By Huilan
It was on Saturday morning in autumn, and Liu didn’t know her daughter Susan who’s back home. Susan worked far away from her parents in St. Louis and prepared to spend her weekend at her parents’ house that day. For some unknown reasons, Susan loved her parents’ house very much. The house had a huge back yard that they all used to call “ orchard”, and sometimes Susan thought perhaps this was the whole reason why she loved to go home often. In fact, when Susan drove home that day, she regretted immediately because she didn’t want to meet her father, and so she didn’t go into the house but stepped into the orchard instead.
It was a nice autumn day. Blue sky. Clouds were like horses running on the prairie. Across the road in the orchard, Susan could see a patch of green gardenias on either side of the walk that led up to the back door. Four new automobile tires were put near the door and it smelled strange. Behind the orchard was the green grass field, and perhaps it’s somebody’s orchard. The orchard had many fruit trees in it: apple trees, peach trees, pear trees, apricot trees, and plum trees. Somewhere across the field Susan could hear the sound of a beautiful song. Then she watched a yellow moth with dark specks like ink dots on its wings, flying about the trees and down into her parents’ house; she watched it until she could not see it anymore.
The sky was clear, and there was a smell of fragrant apple in the air. The apple trees were covered with multicolored apples: green, yellow, and red. Susan picked up a red apple and tasted first; it was sweet and sour. Then she tasted a green one, found it was totally sour. When she was enjoying all of this, her mother Liu was walking toward her.
Liu was quite tall, five six, five seven. She wore a white wool sweater and a white and black skirt, and both fit her very well. She had soft light yellow skin and high cheekbones and dark-black eyes, and her face and lips showed some smiling, but not much. Her hair was long and black, and she kept it twisted into a bun and pinned at the black of her head. In fact Liu was a beautiful woman, and Susan was just like her mother.
“I stay here almost whole morning, and I’ll drive back now.” Susan said to her mother.
“Don’t rush like this. You can come in and drink tea with your father or we can eat lunch together before you leave.” Liu put her right hand on Susan’s shoulder.
“No, Mom, there are some letters. Please hand it to Papa at right time. I don’t want to argue with him today.” Susan was talking with Liu for a while before she left.
Liu didn’t give the letters to her husband that day. The next afternoon, when she saw her husband Zhang was in a good mood, she took the three letters from the cabinet of her book-table and handed them to Zhang. Zhang was surprised but read them several times over and finally with an oath threw them on the floor.
“Great, she said she would not change her mind again. Oh my gosh, she’s going to marry that black man. I can’t imagine what that will be. An Africa-American black man, not a Chinese!” Zhang said loudly with anger.
Liu didn’t reply at once. For years Liu had been worried about her daughter Susan, for she was always loved the foreigners. First, she fell in love with an American white man, her university classmate, and Zhang was angry enough to stop their relationship between father and daughter. Susan quit the man at last. A year later, Susan fell in love again, this time was a Mexican man, and she dared not to let her father know about it. Unfortunately by accident, Zhang knew the whole thing from seeing Liu’s letters, which were sent from Susan. Then Susan quit again.
“Hei, hei, this time is a black man, and she said she’s not quit him again even who wants to stop any relationship between father and daughter. Hear, what she said, where she put me on, and how disorder she is!”
At last Liu spoke: “ But she already got her MBA master degree and has a good job now. In my eyes, she’s totally an adult and should get married in such an age.”
“ Who’s talking of marriage age? I was speaking about the man who she’s going to married with. A black man. I ever, never agree with her about a marriage like this. What a shame!”
“There’s no shame at all. I just feel proud of her. I saw him once. He’s an excellent graduated student and a lovely young man. I’m glad that Susan chose him as her husband someday. ”
“What are you talking about? There are always some very wrong ideas in both you and your daughter’s mind.”
“Is the idea of freedom and equal rights for a woman wrong?”
“Now my wife, you must stop talking like that. I thought Susan should get married with a Chinese was quite right because the foreigners no good at our culture, especially a black man. I am not going to allow a marriage like that.”
“But you know very well that the world changes fast, and all cultures are intertwined now!”
“In my opinion my idea was quite right. I must warn you, Liu, that your support for our daughter is going a little too far. I’ll send for Susan and you must tell her our decision about her marriage.”
“No, it’s not our decision. It’s just your decision, yours. And you’ll see that your decision is not going to work. Who cares! Remember Susan is an adult now, and she’s not your private girl anymore.”
“What drove you speak like that? You must forget what is our Chinese Root. You must go crazy. I don’t want to say anymore to you and your good daughter, and I just warn you that if you don’t change your mind, then I will get divorced with you!”
This was too much for Liu. She burst into tears, laying her head on the seat of the chair that standing near the book-table. At the same time, Zhang left the room, went into kitchen and drank a half bottle of wine, put on his jacket and a baseball-hat, and then went out of the house.
(to be continued)
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