‘That I should not have pulled out the knife.’ At his startled look, she explained. ‘I didn’t bleed much until I pulled it out.’
‘Oh.’
‘But I was close enough to the temple by then.’
‘He took care of your wound?’
She winced at the memory. ‘It was painful.’
‘I imagine so.’
‘There was a fever, too. That began the next day.’
‘Infection.’
‘Infection,’ she said, testing out the English word. ‘Illness.’
‘Yes,’ he confirmed.
And when he remained silent, she moved on to the reason she had shared this painful memory with him. ‘He told me to love what I love but remember that it will not love me back.’
He frowned. ‘I do not understand.’
‘I loved the buying and selling. A day in the factories district was exciting. Always something new to bargain over. I loved that they needed me to speak. To say yes or no, and that sometimes I would be given extra coin for a difficult negotiation.’ She grimaced. ‘I had that every day, but still I wanted more.’
‘More money?’
‘I thought so, but I was wrong.’ She turned to him. She had never said this out loud. Worse, she had no carefully constructed words to hide the truth. And so she gave it to him baldly. ‘I wanted to be loved. I loved the bargaining, and I thought with more money, I could make more bargains.’
‘That’s how it works.’
‘But that is not love. More bargains did not love me back.’ She grimaced as she thought of what happened afterwards. ‘Ah-Lan got me work with the monks to manage their business. It was work I had done before, counting and recording things in the storeroom. He told them as a woman, I could not work in the district anymore. So they set me to work in the temple for no coin at all.’
It had been a bitter pill to swallow, but the only way she could survive. And since she worked daily in the temple again, she saw Ah-Lan daily, as well.
‘In time,’ she admitted, ‘I was allowed to bargain for the temple. It was not for the same amount of money. It was not fast like in the halls. But I still had my love for it even though I received no coin at all.’ Did he understand what she was saying? ‘I love the barter of a thing for coin and a coin for a thing. If Imake money, if I do not, it does not matter. It is fun. I love it, but it does not give me love.’ That was a hole that had to be filled in a different way.
‘I see,’ he said slowly, and she wondered if he really did. ‘Did this boy, this Ah-Lan give you love?’
She flushed, embarrassment heating her cheeks.
She’d thought so, yes. She believed that what she and Ah-Lan shared was true love, but in the end, what he loved was more important to him. Despite all the time they’d spent together, he left her and the temple behind. He had a chance to learn medicine in the mountains far from Canton. He’d met someone who would teach even a half person. And so he’d left Lucy behind.
Which was why, when Lord Wenshire came, she joined Grace and left China behind.
‘I can see from your face that he did.’
‘For a time. I thought so.’
‘Was he the only one?’
‘What?’
‘Was he the only boy to give you love? The only soul who showed you tenderness?’
‘The monks were kind to us. They raised us, taught us. There was love there.’
‘The love of a parent to a child.’