Free Diamond Head by Cecily Wong Page A

She leans in closer to see the photograph the woman holds in her hands and is met by a picture of her husband, taken on the afternoon of their first meeting.
    Bohai is reading in a wooden chair, perfectly upright. He’s completely immersed in the pages; his cheeks are flushed, his mouth faintly agape.
    “Have a look,” the woman says suddenly, extending the picture to Amy. She presses the frame into Amy’s chest and clears her throat. “Here,” she says. “Have a look at my son.”

Lin
    1914
    G UANGDONG , C HINA
    Frank’s resolve to move our family to an island I could barely pronounce came without warning at the end of 1914, and my immediate reaction was panic. He had arrived home from a six-week business trip to the north when he called me into his library. On the map we had received as a wedding gift, a small group of islands was circled. Slowly, Frank traced his finger along the route that we would take across the Pacific Ocean.
    I wanted to react. I wanted to tell Frank that leaving China was completely out of the question. But I couldn’t find the strength. Each time I formed a sentence in my mind, readied it on my tongue, a tightness grew in my chest and expanded into my mouth, blocking the words from their exit. Recently, it had been this way. Bohai had just turned five, and it seemed his silence had begun to invade my body as well. I couldn’t change my son—I had tried in every possible way and failed in even more—so perhaps it was not Bohai who needed changing. It was a thought that never left me. Perhaps it was I who was incompetent, a woman incapable of mothering. As days passed and my son remained unchanged, I felt my failure swell and multiply. There was a voice, one I had silenced for many years, that now whispered to me at all times of the day. You are unworthy of this life, it said. It was all a mistake.
    We no longer spoke of Bohai, Frank and me. We spoke of very few things. Frank had begun to travel again and was gone most days of the month, far away from the silent house that reeked of our disappointment. When he returned, sometimes I wouldn’t know for two or three days. He would sleep in his library and leave early the nextmorning. Sometimes a suitcase on the floor or a teacup in the basin would be the only sign of my husband’s homecoming. Hong would find the suitcase and tuck it into a closet; she would wash the cup in the basin and say nothing. She was the only person in the world who understood the fragility of my mind and the peculiarity of our situation. She knew how easily I could drown in that teacup, how simple it would be to suffocate in that suitcase.
    But that night, Frank had woken me. He had taken my hand and I had blushed in the dark of the corridor as he led me to his office, where he told me of Oahu and his plan to move our family there.
    “Years ago, I took a shipment there and I always said I would return. There’s an ancient volcano unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, Diamond Head they call it. It’s magnificent. An old home to the Hawaiian gods, and soon it will be our home as well.”
    I remember looking at the map and hearing his words, my thoughts still hanging in the dark corridor, when I thought our encounter would be different, when I confused the urgency in his eyes with desire. When Frank spoke the words move immediately , I realized what was happening, and the heat coursing through my body became thick and slow. My legs lowered into a chair and the only thought that remained in my defeated mind was how foolish I had turned out to be.
    “It wasn’t a simple decision,” Frank said, sitting himself. “But with time, you’ll come to understand why.”
    “Can’t I know now?” I asked softly, using my voice for the first time. I felt completely powerless, pathetic. So much of my life hinged on the decisions of this man, and I could barely find the strength to speak, to ask him why. Virtuous , I heard my father’s voice in my head, reciting his