Bitter Sweet Harvest Read Online Free PDF Page B

they were. She knows that her brothers still need to go to university and there are fees to be paid.” She lifted her head to look at her husband. His head was still buried in his hands. She prayed that Ming Kong would not ask any more questions. What she said was true up to a point. An Mei had initially appeared reconciled to staying in Oxford, but she had not been herself since the day Nelly met Hussein.
*****
    An Mei stood to one side. She watched Hussein make his way to the check-in desk, wheeling his luggage on the red carpet for first-class passengers. They had been talking for hours and still nothing had been resolved. She had argued her case fervently. After days of talking with Nelly and her mother, she had reeled off all the reasons why they could not, and should not, be together. Now, close to the final moment of his departure, she was filled with doubt. “Have I made the right decision? How can I live without him?” The pain in her heart felt like a physical wound. She stared at his back. She shrugged deeper into her anorak and dipped her hands into its pockets. With a shock, she came into contact with a small booklet. Her passport! The passport that she had grabbed unthinkingly before she left home from the drawer at Hussein’s persistent urging to bring it with her. Her fingers tingled as they closed over it.
    Hussein turned and looked at her beseechingly. “Come with me,” he mouthed silently. Then, almost half running, he reached her and gathered her in his arms. “Come with me, now,” he repeated urgently. She felt her resolve — to break-up with Hussein and remain with her parents — crumble. Without thinking she nodded vigorously. He caught hold of her hand and ran back to the check-in desk ignoring the indignant remarks of other passengers. “Two seats,” he said retrieving the open ticket that An Mei had so firmly pushed back into his possession two hours ago. “Two seats,” he repeated, his voice triumphant with joy.
*****
    The doorbell rang. It was still early in the morning, just 8 o’clock, but the summer sun was already a bright ball of light. Mei Yin rushed to the door. She opened it. A woman with a girl of An Mei’s age stood outside.
    “Mei Yin?” the lady asked hesitantly. “Mei Yin? Is it really you? I am Siew Lin, Casey’s mother. Don’t you recognise me?”
    Mei Yin did not answer. Her face crumpled in disappointment. She had hoped and prayed that by some miraculous intervention it would be An Mei coming back.
    “I know we have not met each other since we were children, but we have been in touch these past few years by phone and through letters and photographs. Can’t you recognise my voice at least?” she asked the distraught Mei Yin.
    Mei Yin nodded. Her eyes were so swollen that she could hardly see, her voice, so hoarse from crying that she could hardly speak. It was near midnight when she had received a call from An Mei telling her that she was boarding the plane for Kuala Lumpur with Hussein. Then a muffled sob and the line went dead. She had stood for what seemed like an eternity holding the phone until Nelly wrested it from her and made her repeat what had been said. Ming Kong had stood at the dining room doorway, hands clutching his hair, his face grey with anguish as he struggled to understand just who Hussein was. Finally he had turned and headed upstairs shouting, “I have no daughter. Don’t mention her name in this house again.” The house reverberated as he slammed the bedroom door shut.
    Mei Yin moved to one side and motioned Siew Lin to come in.
    “I am so sorry,” Siew Lin said embracing Mei Yin in a tight hug. She felt the tension in Mei Yin’s body; every muscle seemed to have contracted into a tight knot.
    “Casey told me of her part in this terrible, terrible...” Words failed Siew Lin as she tried to calm a sudden trembling in Mei Yin’s body.
    “I have tried squeezing every word out of Casey when she called me from college last night. I