“How?” Katie’s voice was incredulous. “I didn’t even know myself.”
“You young and foolish. Mrs. Cheng old and wise. Only get wise by becoming old. And Mrs. Cheng just know.”
Katie stood shyly in the back of the room. “Thank you again. It fits perfectly.”
“Mrs. Cheng good at what she does.”
Rebekah dared a peek and was quickly admonished by the wrinkled shopkeeper. “Drink tea!”
A smile teased at the corners of Rebekah’s lips. She was becoming rather accustomed to being admonished by the woman. “The material, I’ve never seen its equal.”
“Silk. Black silk. Plain, like you say.”
“It’s beauty is striking,” Katie said. “And feels so, well, perfect.”
“Not all beautiful things are good.” Mrs. Cheng dabbed salve on Rebekah’s knees. “And beauty is fleeting. You know this.”
“Is that why you chose the material?” Joseph, who always liked a puzzle and hidden meanings, was enthralled.
“No.” Mrs. Cheng shuffled down to Rebekah’s ankle. “Katie Knepp, bring me long piece of black silk on chair there. Hurry.”
“Ankle needs to be wrapped,” she explained. “Find ice, Peter. Put ice on ankle over wrap. You do this for Mrs. Cheng, yes?”
Peter nodded. “Shall I go now?”
“No. Find on train when you leave.” Mrs. Cheng’s face pulled up into a bright, weathered smile. “Because I know you leave soon.”
Rebekah drained the last of the minty, lemony tea and whispered to Mrs. Cheng as she bent down. “Is the silk expensive, Mrs. Cheng, it looks expensive...”
“I pay for it with my life.”
The room fell silent.
Confident she had everyone’s attention, Mrs. Cheng lifted the bottom of her skirt. What she revealed there brought a gasp to everyone there. “Tradition,” she said, pointing to her inhumanly tiny feet. They were bound with the same black cloth as Katie’s dress and Rebekah’s ankle wrap.
“Beauty in China is women have small feet.” She turned back to tend to Rebekah’s ankle, letting the skirt fall back and conceal her secret that to her, meant pain and suffering with each step. “But you and I know, beauty fleeting. Pain lasts much, much longer.”
Everyone in the shop was silent. Only Mrs. Cheng’s birdlike movements made sound.
“They take the feet of the baby girls and soak them, then fold them. In half. While bones still soft with youth. Then bind. Tightly. With cloth. Every day.”
Everyone stood, mouths open. “Soon, toes fall off. And we are left with small feet. Tiny shoes.” Mrs. Cheng shifted her slight weight. Rebekah had noticed how the old woman shuffled here and there, but she moved so quickly she had no idea she was moving basically without feet. “So I make you dresses of the same material that I must use to cover my feet. So you remember Mrs. Cheng. Remember, beauty. So fleeting, so...”
She let the sentence hang there. With a knowing smile, she pressed the tin of salve into Rebekah’s hand. “You will need this. If not for you, then for all the children you will bring forth with Joseph.”
Heat flamed in her cheeks, making Mrs. Cheng chuckle. “Goodbye, young ones. Come back and see Mrs. Cheng. If you ever come back.”
“I’ll change and be ready in a moment,” Katie whispered.
Mrs. Cheng hurried back to give her instructions, no doubt. When Katie emerged a moment later, she was dressed back in her brown frock from Father Plant. In her arms, she clutched a large parcel, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. “From Mrs. Cheng,” she explained as she passed Rebekah.
Joseph helped her up and to the door.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” Rebekah began.
Mrs. Cheng waved at her with both hands, as if shooing her out the door. “No thank yous. Just go.” Rebekah caught the old woman smiling as she shooed them from her shop.
“God bless you, Mrs. Cheng, and the work you do here.”
Mrs. Cheng didn’t answer, but followed them onto the porch. From the corner of her eye, Rebekah saw her hide a glinting silver object in her flower pot.
A dime for the newspaper boy tomorrow. She smiled to herself. Thank you, God, for letting us meet such a woman with a servant’s heart.
“Ah-mitch,” she called to their retreating backs. “And Chinese. Not so different.”
When Rebekah looked back, Mrs. Cheng was waving with both hands. They waved too. For a moment, she thought she caught sight of something glistening on Mrs. Cheng’s face.
Are those tears? Rebekah squinted.
Perhaps.
Or just glinting rays from the sun on the ocean.
***
The lot of them arrived at the train station much too soon. Something about leaving New York City in the state it was in, so much complacency and so much sin, it just seemed...wrong. Rebekah hobbled along next to Joseph, her bound ankle already feeling better beneath the black silk binding.
“Do you think we did any good here?” Rebekah kept her voice low, so only Joseph could hear. “I mean, did we leave it better than we found it? As we are supposed to?”
