The Devil in Silver

“My sister was strong. She found Chinese like us. Hakka Chinese. In Everett. They helped us contact our aunt and uncle back in China.”

“What about your parents?” Pepper asked.

“They both died in a hard winter,” she said matter-of-factly. “I never really knew them.”

A pair of footsteps passed in the hallway. Pepper and Sue stayed quiet until they were sure the person had moved on.

“We got as far south as Portland. That’s where we stopped. No more money. So that’s where we found people to stay with. My sister took a job right away. I started working a couple of years later. By the time I turned sixteen, I’d been working for eight years. I went to school during the day and worked most evenings until midnight. In restaurants and markets, always with my sister. She never went to school. It was a lot, but it was okay.”

She slid Pepper’s big hand down from her chest to her belly and held him there.

“Once I got much older, we split up. It had to happen eventually. My sister found me a job in Florida. I was already thirty-four, but I was more scared of making that trip than the whole journey from China! Or maybe I just remember how scared I was because I was older. Plus, I was going alone.”

“Why did you have to leave her at all?” Pepper asked. He found himself spinning, right there on the bed. What had he ever complained about? A brother who didn’t get along with him? Being raised by a decent mom and dad in Queens?

“You have to go where there’s work. We didn’t leave China because we wanted a long boat ride!”

“Sorry,” Pepper said. “So Florida. For a job.”

“Yes. But that’s when it all went really bad. When I had my sister around, I don’t know, she could help me if I got confused. If I made some mistakes of thinking. They were nice at the job in Florida. In West Palm Beach. I was a waitress. But they had their own problems to worry about. They couldn’t help me every time I got confused. And it kept happening to me, more and more. I basically lived alone.”

Sue pressed her hand down on Pepper’s. He squeezed her soft stomach. She liked the hold.

“I lived like that, four years. Five years? I worked. I sent some money to my sister, who sent more money back to my aunt and uncle in China. I talked with my sister a lot. I even dated a little bit.”

Sue looked over at Pepper and pinched his chin.

“Don’t be jealous.”

Pepper hadn’t brushed his teeth last night; they’d leapt right into bed. And he’d slept for a few hours. So by now he had a little wolf breath going. After she let go of his chin, he blew in Sue’s face, and she waved one hand in front of her nose. “That’s not attractive,” she said.

He kissed her more tenderly, and she returned the kiss.

“Then what?” Pepper asked. “I still don’t see how you got here.”

“After five years, I had enough. Anyway, Florida had exploded. Nobody had jobs, nobody had money. On the block where I lived, four different families just abandoned their homes. Where did they go? I saw one family; they moved down the road and were living out of a motel room. It was hard times in Florida and I didn’t want to stay there anymore. The restaurant was probably going to close anyway, just like everything else. I told my sister I was coming back to her in Portland.

“I spoke good English. Even you noticed that. I picked it up fast because I was so young when we came. I could find another job. I told her all this. She was my sister. She knew me. Maybe she could hear in my voice that I was having trouble with my thoughts. Maybe I sounded more confused than I thought. She said okay, take the bus. Cheap and you don’t always need to show ID.

“I was waiting for that bus when they picked me up. Immigration cops who spend their whole day at the Greyhound station! I never knew there was such a thing. They asked to see my visa and I laughed at them.”

“Why did you laugh?” Pepper fell back on the bed, as if she’d made such an obvious and stupid mistake.

“I thought they were kidding! Do you know how many times people said something like that to me in Florida? ‘Where’s your papers?’ ‘Show me your passport.’ The white people and the black people and the Puerto Ricans. They thought it was so funny. So when these two men said it, I thought it was just another joke. Being mean. But they didn’t like me laughing. They took me, just like that. I spent a year in a Florida jail. A psychiatrist saw me and prescribed medication, just like this place. But the guards weren’t used to people like me. Or they just didn’t care. They refused to give me the medication unless I cooperated with all their rules first. But without the medication, I was too confused to cooperate! By the time I got out, I couldn’t even say my own name.”

“Your lawyer got you out?”