Free Ashes by Anthology Page A

if you handle Sung Li, the value will go down.
    Mom really loves that doll, maybe more than anything else in the showcase. Did you look yet? There's a silver tray that's got some writing on it under a picture of a sailboat. Up above that is an old book that's got cardboard poking through the corners and a little red ribbon tucked inside as a bookmark. There's some other things, too. Daddy's old bowling trophy, some dollars from where they don't know how to spell good, and that knife from Mexico that's made out of volcano stuff. But Sung Li is the main thing. All the rest is kind of placed around her like an afterthought.
    Mom taught me the word "afterthought." She sometimes even calls me that. Her Little Afterthought. She smiles when she says that, but it's one of those crooked smiles where one side of your face gets wrinkly.
    Except to put something inside, Mom only opens that showcase about once a month, when she takes one of those dusters that looks like the back end of a chicken. She runs that duster over the shelves and all that stuff in the showcase. I don't see why she bothers, because that old stuff in there just keeps making more dust. When the light's just right, when you hide behind the door and the sun is sneaking through that little crack between the hall and my bedroom, you can watch her. After she leaves, you can sit there and watch the little silver hairs spin and twirl and then settle down all over again.
    But mostly I watch Sung Li. You ought to go up and see her. Maybe you will, after I finish telling her story.
    She wears this little robe with flowers on it and she's got a cloth belt tied around her waist. The sleeves where her hands come out are really wide. She has tiny black shoes and pants that are the color of raw rice. But her frosty white face is what I really like to look at.
    Her cheeks go way up high under her eyes, and they're sharp like a naked bone. Her eyebrows are real skinny and rounded. She has a nose that's almost invisible, just a little nip of whatever it is they make plates out of. Her lips are bright red and shiny, almost like they're wet. I know it's all paint, but I like to pretend about things like that.
    She doesn't look much like me. Except for the eyes. Sometimes I'll look into those black glass eyes of hers, the eyes that seem to soak up whatever light hits them. Then I'll run into the bathroom down the hall, quick before I forget, and look in the mirror at my own eyes. And for just a second, or however long I can go without blinking, I can pretend that I'm pretty like Sung Li.
    You really think I'm pretty? Well, it's nice of you to say that, anyway. But I'm not pretty like Sung Li.
    At night in bed I wrap the blankets around me and think about Sung Li. I take off my pillowcases and put them on my arms and pretend they're big sleeves. I stick my lips out a little, like I'm waiting for a secret kiss. I pretend I'm sitting on the middle shelf and people look at me and like me because I am pretty and have good value.
    Maybe I wouldn't ever have learned Sung Li's story. But one day Daddy opened the case with his little key because he bought a carved gnome and wanted to put it in there. Mom was watching him, to make sure he didn't break anything. Daddy used to break things sometimes.
    No, I don't need a tissue. Everybody keeps telling me that it's okay to cry, and they give me candy bars. But why should I cry? Sung Li is going to be okay.
    Usually Mom sent me away whenever the case was opened. I think she was afraid I would pick up something and make its value go down. So I hid behind the door and looked through that crack near the hinges. I heard Daddy tell Mom that the gnome was a collector's item. It was an ugly old thing, with a thick beard and a sharp nose and a face that's all wrinkly like somebody who stayed in the bathtub too long. You can see it when you go up to look at Sung Li, if you want to.
    Daddy took Sung Li out of the center space on the main shelf and put that