Dad Threatened Disownment; After Uncle's Release He Went Mad

I clenched the crumpled fifty dollars in my pocket, lifted my head, and looked at my father. “Dad, I've eaten your food for eight years, and I've worked for eight years too. I don't owe you a thing. Today I'm going to fetch my uncle, and if you won't claim me as your daughter, then don't.” My father shook with rage, and his pipe cracked down against the flagstones. He kicked out at me. “You ungrateful thing! I'll beat you to death, you traitor of a little animal!” I dodged to the side. His foot met nothing, and he nearly pitched over the threshold. The commotion in the yard woke the stepmother in the back room. She came out with a jacket thrown over her shoulders, leaned against the doorframe, and cooed her fake little counsel. “Oh, come now, why work yourself up like this? If she wants to go, let her go. Who can stop a person set on getting herself killed!” I knew exactly what she wanted. She was hoping I'd go fetch my uncle so she'd have her excuse to keep me out of the house for good and save the food for her son. I had no patience left for their play-acting. I pulled open the gate and walked out. Just then my father's cursing carried out on the wind. “Cordelia, if you leave, don't come back! As far as I'm concerned, I never had a daughter like you!” I didn't turn around. That suits me fine, I thought. As far as I'm concerned, I never had a father like you. I followed the rutted dirt road toward the edge of the village. The sky slowly brightened, dawn washing half of it red. As we'd agreed, I gave Merlin Lambert, who drove the ox cart, ten dollars to take me to the prison. Merlin looked at me and sighed. “Cordelia, the way your father is, once you go, you likely won't ever be able to come back... You sure you won't think it over?” I sat on the straw in the cart, gripping the forty dollars left in my pocket, and gave a small smile. “Merlin, if I can't come back, then I can't. There's nothing in that house worth holding on to anyway...” Hearing that, Merlin let out a long sigh and dropped it. He drove the cart out of the village. 3 The sun was nearly overhead by the time we finally reached the prison gate. I bowed to Merlin, pressed the ten dollars into his hand, and stood at the gate to wait. Before long the iron gate rattled open. I searched the faces one by one, eyes wide. I looked for a long while before I finally saw that familiar figure. My uncle was much thinner than before, but his back was still straight as ever. When he saw me, he froze for a moment, then suddenly smiled. The same smile I knew, his eyes curving. He walked over quickly and asked, “Cordelia, your father didn't give you a hard time, did he?” I gripped the forty dollars left in my pocket, and the words caught in my throat and wouldn't come out. I let the tears well up in my eyes. I fought with everything I had to keep them from falling. I knew my uncle didn't like to see me cry. He watched me holding back the tears, and he lifted his hand and gave my forehead a light flick. “Look at you, all grown up. You've learned to be strong.” That did it. My tears spilled over all at once, dropping one after another. My uncle said nothing more. He just clapped his hands lightly. A moment later a green jeep drove straight up in front of us. I was stunned on the spot. In all my life, it was the first time I'd ever seen a car. I opened my mouth to ask what was going on. But he spoke first. “Sweetheart, they've taken the class-enemy label off me, and your grandfather's family name is cleared too... Don't you worry! With me here from now on, no one can bully you ever again. Come on, ride back to the village with me. We're going to set things right!” I stood beside the jeep, clutching the hem of my clothes, and for a long moment I couldn't take it in. Never in my dreams had I imagined my uncle would be exonerated, or that I'd ever ride in a car. “What are you standing there in a daze for? Get in, we're going back to the village...” My uncle pulled the door open and reached out to haul me into the car. The driver was a young man in a jacket. When he saw me he gave a proper little nod and said, “Miss Henson.” It startled me so badly I ducked behind my uncle. In all my life, who had ever called me Miss? In the village, they either called me “the jinx,” or “the unwanted stray girl.” My uncle saw me standing there so uneasy and hesitant, and he smiled. He patted my head gently. “Don't be afraid. Our Cordelia was always the eldest daughter of the Henson family. You'll have to get used to it...”

