and Ma, to see if I could read the answer in my sister’s face, but she looked merely sweaty and tired from the long drive. She was rubbing her eyes with one hand.
“I’ll wake the kids up,” Sourdi said.
“Let them sleep,” Ma said. “They wake up, they start yelling all over again.” She smiled then, and I knew she was in a good mood. Maybe she’d realized we’d made a wrong turn. Maybe she just wanted to go in and ask directions so that we could find our real family’s restaurant. Ma surveyed the Palace, a hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun beating down from the cloudless sky.
“It’s beautiful,” Ma said finally, and for a second I thought she was joking, but it wasn’t like her to be sarcastic.
“Mmm-hmm.” Sourdi nodded. “Our own restaurant.” She craned her neck to read the grand opening sign again.
“It’s not ours,” I pointed out quickly.
“Auntie’s then. And Uncle’s.” Sourdi scowled. “It’s our family’s. That means all of us. Right, Ma?”
Before Ma could answer, an old man came running out the front door. He waved his hands in the air excitedly, and Ma gasped. Then she ran towards him. They met on the sidewalk, Ma covering her mouth with her hand, shaking her head, as the old man put a hand on her elbow. He smiled, revealing all the holes in his mouth where his teeth should have been. They spoke so fast, I couldn’t understand a word they said. Ma was crying. She wiped the tears away quickly on the back of her hand, again and again, the gesture like a cat cleaning its whiskers.
I wondered who this old man was. Maybe a servant. Maybe a worker our rich aunt and uncle had hired to help them run their business. He was wearing a long-sleeved cotton shirt despite the heat and tan cotton pants with handprints in flour along the thighs. Because of all the missing teeth, even when he smiled, his face appeared to be grimacing, as though he’d been in a fight. His hair was mostly gone, and what was left was gray. His skin was cracked and lined.
Ma pointed in our direction, and the old man turned toward us. He smiled again, his skin pulling back from his mouth.
“Don’t just stand there,” Ma said. “Come say hello to your uncle.”
I couldn’t move. I stood rooted in place, hoping there’d been a mistake, that Ma had misspoken, or was only polite. He was not really Uncle, but just a man she was calling an uncle. I grabbed hold of Sourdi’s hand beside me, and she squeezed my hand back tightly.
Then the man who was certainly not Uncle came to us.
“You look just like my wife,” he said to me. “I mean, when she was younger. When she was your age.”
I looked at my feet.
“Oh, no,” Ma said, politely. “She’s much too tall. It’s all this American food she eats.” Ma shook her head. “She’s going to be tall as a boy.”
“So beautiful,” he said, turning to Sourdi. “You’ve become a young lady since I last saw you.”
Sourdi blushed.
“But where are the others?” He turned to Ma, confused.
“They’re still sleeping.” Sourdi pointed to the car, and the old man nodded.
“Go wake them,” Ma said.
“No, let the little ones sleep. I’ll just take a look for myself.” He ran over to the car. We watched from the sidewalk as he peered inside the dusty windows.
“Do you remember your uncle now?” Ma asked us.
“I think so,” Sourdi began, but I interrupted: “It’s not him, Ma. It’s not.”
Ma frowned at me. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s a mistake. He’s not really Uncle.”
“Don’t talk crazy,” she whispered. Then she pinched my ear between her finger and thumb as though I were still a small child, as though a little pain could make me see things her way.
Then the old man came back toward us, and Ma dropped her hand from my ear and smiled sweetly.
“Let me show you inside,” the old man said, and he opened the door for Ma. Sourdi followed them obediently, but I hung back on the sidewalk. I wasn’t going to follow this Pretender, this charlatan, this man who was certainly not our rich, savior Uncle. Auntie who always had to have the best would not have married such an old man. Why couldn’t Ma see?
It was too hot in the car so I paced on the sidewalk. To my left, the soybean and cornfields were marching up to the state highway, a sea of green as far as I could see. To my right, the large empty parking lot, with the Super 8 at one end and the laundromat behind it. A paper bag blew across the asphalt, then caught on a light pole, flapping furiously like a pinned butterfly.
I turned back to examine the Palace, this place Ma insisted upon claiming as our own. There was a long bank of windows in the front, facing the highway and the fields. Someone had taped a hand-lettered sign in the door: “Chinese and Cambodian Cuisine.” The windows had been recently washed. They reflected the fields and the road and my squinting face.
I noticed there was a window in the attic above the restaurant, with the curtains drawn. Then the curtains moved, and I saw a face staring out at me. It was a strange, terrible face, split in two, dark on one side, light on the other. A face like the half moon. A ghost’s face. Before I could gasp, the curtains fell shut, and the face disappeared.
Suddenly a shadow passed across the asphalt, moving my way. A cloud of white hovered in the sky, rising over the Palace roof, coming closer, growing larger, casting a shadow over me like a net. The cloud began to descend, behind the Palace. I followed the sidewalk around the building just in time to see the cloud disintegrate into a hundred seagulls. I covered my head and darted behind the metal dumpster, but the birds were not interested in me.
The gulls circled over the trash, swooping and diving, the wind filled with their mewling and cawing. They fought over bits of chicken flesh, their feathers flying like snowflakes. They stole bones from each other’s beaks, tore mushrooms in two, pecked at empty cans, and still more birds appeared, bobbing in the sky, crying loudly.
“Hey!” a voice called to me.
Another old man, skinny as a wishbone, stood on the back steps of the Palace. He was wearing a long apron stained with blood over his clothes and held a trash bag in one veiny hand, a cigarette in the other. He smiled at me, revealing a mouth of long, nicotine-stained teeth. “You the niece?” he asked in an accented English.
I shook my head.
“I’m the cook.” He nodded, smiling, and then tossed the trash bag into the dumpster, where it split open. The frenzied seagulls began to fight amongst themselves, their wings beating rapidly, feathers flying into the air, their cries rising above the wind. “They always wait for me,” the cook said, jabbing a crooked thumb at the gulls. “Don’t be scared.”
“I’m not!” I said.
He laughed then, his eyes disappearing into the folds of his skin. “Welcome,” he said. Then turned and went back inside the Palace.
“I’m
