Outrun the Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

doing so disturbed the ancestors buried in the earth. I wasted a whole year walking in zigzag lines to trick them into not following me.
    Ma brightens. “Or maybe you will get a job at the Chinese Telephone Exchange.” To her, our lives would be set if I nabbed one of the highly coveted positions. To me, pulling switches sounded as exciting as pulling weeds. “Whatever happens, remember to be strong for your father. He will need the iron in your eyes.” She searches my metal-gray irises for the inner strength she has assured me lies in them.
    â€œWhy? Is something going to happen to him?”
    I don’t like the slow beat of her clucks, or the uneven way she stirs her beans.
    â€œNot him. Me. I have foreseen my death.” She tosses out those words as if commenting on the price of paddy straw mushrooms.
    â€œDon’t say that!” I may not be superstitious, but if there were ghosts listening, surely they would overhear. “Death is unpredictable. You tell clients that all the time.”
    â€œThat is so they don’t do something foolish like Mr. Yip.” Mr. Yip ran through Union Square wrapped in an American flag after Ma told him to prepare for his final rest. He was almost put in the stocks for that, until the Chinese Benevolent Association paid a hefty fee for officials to look the other way. “Anyway, I turned forty-four this year, an inauspicious number.”
    â€œMa,” I groan. As if I didn’t already view
four
with suspicion, forty-four in Chinese sounds like the words “I want to die.” “But four plus four equals eight, and eight is the luckiest number,” I attempt to argue.
    She shakes her head. “No, Mercy. My vision has told me so.” This time, she speaks with the solemnity of striking a gong witha mallet. Of all the tools a fortune-teller uses to read a person’s fate—the almanac, the beans, and the “Four Pillars” of birth year, month, day, and hour—Ma believes her vision to be the most reliable. Others apparently agree, as she is Chinatown’s most sought-after fortune-teller.
    Noticing my grimace, she adds, “It is not something to be feared, death.”
    â€œI don’t fear it. I worked in a graveyard, remember?”
    She clucks her tongue in disapproval. Ma had not approved of my job at the cemetery, believing hungry ghosts would follow me home and wreak destruction. Though she stopped complaining after seeing the money I brought in—the fortune-telling business had slowed in recent years.
    A bit of the nausea I felt aboard Tom’s Floating Island returns, and I grip the sides of my chair, trying to keep my voice light. “Dr. Gunn says your pulse is sturdy and your energy flows like a river. Besides, you always tell clients they can change their destiny.”
    â€œNo, I tell them we can change our
perspective
on it.”
    Jack calls for her. Ma squints toward the bedroom door, then looks back at me. She presses her small but solid finger against the bridge of my nose, smoothing out the wrinkle lodged there. “It is like the moon. We can see it differently by climbing a mountain, but we cannot outrun it. As it should be.”

    I bring our bucket of dishes to the community pump behind our building, still put out by Ma’s proclamation, even if I don’t believe it. Her work, her
life
is ruled by things that cannot be seen or felt,only suspected and feared. Yet, I cannot blame her. The Chinese have spent thousands of years honing their beliefs, and it isn’t as if the Catholic’s system of saints and demons is any less peculiar. It just comes with a lot less predictions.
    Women have gathered around the community pot, their loose pants rolled to the knees and their jackets to the elbows. A few of them perch on wooden stools, gossiping.
    â€œEvening, Wong Mei-Si,” they greet me by my Chinese name, which means “beautiful thought.”
    â€œEvening,