Read Online Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok - Free Book Online Page B

knowing with the instinct of children that after this day, we would be searching for each other instead. And my ma was nothing like I had imagined. She was thin to the point of frailness, tiptoeing around the house like an unwanted guest. In my fantasies, she had been warm, plump, and strong, filled to overflowing with love for me. This woman spent hours in Grandma’s room, whispering secrets, and when I crept into Grandma’s lap instead of hers, she stared at me with trembling lips, as if it had been my fault that she had abandoned me. Helena’s sharp eyes never let Ma out of her sight, like she was afraid Ma would steal something precious to her.
    Until the last moment, I had believed we would find Tasha somewhere, but we never did. I had burst into tears, grief for my doll overlaying my sorrow for leaving Grandma, Lukas, Willem, even Helena. Lukas, always my loyal companion, bawled right beside me. Willem had taken me into his arms then, sheltering me from Helena’s cold gaze.
    “Shhhh.” He kissed my forehead and tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear. “Tasha will always sit in your heart, just like I will. Now, if you hold up with crying, I have a surprise for you.”
    I sniffed, blinked away my tears, and peeked at Helena. She never liked it when Willem and I were too close. I had called him “Pa” once when I was little and she had dragged me by the arm to my room, and made me swear never to do it again. “You have your own pa, you little fool, do you understand?” she had hissed, red with fury. Now Helena glared at us, but with Ma looking on, and this being the last day of mine in the Netherlands, she did not dare say anything.
    Willem pressed a small red silk envelope into my hand, just like the ones Grandma had. His eyes clouded with tears. “One day, you will grow up to become a beautiful woman. I will not be there to see it but I want you to wear these for me.”
    I unzipped the envelope and tipped the contents into the palm of my hand. A pair of sparkly stud earrings fell out and twinkled against my skin. I gasped and threw my arms around his neck. He smelled like grapefruit and cedar, as he always did. “They are so shiny! But my ears are not pierced.”
    “They will be,” he said, his voice low with promise.
    I felt someone pry my fist open. It was Helena. She took the earrings from me and held them up against the light, her hands shaking with anger. “These are real.”
    Willem laughed his deep melodious laugh. He released me and went to his wife. He put his arm around her and hugged her to him, like in a scene from a film, while we all watched. “Silly one. Of course they are crystal. But set in silver and still very pretty, right, Sylvie?” And he had winked at me.
    I always suspected, especially because those earrings had never tarnished. So I had them appraised a few years ago—nearly flawless diamonds, more than half a carat each, in a platinum setting. It was a wildly inappropriate gift for a little girl but I still wore them today. Willem had always been the generous one. He would take flat squares of origami paper and, like magic, dinosaurs and butterflies, dragons and airplanes would bloom from his fingertips, delighting Lukas and me. I never saw Willem follow a design from a book. He must have known hundreds of patterns in his head.
    “I am a bad Chinese,” he would say, shaking his head. “Resorting to Japanese arts. But it soothes me.”
    “It is because you have no family, no roots,” Helena answered. “Wasteful habit. Uses up so much paper.” But despite her scolding, she had sought out beautifully patterned origami paper and left the packages around the house for him to find, as if by accident. Helena was kind to everyone except me.
    The last time I had been at Schiphol Airport, I had taken the hand of a woman I did not know and walked away with her to start a new life. She was the mother I had yearned for, but my heart had no more room for her. It had been too late.