Chapter 7: The Good Knife

The remembrance was held on the Hall's second floor, in a long room with nine photographs on a black cloth.

Eight families sat around the table, and a ninth chair stood empty, because that family's father no longer came.

The widow saw Ye Ming first and gave him a small, shy nod.

A woman of thirty with a notebook on her knee sat by the window and did not nod at anyone.

Gu Chen's mother sat at the end, a small woman of sixty-one in a grey cardigan.

She kept her hands in her lap, with a tin of tea beside her.

"She asked for you," said Master Lu softly, at Ye Ming's shoulder.

"The widow told her about the drawer. I couldn't refuse, with all the families watching."

He pressed a printed page into Ye Ming's hand.

"You'll find it simple. Say it as it's written, Little Ming. She likes the words she knows."

He smiled, and went through the door into the next room, and left it open a hand's width.

Ye Ming looked at the page.

LET ME REST, MA. STOP WRITING TO THE BUREAU. IT'S ALL IN THE PAST.

He folded it once and put it in his sleeve, and sat down across from the woman in grey.

The brass lamp stood between them with a new crack in its glass.

She looked at him with her son's dark eyes, and he looked away first.

"Auntie," he said. "I'm Ye Ming."

"I know, child. Will you have tea?"

"Not yet."

"Tell her about the knife," said Gu Chen, so close to his ear that it hurt.

"The one good knife in the drawer. She cuts the pomelo with it on my birthday. Tell her I know."

Ye Ming drew a breath, and spoke in his quiet reading voice.

"He says you cut pomelo with the good knife on his birthday. He says he knows about the knife."

His mother's hand came to her mouth.

"Nobody knows about the knife," she said.

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