Page 178 of Caution to the Wind
I squeezed her hand before she stepped behind me, gettin’ into place to officiate. Bat thumped me on the back, my only attendant. Lin stood across from me, in a place of honour as Mei’s only attendant. She hadn’t wanted to walk down the aisle, but Mei refused to let her off the hook entirely.
Even Jiang was there, sittin’ in the back row a little stiffly ’cause he was surrounded by bikers who were not his brethren. But we were on good terms with the new Dragon Head of the Seven Song even though we’d run his brother outta the country and disassembled their criminal bankin’ enterprise. He was focused on Vancouver again, not Entrance, and we collaborated sometimes when it was worth it for both entities. Not that any of that mattered, in the end.
He was here for Mei just as he’d proved always would be after helpin’ dig her outta the earth that day in the graveyard.
Mei’d wanted our small family as involved in the proceedings as possible.
Which was why, when Mei appeared around the bend of the house I’d built as a haven on the side of Lake Mead, she was walkin’ beside Old Dragon in a motorized red scooter, her hand restin’ on his shoulder as they made their way down the path toward me.
“Fuck me.” The words punched outta me at the sight of her, eyes wet, chest heavin’.
I shouldn’t’ve been surprised. If I’d thought about what she might’ve worn to our weddin’, it would’ve occurred to me that Mei’d never wear white even though it was the colour she’d made me wear that day, a white button-up beneath my cut and tailored white dress pants.
No, on the day my Rocky married me, only one colour would suit her.
Red.
For a second, I thought it might’ve even been the same dress she’d worn all those years ago at her prom when I’d danced with her in the parkin’ lot, but as she got closer, I noticed it was a take on a traditional Chinese Cheongsam. The red brocade silk was stamped with a dragon pattern that shimmered in the light, the neck high and closed with gold buttons at her throat while the narrow skirt split open from ankle to high thigh to reveal a glimpse of her toned, pale legs and the tattoo of the tiger zodiac she’d gotten to representme. A golden dragon was embroidered on the torso in the very same design as the one I’d once drawn in Mei’s sketchbook, the same one she had tattooed around her back and right arm.
She had that slippery, silky black hair pinned up in a bun at the crown on her head with red chopsticks danglin’ with gold dragon charms, but the wind was already catchin’ at the strands, sendin’ waves tumblin’ around her achingly beautiful face.
It seemed to take a fuckin’ age for her to reach me, but I waited patiently ’cause it was nothin’ compared to the years we’d taken to get here.
Old Dragon stopped his scooter at the end of the aisle and lifted his tremblin’ hand to Mei’s in order to offer it to me.
Even though his body and mind were frail most days, his dark eyes were keen and bright on mine as he whispered in Cantonese, “No one is more deserving of my precious gift than you. Take care of each other well.”
I thanked him with a small bow over his hand and then pulled Mei’s warm fingers into my own to lead her the last few steps to the weddin’ altar.
“You have never been more beautiful,” I told her, unsurprised by the gravel in my voice. I blinked once, twice, ’cause lookin’ at her like this, in my hands, at this altar, about to be my fuckin’wifewas like lookin’ into the sun after years of livin’ underground.
And then she smiled, this broken open expression of pure, unrestricted joy, and I had to close my eyes for a second to absorb the beauty of it.
“Hey,” she said, waitin’ for me to open my eyes before she grinned impishly. “I’m still just your Rocky. I’ve got a knife strapped to my thigh beneath the garter Cleo insisted I wear, and I’m wearin’ black lingerie, not white.”
I laughed, the sound ringin’ out across the lake and echoin’ back like the ripples over the clear blue waters. And ’cause I’d been a stupid, stubborn man for too long, and I didn’t feel like waitin’ anymore, I tugged my future wife into my arms and kissed her with laughter still rumblin’ across my tongue to her.
When I pulled away just slightly, she bit my lower lip playfully and whispered, “Did you ever think we’d make it here?”
“Might not’ve known it, but everythin’ that’s happened in my life led me to you. Never wanted to believe in fate ’cause I thought it meant I’d end up like my dad, poor and mean and full of hate. If I’d known the red thread of fate had a face and heart like yours, I’d’ve embraced it a long time ago.”
Her dark eyes twinkled, constellations of stars shinin’ like my entire galaxy before me. “You’re saying you would’ve fallen in love with me when I was seventeen and begging you to love me back? Even though I was jailbait, even though I was your daughter’s best friend.”
I smoothed my hand over her cheek into her hair and tugged out the chopsticks so all that gorgeous hair fell around her shoulders and into my palm. “I’m sayin’ my soul recognized yours a long fuckin’ time ago, and no matter the time between us and the mistakes we’ve made, I wouldn’t change a fuckin’ thing ’cause it meant we could be here today about to be husband and wife.”
“If you’re about done, we could make that happen,” Cleo quipped lightly, the microphone taped to her dress amplifyin’ the comment so the entire audience laughed.
Only Mei and I didn’t, starin’ at each other, still too close for propriety, grinnin’ like fuckin’ fools in love. And we stayed like that while we said our written vows and when I tied a red thread around Mei’s finger, she did the same to me, a physical representation of our soul mate bond, before we exchanged rings. Then my daughter pronounced us legally bound and I kissed Mei Zhen Axelsen for the millionth time, but for the first time as my wife, and all I knew was peace.
Three Weeks Later
Temple Street Marketin Hong Kong was the largest night market in the city, so even at two in the morning, the street was crowded with both locals and tourists alike. There was much to entertain. Stalls were filled with designer knockoffs, cheap electronics, and kitschy Chinese souvenirs for tourists. Street performers tucked into doorways and food carts wafting with mysterious umami aromas that made the mouth water.
Amongst it all, a girl visited a tiny stall tucked into the shadows between a purse merchant and hot pot stand. An old woman with folds of silken skin sat within a cocoon of silk robes folded in the same loose, drapery style. Her dark eyes were cloudy, rheumy, and her knuckles gnarled in her little hands like the roots of a very old tree. The table she sat before was clothed in red and littered with tarot cards and a glass orb that was strictly there for tourists.
The girl didn’t ask for a card reading or for her future to be sought within the glass orb.
She sat down across from the woman and offered her hands, palms open.