Later,as we settled into Li’s cottage as a married couple, I found Mrs. Wu in the garden picking tomatoes. I breathed in their delicious scent and held up a hand in greeting. “Can I help?” I asked.
She straightened, a fat tomato in hand. “No, dear. I’m done. But you can carry the basket inside.”
We walked together across the small backyard toward the house. I had plans already to make the garden a haven for entertaining. I’d not have time before the cold weather came, but next spring. I shared some of my ideas with Mrs. Wu, pointing out areas where I would plant flowers and put a swing in for the boys.
“Speaking of changes,” Mrs. Wu said. “I'd really like to stay at the big house. I sleep better there in the bed I’m accustomed to. And Lizzie’s quite frantic without me there. She’s too proud to say so but I know she was relieved when I returned.”
“Have you spoken to Li about it?” I asked. Did she want to move out for her own sake or ours?
“Yes, we spoke of it earlier. He was in agreement. How else will you have room for these boys of yours? I think he might be glad to be rid of me.”
“Well, I doubt that. However, you’re just down the road. We can be together anytime we want.”
We reached the back porch. She stopped me from going up the stairs by putting a hand on my arm. “Miss Fiona, I have something to say.”
“Yes, ma’am?” I held the basket in front of me, the ripe tomato scent tickling my nose. The evening air had cooled and felt delicious next to my bare arms and face.
“You’ve made Li happy. I’m glad for it. For you. I understood his reservations, of course. But in the end, we cannot hide. Not from love or from hate. Both have to be faced with courage.”
“Yes, I believe so.” She smiled up at me, her face etched with wrinkles, yet her beauty shone through. “Thank you for welcoming me into your family.”
“Pish posh, you’ve been family all along,” Mrs. Wu said, sounding remarkably similar to Lizzie. They hadn’t spent every day together for twenty years and not picked up a few of each other’s habits and ways of speaking. “I’m grateful for your family. For your father and mother’s kindness and now for you. You’ve given my boy meaning and purpose.”
I thanked her and then held the door for her to go inside. The boys were in the kitchen with Li learning how to take the ends off green beans. There was a mound of beans in front of each of them. They snapped the ends off each one and added it to a new pile while chatting in French with some English tossed in every few sentences.
They beamed at us when we entered the kitchen. Li looked up from where he’d been cutting potatoes for our dinner. This was my life, I thought. Simple and sweet. The stuff of dreams. Mine, anyway.
The boys asked if I would play the piano while they worked and I obliged, but only after asking Li if he was sure he could spare me.
He nodded. “Best leave this to the experts, right, boys?”
They agreed, so I went out to the other room and sat at the piano to play a Gershwin tune I was supposed to have performed at the nightclub in Paris. This was a better audience, I decided. Where else could the scent of sweet peas mingle with tomatoes in the dry mountain air?
Home. This is where I belonged.
I looked up when Li entered the room with a glass of sherry for me. He sat down on the bench and kissed me lightly. “Welcome home, bride.”
“Thank you, groom.” I took the glass from him and took a sip before placing it on top of the piano. “What shall I play next?”
“I’ll play one for you. One I wrote for you when you were away and I was miserable. Music saved me, Fiona. It always has.”
I rested my cheek against his warm shoulder. “And brought us together.”
He brushed his thumb along my cheekbone. “Are you sure you won’t regret leaving Paris before the recital?”
“I’m quite sure. This is what I’ve wanted all along. We’ll make music together here and if that’s all we ever do, it will please God. I feel certain of it. Our music brings people joy, right here in Emerson Pass.”
“We couldn’t ask for a better life,” Li said.
“We could not.”
His slender fingers poised over the keys for a second before he began to play a tune sweet and elegant at once. The notes sent goose bumps up my arms. They were the story of our love, of our life, of our families. Of our two lives merging into one. As it was destined to be.