Free Separate Roads by Tracie Peterson, Judith Pella

heads of every man who try to leave for Gam Saan.” She paused for a moment and looked at Jia, who had begun to fuss. “Tea ready now. I give some to Jia.”
    Victoria watched her go to work and tried to imagine what it would be like to risk your life in order to seek a dream in a new country. Not only the risk of striking out for an unfamiliar land, braving storms at sea to cross the vast ocean between China and America, but then living with the threat of decapitation if your plans were found out before you could escape. Not only that, but Victoria knew from things Li had said on previous occasions that most of the Chinese who left their homeland had full intentions of returning. They would go to Gam Saan and pick up their basketful of gold and return as wealthy men to their families and native land.
    But Victoria knew that was seldom, if ever, the case. She had seen the poverty-ridden Chinese as they struggled to coexist in a world that didn’t want them. She had known from Anna Judah of the hideous treatment these people had suffered and of the life of prostitution many of the young women had found themselves forced to endure. Li had been one of those women, and the very idea caused Victoria to thank God for the protected life she had known. It also made her most intent on continuing to help the Chinese in any way she could. The O’Connors might be poor and needy in the sense of possessions, but they were not so poor that they couldn’t offer a helping hand to their neighbors.

8
    It wasn’t long before Jia was back to his laughing, roly-poly self. Li felt confident that he had suffered no long-term effects from his illness, and when Xiang came for them, she heartily thanked Victoria for her generosity.
    “You good friend, Victoria. I sorry to go so far away from you.”
    “Not half as sorry as I am to see you go,” Victoria admitted, barely holding back her tears. It was only because of Li and Jia that Victoria had forgotten her loneliness in Kiernan’s absence. What would she do to feel better once Li was gone?
    Jia laughed and pulled Victoria’s dark hair. She reached out and took the baby from Li. “I shall miss you both, so very much. Please come back and visit me.”
    Victoria touched the downy black softness of Jia’s hair and kissed him lightly on the head. He was so very precious. Such a sweet and gentle soul. If she had a son of her own, Victoria knew she’d want him to have just such a disposition.
    Her eyes filled with tears, and she quickly handed Jia back to Li. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t going to cry.”
    Li nodded. “We share our tears with our smiles.”
    Victoria wiped her cheek. “I suppose that’s what good friends do.”
    The house was uncommonly quiet after Li and Jia had gone. Victoria had tried to question Xiang about the railroad, but he wasn’t given to conversing much with women, and she could easily see how uncomfortable he was. He did mention the possibility that the Chinese would be hired on as actual workers for the Central Pacific because white workers were often called to the hills by their desire for gold. Victoria could well understand that problem. She’d seen gold fever at its worst. Men fighting, even killing, for the elusive little mineral. It was a powerful motivator.
    Realizing she’d not kept up her correspondence during Jia’s sickness, Victoria sat down to pen a letter to her sister Jordana. Finally, the two could communicate because their mother had managed to tie up the loose ends of their family and locate her missing children. A strange turn of events had sent her brother Brenton and sister Jordana from their established locations in New York City to Omaha in the Nebraska Territory. The biggest reason for this had come in the arrival from Ireland of Caitlan O’Connor, Kiernan’s baby sister. Only to hear her mother tell it, Caitlan was far from a baby. She was a progressively minded young woman with a will of her own and an internal driving force that