The jeep rode a lot smoother than the ox cart. I pressed against the window and watched the poplars on either side of the road stream backward. Forty miles. The ox cart had eaten up a whole morning. The jeep did it in an hour. The car had barely stopped at the gate of our yard before a crowd of villagers gathered to gawk. They murmured among themselves. "Well now... isn't that the third Henson boy? Didn't he get thrown in prison? How's he coming back in a car!" "Yeah... a car like that, only the higher-ups get to ride in one." Inside the yard. My father was crouched on the threshold smoking, and my stepmother sat under the eaves mending shoes for that precious son of hers. When they heard the commotion outside, my father looked up, and the color drained from his face. His pipe clattered to the ground. He pointed at my uncle stepping down from the jeep, shaking all over. "You... you... how did you get out?" My uncle smoothed the front of his freshly washed Mao suit. He looked my father over, amused, the way you'd look at a man who'd seen a ghost, and let out a soft laugh. "Owen Henson, the debt from eight years ago... it's time we settled it today!" My father stumbled back a step, hit the threshold, and dropped hard onto the ground. My stepmother rushed over to prop him up, forcing a shaky smile. "What talk is this? We're all family, what debt is there to settle? Come inside and sit, I'll go boil some water for you." She reached for my uncle's arm, but the young driver put out a hand and blocked her. "Show some respect. Comrade Henson is a specially protected talent now. He's not someone you can put your hands on." My stepmother snatched her hand back, terrified, and stood off to the side, not daring to say another word. The villagers crowded at the gate erupted. "A specially protected talent? Then... the third Henson boy isn't a bad man after all?" "I always said it wasn't right. A man with his temper, how could he ever be a counter—" "So him going to prison... doesn't that mean... Owen Henson framed him?" The words cut into my father's face like knives, one after another. His face went green, then white, and with a thud he dropped to his knees in front of my uncle. "Third brother, I was wrong! I lost my head back then... I wronged you... I wronged your sister, and I wronged Cordelia most of all! Spare me... I know I was wrong..." My father knocked his head against the ground, thud after thud, until his forehead was red. My stepmother knelt down too, clutching the hem of my clothes and crying. "Cordelia, after all the care I've given you day after day, help me talk your uncle round... your little brother is still small, he can't grow up without a father!" 5 Watching my stepmother cling to my clothes and sob, I felt not a shred of pity. Only disgust. Eight years. When had she ever cared for me? From the day she married in, I was driven out to live in the woodshed. Winters I shivered until my whole body shook. Summers the mosquitoes bit me until I was covered in welts. Her son ate fluffy white bread rolls. I gnawed coarse cornbread, and I had to count out each piece I was allowed. The slightest thing that didn't please her, and out came the rolling pin. This was the care she was talking about? Ha. What a joke. I flung her hand off and stared at her, cold. "Care for me? From the day you married in, the washing, the cooking, feeding the pigs, hauling the water, which one of those wasn't me? Last winter my hands were cracked with frostbite and you still sent me down to the river to wash your son's diapers. That's caring for me? My father strung me up from the rafters and beat me, and you stood there egging him on to hit me a few more times. That's the care you're talking about?" The moment the words were out, my stepmother's face went bone white. She slumped to the ground and forgot even to cry. The muttering around us grew louder. Every look turned toward my father and stepmother now carried contempt. Hearing all this, my uncle grew angrier still. He grabbed me and pulled me behind him, shielding me. Then he fixed my father with a cold stare. "Owen Henson, back then, to marry this woman and get your hands on the little dowry my sister left behind, you framed me and put me away for eight years. My sister can't rest easy even in her grave. Every bit of suffering Cordelia has taken under your roof these years, I'm going to collect on it, one account at a time, starting today!" When he finished, my uncle lifted his chin toward the driver beside him. Allan Gray reached into his bag at once, drew out a letter stamped with a red seal, and handed it to the district head standing nearby. The moment the district head saw that red seal, his hands started to tremble. He turned to my father at once. "Owen Henson! I knew back then the materials you handed in weren't right. So it was a false accusation! Get up! You're coming with me to the county administration office to cooperate with the investigation, right now!" He had barely finished when two militiamen from the county walked in. They hauled my father up on the spot and dragged him out. Only now did my stepmother truly panic. Wailing, she threw herself around my uncle's legs. "Third brother, have a heart, let us off... you've had the children's father taken away, how are the two of us supposed to live..." But my uncle paid her no mind. He turned to me instead. "Sweetheart, go pack your things. We're going home to Los Angeles. That's where our real home is."

