Page 49

“I—” Vivian faltered. The award felt like ice in her hands. What could she say? That she had seen his decomposing face in the crowd and forgotten his name? She shook her head. “I meant to say your name, I promise, it’s just that my mind—I blanked out on the stage.”

Her husband said coldly, “Was this everything you dreamed of?”

Her neck felt like it was on fire. “I—of course. But you deserved an award too, I swear, it was all yours—”

“Will you shut thefuckup and just enjoy your night?”

Vivian shrank back from the tone of his voice. He didn’t look at her. It wasn’t that he had never raised his voice at her before. But she had never seen this kind of wrath.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered a third time, with tears in her eyes.

Vivian watched Richard stalk off to bed the moment they entered the house. She stood alone in the foyer, clutching her heels in one hand, the award in the other. A headache was setting in. She padded toward the kitchen and wiped her tears away with her fingertips.

The kitchen light was on. Vivian peeked around the corner.

“Congratulations!”

Edith and Josiah stood behind a cake on the kitchen island. Edith rushed forward and embraced Vivian. “You were brilliant,” she gushed in Mandarin. “The dress, the speech—wah, you looked beautiful.”

Vivian hugged her tightly in relief. She set the statue on the table, and Josiah’s normally stoic expression had become one of admiration. “May I…?”

She nodded and smiled toward it. “Please.”

Edith and Josiah held it in their hands and marveled at it from all angles. Vivian let herself sink into a chair. “Are the girls—?”

“I finally got them all to bed.” Edith’s eyes shone. “I couldn’t pullthem away from the television. The little one couldn’t stop jumping when they called your name.” She clutched Vivian’s hand. “You should have seen them. We’re so proud of you, Lian-er.” She looked closer at Vivian’s expression. “What’s wrong? Where’s Richard?”

Vivian let her voice drop to a whisper. “I forgot his name in my speech.”

Josiah frowned. “But you thanked your family.”

“But I was supposed to thankhim. And I—I didn’t.”

“It’s all right,” Edith said. “He knows. It’s your night!”

How could she tell them about his anger, the way she tumbled from joy into shame? How to describe the strange, horrific face that had flashed in front of her? How eerily that face had looked like the one she had seen in the mirror, so many years ago. She looked at the trophy. “He didn’t get an award. This was supposed to behis.”

Her friends looked at her with a mix of pity and disbelief.

“No, Lian-er,” Josiah insisted, the first time he had used her nickname. His eyes were earnest. “It is yours. You earned it. We’re proud of you. You hear me?”

She met his gaze and nodded.

“Come, have some cake,” Edith said.

Vivian finally let herself smile. “??. You’re so kind.”

“Of course we had to get you something. We had it delivered from your favorite place.”

They ate the cake, huddled in the kitchen. Edith mimicked Renata leaping in front of the TV with her nose pressed up against the screen. “She kept asking when she would be ‘inside the screen’ like??,” Josiah said, shaking his head and smiling. Finally, Vivian allowed herself to laugh. She had come to this country alone, and now here she was, a household name, wearing a designer silk dress and eating a heaping slice of cake with the people she considered family. Happiness seeped back into her and didn’t dissipate until the early hours of the morning when they all cleaned up and went to bed.

Vivian ascended the stairs alone, the award clutched in her hand. She couldn’t bring it into their bedroom. It would be almost disrespectful. So she crept into her youngest daughter’s room. She looked at herMeng-Meng curled in her blankets, cheeks flushed, sleeping peacefully at last. Yin Zi-Meng, she’d named Renata at birth.Dreamer.Richard chose her English name, Vivian her Chinese name. She wanted to sweep her up and hug her to her chest. But instead, she carefully placed the Oscar on the nightstand.

She looked back at her daughter before she closed the door, her entire being flooded with joy at this sweet image. She knew her youngest would love it.

She walked to her bedroom with a cool resolve.

Her husband was asleep, but making jolting, sudden movements beneath the sheets. A whimper escaped his lips. He was having one of his nightmares again. How could it be? His bottle of sleeping pills was open on the nightstand. Maybe he didn’t take enough. She took an aspirin in the bathroom for the headache, stepped out of her heavy dress, put on her night slip, and went to bed.