the store

  is made in China.

  I feel like he’s saying

  I’m a joke.

  I want to pull

  the curtains over myself

  and hide against the windowsill.

  Emily sulks at my silence,

  tosses the T-shirt

  on the bed,

  and says,

  We were just joking around.

  It’s not like we have to wear them.

  I turn my eyes

  out the window

  to stare at this China that

  looks nothing like

  my China,

  to the wide, blue river

  that is nothing like

  the straight canals

  I’ve always known.

  I don’t fit with these Americans.

  I don’t want to go

  to America

  to become a joke.

  Mismatch

  Mrs. Gurnsey wants me to wear new clothes

  to the embassy,

  clothes she brought from America.

  Emily, Rosalie and I

  all have the same shirt,

  but in three different colors:

  red

  blue

  green.

  I
get green.

  After we’re dressed

  Mrs. Gurnsey lines us up

  in front of the mirror.

  My gorgeous girls,

  she says, smiling.

  Emily with her shiny hair and sparkling eyes,

  Rosalie with her lip gloss,

  and me

  raggedy hair hanging long down my back,

  face puffy,

  arm sticking out

  without a full hand on the end.

  In the orphanage

  at least I looked

  like I fit.

  Shame

  I don’t want to match,

  I say,

  snatching the long-sleeved shirt

  I wore on the day I left the orphanage

  from the top of the suitcase.

  I rush to the bathroom

  and shut the door.

  With a long sleeve I can cover my hand

  so people at the embassy won’t stare,

  won’t take one look at me and know

  that’s why I’m here.

  Maybe Mrs. Gurnsey wanted Chinese triplets,

  but I will never be like them,

  my smile as big,

  my hair as beautiful,

  and I’ll never have two hands.

  Mrs. Gurnsey knocks.

  I know it’s her

  because Mr. Gurnsey would

  knock louder and say,

  Open up.

  I don’t want her to

  come in

  because I don’t want to explain

  why

  the shirt she picked out

  sits in a heap on the

  tiled floor.

  But she comes in anyway.

  Don’t you like the color, Kara?

  It looks great with your skin tone.

  I shake my head.

  What’s your favorite color, honey?

  It’s not the color.

  Then what’s the problem?

  She should know

  like Mama always knew.

  I never had to explain

  anything

  to Mama.

  My hand,

  I say.

  Mrs. Gurnsey shuts the door.

  You’re embarrassed of your hand?

  I need long sleeves.

  Mrs. Gurnsey reaches out,

  but I back up,

  shoulder to the wall.

  I’ll remember that,

  she says softly.

  Embassy

  I’m the oldest one

  getting an American visa today.

  All the other parents

  have black-haired baby girls

  with pigtails

  or little kids

  in squeaky sneakers

  who run in circles

  watching their reflections

  in the shiny

  marble floor.

  But one little boy

  has a body bent

  in a C shape.

  He reminds me of a younger Xiao Bo,

  the way he holds his hand

  like a claw.

  His father

  cradles him and

  I think how Xiao Bo

  would have liked

  to be held like that, a treasure

  someone longed for.

  Official

  I wish Mama were here.

  I’d like to tell her,

  Look,

  I’m finally becoming

  what you always told me

  I was.

  Look,

  I have a name

  written in an official book

  and official parents

  and an identity to prove it.

  Look,

  I’m somebody’s child

  on my way to America.

  Now

  if only I could feel it.

  Family Picture

  Outside the embassy

  we stand

  clustered on the road

  while

  Mrs. Gurnsey argues

  with Mr. Gurnsey about

  where to take the

  family picture.

  Finally

  we crowd together

  in front of a bank of dusty shrubs,

  Mr. Gurnsey’s choice,

  Ethan and David flanking their parents

  because they’re so tall,

  the three of us girls in front.

  I hide

  my arm

  behind

  Emily’s back

  without touching her.

  Mrs. Gurnsey asks

  another

  adopting family

  to take our picture.

  A man

  with hardly any hair

  takes the camera,

  his wife holding

  a baby girl with one eye

  bigger than the other,

  wearing a yellow bow

  as large as her head.