I followed my uncle into the woodshed I'd lived in for eight years, and it felt like a lifetime ago and another world all at once. There was almost nothing of mine in there. Just a cloth bundle patched in several places, and the silver locket my mother had left me. The stepmother trailed behind us, sniveling, muttering the whole way: "Cordelia, you've already had your own father hauled off. You can't go taking things too... that half-sack of cornmeal is my son's food ration!" I stopped and looked at her, a cold smile on my lips. "That half-sack of cornmeal, I dug wild greens up the mountain from dawn to dark to trade for it. Since when did it become your son's ration?" My uncle glanced at the half-sack of cornmeal, then at the stepmother wailing until snot bubbled at her nose, and let out a soft sigh. He picked up the bundle for me. "Come on, sweetheart. It's only half a sack of cornmeal, not worth arguing with a shrew over. Let's go... once we're back in Los Angeles, your uncle will buy you white bread." That one line left her red in the face with nothing to say. All she could do was squat down, slap her thighs, and howl at nothing. I walked out of the woodshed behind my uncle. Passing the main room, I saw half a fluffy white bread roll sitting on the low table by the bed. That was the breakfast the stepmother had saved for her son. I didn't slow my step. Those good days built on cheating and lying, I didn't want the smallest piece of them. Because I knew I deserved better. Sitting back in the jeep, I still felt like I was dreaming. I clutched the forty dollars in my pocket, crumpled and soft, and held it out to my uncle. "Uncle, this is money I saved for three years. I wanted to buy you a new set of clothes for when you got out." He looked at the folded bills, and his eyes went red all at once. He gripped my hand, his knuckles trembling. "My good girl, don't you worry... your uncle will look after you for the rest of his life." Then he tucked the money right back into my pocket and swiped a hand across his eyes. "Keep it. Your uncle has money now, and a salary too. From now on our girl is going to wear new clothes and eat white bread rolls, and never have a hard day again!" 7 The car didn't head straight for the county administration office. First it swung by the village entrance. When Merlin Lambert saw me come back in a jeep, it gave him a real fright, and he scrambled up off his ox cart. My uncle got down and pressed twenty dollars into his hand, holding it tight. "Merlin, thank you for bringing my niece over today. Take this, buy yourself a couple sacks of grain." Merlin wouldn't dream of taking it. He kept waving his hands, refusing. Until my uncle's face went stern. "If you won't take it, then you think Stanley Henson isn't worth your respect." Only then did Merlin reluctantly accept, wiping his eyes. "I always knew you were wronged. Stanley, you're a good man. Heaven has eyes after all!" My uncle smiled and said nothing, then told the driver to turn around and head for the county office. After the statement was taken, the district head kept apologizing to my uncle. Kept saying my uncle had been done wrong, locked up half a year over a false charge. He even had us stay and eat in the office canteen. It was the first time in my whole life I'd tasted fluffy white bread rolls, and scrambled eggs too. I held the bread roll in both hands, and my fingers shook a little. My uncle saw how out of place I felt. He moved all the egg from his own plate onto mine. "Eat, sweetheart, eat plenty. Don't worry... from now on your uncle promises you'll have this every single day." Seeing this, the district head chuckled along. "That's right... Cordelia, Professor Henson is an important man... forget white bread rolls, he can have meat on your table every day without any trouble." At his words I froze on the spot. Goodness... A professor? How high a post was that? Was my uncle really such a big deal? I only remembered him teaching me my letters when I was small, telling me my grandfather had been a professor at the city university. I'd never imagined my uncle could go back and be a professor now too. After we ate, we spent the night at the county guesthouse. It was the first time I'd slept in a bed with a real blanket, not a hard clay platform, and the blanket even carried the scent of soap. I lay down and turned over and over, unable to sleep. Every wrong I'd swallowed all these years, every hardship, spun through my head like a paper lantern turning round and round. After my mother was gone, I'd been like a weed no one tended, trodden down again and again in that so-called home, pressed down and pressed down. I never dared dream of a day I'd come out on top. I only ever thought, if I could just hold out until my uncle got free, that would be enough. I never imagined I'd finally come through it in a way like this. The more I thought about it, the more my tears fell without my meaning them to. Not from grief. It was the stone that had sat on my heart all these years finally coming to rest. Early the next morning we took the jeep to the train station. The county office had written out papers for us, and packed us food for the road. Besides the white bread rolls, they'd tucked in two boiled eggs. I clutched the silver locket my mother had left, my other hand touching the crisp poplin shirt my uncle had just bought me. My heart was fluttery and sweet all at once. But then, just as we reached the ticket gate at the station. I heard someone yell my name at the top of their lungs. "Cordelia Henson! You stop right there!"