Free Inheritance by Lan Samantha Chang Page A

with her clouded, almost unseeing eyes. Her father averted his gaze. She turned to Yinan. Yinan was pumping her head back and forth, back and forth, violently and soundlessly, as if she had swallowed something and could not breathe. Then she ran from the room.
    Somewhere in the house, the infant Hu Ran was crying.
    Junan excused herself and followed her sister. She struggled to collect her thoughts. It was a warm day and the air was filled with the odor of melting earth. She felt intoxicated, floating, and beneath this queer feeling there was an undertow of helpless grief.
    The door to Yinan’s room was closed. She knocked, but there was no answer. “Meimei,” she said. “Meimei, it’s me.”
    She bent toward the door. “Meimei,” she said, ”It’s me, Jiejie.”
    She pushed the door open.
    Yinan sat at her desk, head bent onto a pile of red New Year signs. Her shoulders shook.
    “Meimei, let me help you move these signs. You don’t want to get them all wet.”
    Still shaking, Yinan nodded. “Yes—Jiejie—”
    “Meimei, don’t cry. You still have almost nine months at home. Nine months is a long time.”
    “Don’t—make me—leave—”
    The room blurred for one dizzying wing beat. Junan struggled to collect herself. “I—will miss you too, Meimei, but Nanjing isn’t terribly far. You need to get married, you must be married—”
    “But Jiejie—”
    There was a knock on the door.
    Junan looked up. There was something familiar in the knock, peremptory, and loud. Both sisters straightened, turning toward the door, and in the next moment it opened, revealing a tall, lithe, handsome man wearing a khaki uniform. He stood there, holding back a little to assess the situation. Junan started. It was her husband. She hadn’t seen him since his visit in the fall. Now he looked very much like a stranger, and yet somehow alarmingly familiar and welcome. She felt her fingertips pulse and her cheeks begin to glow. She had a sudden, fierce desire to run to him and throw her arms around him with relief.
    Instead, she nodded and asked if he had eaten.
    THAT NIGHT, WHEN they were alone, Li Ang put his hands on Junan’s shoulders. In the dark she couldn’t see his body, nor did she reach for it, but she knew it by its shape and weight: his torso long, his shoulders strong and sleek like those of the man who pulled the ice wagon. She turned her face away. Although his skin was very warm, she suddenly shivered—she didn’t know whether it was from fear or desire, or perhaps from anticipation of this avenue to forgetfulness. She could smell their evening meal on his breath: chicken and ginger, sulfurous eggs, fish, and sesame oil. Beneath it all, there was his scent, familiar now, and when she detected it, she felt an involuntary loosening in her spine. As if he could somehow feel this, he began kissing her fervently on the mouth. She pulled away.
    He stopped. “What is it?” His voice frightened her; it was so low and kind.
    She couldn’t answer him.
    He put his hand on the back of her neck and stroked it; kindly, as one might stroke a miserable child.
    “What is it?”
    “Stop it—stop—don’t—” She couldn’t speak. If he didn’t stop touching her, she would cry.
    She had never thought of what her life would be like without Yinan: without the blink of her eyes, without her narrow, shuttered face, without the still gravity of her body as she sat to read or draw, without her clear voice always asking impossible or childish questions, without the smell and sound of her breathing, and the trusting beat of her heart.
    “What is it?”
    “It is Yinan—” She shuddered. “Yinan—”
    “What about Yinan?”
    His hand kept moving on her neck, gently and with patience. The touch spread through her and she found it difficult to keep herself from shaking.
    “Her engagement. She will be married—and then she will be gone—”
    Her voice broke. Ashamed, she looked away and fought to hide this from him. But