  The baby is not

  happy

  or sad.

  She only observes us

  as if we’re a television show.

  I wish I were

  like her,

  too young to know

  what’s happening.

  That’s how I was

  with Mama and Daddy.

  All I knew was them.

  My stomach aches,

  because of the strangers

  lined up behind me,

  next to me,

  pretending to be my family.

  It should be Mama and Daddy

  standing on either side,

  arms threaded through mine.

  I can’t let Mrs. Gurnsey’s burning hands

  touch me, as if

  I belong to her, as if

  Mama never was.

  Deep Purple

  Rosalie

  shakes a bottle of purple

  nail color

  so it goes

  click

  click

  click.

  In the hotel bathroom I sit

  on the white tub rim,

  Rosalie on the

  closed toilet.

  Give me your hand,

  she says,

  so I hold out my good hand.

  I’ve never

  ever

  had my nails painted,

  but I remember

  all the beautiful women

  in People magazine

  with long, elegant fingers

  and nails like rainbows.

  When she looks at my hand

  she makes a face

  and says,

  Kind of ragged,

  then shrugs.

  Oh well.

  Emily perches on the counter

  beside the sink,

  legs folded beneath her.

  For a moment,

  I can almost touch

  the idea

  that we are sisters,

  but then it slips away.

  Wait till you see our house,

  Emily says.

  Wait till you see your room.

  We’ve been decorating

  for months.

  Literally.

  When are you going to start school?

  Rosalie asks.

  Have you ever gone to school before?

  I shake my head.

  Never?

  Emily says.

  Lucky.

  It’s okay,

  Rosalie says.

  You’re twelve, right?

  Em and I are too. For now.

  I’m almost thirteen.

  You can meet all our friends,

  but I’ll be a grade ahead of you,

  probably.

  You’re older than me.

  Emily sticks out her lower lip.

  It’s not fair.

  I always have to be the youngest.

  But I get the impression

  she doesn’t actually mind.

  Rosalie is good with the nail polish brush,
/>
  stroking smooth

  thick

  lines.

  My whole nail looks black

  at first,

  drying slowly to purple.

  I think

  it looks pretty

  against my pale skin.

  Do you play basketball?

  Emily asks.

  No.

  Do you do anything?

  Ride my bike.

  But what about sports?

  I shake my head.

  You don’t do anything?

  I do physical therapy.

  Emily screws up her face.

  What does that even mean?

  History

  Later, Rosalie lies

  next to me

  on her stomach,

  just the two of us,

  shoulders brushing,

  her legs striking the mattress

  as she kicks

  flop

  plop

  flop.

  I was five when Mom and Dad got me,

  she says.

  Emily was a baby.

  Well, she was nearly two.

  You were five?

  I imagined them as twins,

  but not twins,

  carried out of the orphanage together.

  Yes. I have spina bifida,

  an opening in my spinal cord,

  but when I was little

  I had a surgery

  to fix it.

  I catch my breath,

  remembering something

  Toby told me.

  My friend Yang Zi

  had that too—

  an opening in her spine!

  The excited words pour out

  before I remember

  that Yang Zi also had surgery.

  But . . .

  she can’t walk.

  Rosalie twists her hair

  into a ball

  fluidly

  and slides in a clip to hold it.

  Yep, I was lucky.

  Rosalie’s feet thump-thump,

  her fingers interweave,

  until she says,

  I remember a little when Mom and Dad

  came to get me,

  but Em doesn’t.

  She knows them

  like she’s always been with them.

  I try to tell if Rosalie’s saying

  more than she’s saying.

  I wonder if she’s saying

  she understands

  better than Em

  what it’s like

  to be me.

  Arrival

  We’re here.

  It’s hard to

  figure out

  what Florida

  is like

  from the air:

  buildings

  set in rows

  and roads

  crisscrossing,

  crawling with

  so many tiny cars.

  On the ground,

  we load up in

  the Gurnseys’ big van

  and everyone

  gushes,

  It’s good to be home!

  But Em says,

  Our van is dusty,

  and makes a disgusted face.

  Outside the window flashes

  blue water,