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Poh-Poh couldn’t stop herself. “Aiiiyah! Buy small bed for me;
big
bed for Gai-mou!”
    Third Uncle enjoyed the Old One’s cajoling him to do the right things; he felt important, capable. He repeated again that Patriarch Chen had said the woman was twenty years old, healthy enough to fulfill Yook Mai-dang’s wish—that is, Poh-Poh’s wish—that my new stepmother be strong enough to bear sons. Father was more than ten years older, as he should be, a man of some maturity. It was a perfect match: there would be plenty of sons.
    “You soon have two tiger brother,” Poh-Poh told me. “And Madame Jing tell me I live to see Number Three Grandson!”
    Three was a lucky number, the Old One explained to me, especially where the birth of sons was concerned. In Old China, one boy child, even two boys, might suffer an early death, but surely the gods would not be so cruel as to cut down a third son.
    “Two more brother for you, Kiam-Kim,” Poh-Poh said, chortling away with Third Uncle. “I boil water.”
    “This woman will take care of you, Kiam-Kim,” Father added. “And she will work with Poh-Poh.”
    Poh-Poh bowed humbly, lowering her white head. “I die soon,” she said matter-of-factly.
    She had also spoken those three words before the Tong elders, and they quickly bowed back, their voices rising to waylay the bony hand of death. “No, no, you surely outlive us!”
    Everyone laughed. Outside, the B.C. Lumber Mill whistle blasted into the air. Shifts of working men were moving in and out of buildings and factories, tramping into Chinatown cafés and restaurants to dine on cheap meals, or with a numbered chit in hand to pick up their laundry packages. The noise of these labourers barely pierced the thick walls of the main Tong building, built like an Old China temple with a curving roof.
    Poh-Poh and Father had come in here to light incense before the sacred gods, to show our gratitude for all that had been given us. After I had made proper bows to each of the five elders, we walked out of the meeting room. At the end of the front hall, Father opened wide two large dragon-carved doors and stepped into the dimly lit assembly hall. At the far end stood a curtained platform with a low curving roof painted bright, lucky red. Long calligraphy scrolls hung down the two side walls. In front of the curtains Father took off his hat and lit two thick candles. Then he yanked on a rope.
    Suddenly the fierce God of War, Kwan Kung, towered over me. Three other smaller gods stood behindKwan Kung; they gleamed like living beings. Instead of
bai sen
, bowing, I darted behind Poh-Poh’s floppy black pants and hid my face. Father and Poh-Poh lowered their heads and mumbled some words.
    Dragging me out of the assembly hall, Poh-Poh said, “Gai-mou teach you not to be afraid.”
    “You teach Kiam,” Father said to her. “Tell him your village stories.”
    Poh-Poh looked disapprovingly at me. Her eyes seemed to say I had better start figuring things out, and her lips mouthed words already familiar to my ears. I repeated them aloud.
    “Poh-Poh die soon!”
    “No, no,” Father said, caught off guard by my audacity. “She live as long as Gai-mou live!”
    Poh-Poh, silent as stone, took my hand as Father began to pull shut the big doors to the assembly hall. I quickly looked back. On the temple platform, the two candles burned like tiger eyes. But from this distance, I now could tell they were only candles and stiff statues. This was something I would tell my new stepmother: candles and statues were
just
candles and statues. Nothing more.
    “When does Stepmother come?” I asked. “Is she pretty to look at?”
    “Grandson, if you be lucky,” Poh-Poh said, and pinched my cheek as her voice tightened into a burst of anger, “cross-eyed, pock-cheeked Gai-mou may come … 
before you die.”
    A dragon door swung towards my face. This dragon was vividly painted, its silvery scales carved so deeplythat the crescent shadows