For once, Sophie was not the centre of my universe. Jo and I both focused on Tom. He was such a sweet baby and so good with his feeding. It was nice to just relax and enjoy him. It was starting to get cold towards the end of October. Jo would go off to dance for a few hours each day, then join me on a walk through Central Park, rugged up with Tom strapped to one of our chests. She wasn’t making much money in contemporary dance so I was really happy to treat her to a meal occasionally. This was such a special time to have with my little sister. We had not spent much time together as adults but now we were reconnecting. Jo was very relaxed, a delightful person. She didn’t ask too many questions as she knew I needed a break from it all. ‘You’ll go back to Sophie refreshed,’ she said reassuringly. I could see a glimpse of our gentle mother in my sister, and we planned for her and her Australian boyfriend, Bruce, to come to visit us in Houston for Christmas.
It was so restorative being with Jo for those couple of weeks, reliving our childhood memories. I looked back at my younger self – the wild girl who could never keep still, running all over town to anyone who would have her; how I channelled that energy into my dancing and the purpose and discipline I’d brought to bear on my career. And what for?
For a moment I felt the weight of where I was now – going back to Houston where there was nothing but constant therapy with Sophie, my baby son having to fit into our isolated, hyper-scheduled existence. But truth be told, I was overflowing with love for my children and didn’t really want to be anywhere else but home right now.
I was overjoyed to see Li and Sophie walk through the door. They’d had a wonderful time in China. Sophie was very excited to see us and still so tender with her baby brother. When I saw her little face gazing up at me in such concentration when her FM was switched on and I was drilling new words and phrases into her, well, I could see she really wanted to learn, and that gave me renewed strength. She could speak about sixty words by now, but still could only hear the low-frequency sounds, so ‘Sophie’ sounded like ‘oooeee’, which seemed miraculous. But would she ever form a sentence, or ask a question?
10
As 1993 unfolded, I had to juggle more balls than I could ever imagine, and then some.
I was concerned that I was neglecting Tom. Although I was completely besotted with our son, a lot of my focus was still with Sophie. She was not going to be relegated to the periphery of our family just because we had a new baby. Li would have to step in with Tom, to do all the things I wouldn’t have time for. And before long, that’s just what he was doing. The minute he got home from work, he was on board with Tom. That became our new routine. Like all the Chinese people I’d met so far, Li was fabulous with babies – relaxed and hands-on. However, he was often dancing on Friday and Saturday nights, so on weekends I would get up and take the children out early. I’d go to friends who also had children, to the park or the bakery. I knew Li needed his sleep to dance well. Sometimes, later in the day, we’d meet with Charles and Lily Foster or Ginya and Clayton Trier and their children. Through our children, we started developing close friendships.
Tom seemed to have a very easygoing temperament. I felt blessed. Indeed, he was every bit as beautiful as Sophie and in every way the son we had wished for. But for Sophie, I always felt guilty when the dreaded annual speech and hearing test came around and there was no change in her results. She was three-and-a-half now and still there were no signs of improvement. I would go home in despair, and the sense of overwhelming helplessness would descend again – that heavy, dark cloud. In the beginning, I had hoped her hearing would improve over time with all the hard work. It took a while for the penny to drop and for me to face the fact that her hearing would never improve. Her language might, but her ability to hear would not.
In May, Li was on a break, so we decided to take the children to China again. Of course he was desperate to take Tom this time, but he also needed to take a business trip. He was often thinking about business ideas and how to help his brothers as well as the Bandit. I knew Li’s strong desire was to help them no matter what, so I just went with the flow.
The Bandit picked us up from Beijing Airport and took us back to his apartment. It was wonderful to see Marji again, too. While the men discussed their new venture – a factory to make toys for the Chinese market – we discussed the children. Their son was such a sweet and clever little boy. Everyone made a big fuss of Sophie and particularly Tom – a second baby, and a boy at that! ‘You are so blessed!’ they kept telling us.
Both the Bandit and Fengtian, warned us that children, especially boys, were being abducted all over China because many Chinese people were desperate to have sons. The one-child policy meant that boys were very precious. ‘Watch your children. Don’t let them out of your sight,’ they warned us.
A few days later, we went to Beijing station to take the train to Qingdao. As we made our way through the chaos with Li holding Sophie’s hand and me pushing Tom in his stroller, I thought of how it must have been for Li when he saw Beijing for the first time as an eleven-year-old, leaving his family and all he knew to be taught as a ballet dancer under Madame Mao’s cultural regime. I recalled him telling me how he became separated from the rest of his group at the station when he first arrived there, alone and terrified and so far from home. I thought of what the Bandit and Fengtian had just told us about the one-child policy and I shuddered. I looked down at Sophie, wondering how it must be for her: so many people, all that confusion, the distortions she’d be hearing through those big hearing aids. I just wanted to hold her close.
As always, it was wonderful to be with Li’s parents in Qingdao. They were devoted to Sophie and embraced baby Tom as their own, too. ‘Hao haizi! Hao haizi!’ Good boy! Good boy! Niang kept saying, and she couldn’t stop tickling his little penis. Dia just smiled and smiled. ‘The Li family name and the family bloodline is made stronger with Tom’s birth,’ Li explained.
Sophie was happy to be running wild again with all the cousins. Sometimes, she would put her little hand over my mouth to stop me talking when we were doing speech therapy. I decided to let her enjoy her time with her relatives. Sophie would run with her cousins from one household to another, the care of the little ones simply shifting from one adult set of eyes to the next. And there was a constant flow of people and food. Even though they were poor, there was always food!
Our journey home began with a train back to Beijing. We disembarked into a swirling mass of people and began navigating our way through. Sophie pointed at the toilet sign further down the platform and Li volunteered to take her. After a while I began to worry. They had been gone for ages. I started looking around but it was impossible to pick out any individual in that mad place and Tom was starting to grizzle. Suddenly Sophie was there beside me, holding on to my legs. I knelt down and held her close. But where was Li? Why wasn’t he with her? ‘Where’s Daddy? Daddy?’ I kept saying to Sophie, looking intently at her and speaking directly into my microphone. She glanced around but whether that was in response to my question, I didn’t know.
About five minutes later Li rushed back, completely ashen-faced and trembling. He seemed to be in utter panic. He saw us: me, Tom, and then Sophie. ‘Thank God, Mary. I thought I’d lost her!’