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Poh-Poh and bent down towards me. Above the noise of the squawking harbour gulls, she said words I barely could hear.
    “This … for you, Kiam-Kim.”
    Gai-mou put a
lei-see
, a lucky red envelope, in my hand. I tipped it open right away. Out slipped a tiny butterfly of Chinese silver, its pair of engraved wings no larger than two pennies. “Can you say my name?” Her Toishan tones were soft, unlike Grandmother’s often abrupt sounds, and her voice was sweet.
    “Siu-Diep,” I said, making my own voice even softer.
    “Means ‘Little Butterfly,’ ” Third Uncle said, as if I didn’t know. “Very pretty.”
    “Hold it tight,” said Poh-Poh, bristling, her voice loud and as abrupt as ever. “Like this.”
    I tightened my fist.
    Stepmother stood up, and Father shyly took her by the elbow and guided her towards the waiting taxi. People with rolling carts of luggage pushed by them.
    Third Uncle Chen looked very pleased, and after saying “Be happy” and waving goodbye to us, he tookanother taxi to go back to Chinatown to check on the menu for tonight’s welcoming dinner at the Pekin. There would be eight tables, seating ten each, he had proudly told Father. The Chen elders, important associates of Third Uncle, and many of his new friends had accepted, including six of Poh-Poh’s mahjong ladies, and our neighbour, big Mrs. Lim. Poh-Poh refused to let me ask Jack O’Connor to join us. There would be other children there, she said, like the Yip Sang children, the Chongs and Kees. “Yes, yes, lots of
Chinese
children to play with!”
    Third Uncle’s taxi drove away. At last, we, too, were headed home.
    I sat between the two women at the back and Father sat beside the driver, giving instructions. Stepmother’s trunk needed to be picked up at the landing for another customs inspection. She had been, for almost three weeks, languishing in the Customs House in Victoria, which everyone called the human isolation coop, the Pig Pen—the
Gee-ook
—patiently waiting for her official clearance to come into Vancouver. She did not mind me staring at her, wondering, thinking my thoughts.
    When the taxi finally turned south, crossing the familiar streets of Hastings and Pender and then turning east on Keefer, a pain started to throb in my hand. The silver butterfly had impressed its shape into my palm. Stepmother looked down.
    “I’m happy you like it,” she said to me.
    “Say thank-you,” Poh-Poh said to me, suddenly in her most formal and soft Cantonese tones.
    I looked up at the beautiful woman and said, “Thank you, Gai-mou.”
    Stepmother bowed her head. She was so much prettier than any lady we knew in Chinatown.
    Grandmother shifted herself and made me hop onto her lap and sit still. I held my palm out for her old eyes to study the delicate curve of the wings, as if they were poised to take flight.
    “This more for a girl,” Poh-Poh said, and lifted the silver butterfly from my hand. “I take care of this.”
    If the piece were more for a girl, and Father did not turn his head or raise his voice to contradict the Old One, I knew protest was futile. I stuffed my empty palm into my pants pocket and sank back, jiggling on Poh-Poh’s bony knees as she shifted with the movement of the taxicab. Why didn’t Chen Siu-Diep give me a silver dragon? Or a tiger? Those were fierce animals made for tough boys. I tried not to sulk. I tried to show respect.
    Poh-Poh asked Stepmother to pass over to me the documents she had carried with her from Canton. Gai-mou slipped a long brown envelope, folded in half, out of her handbag.
    I remember the dark-coloured papers sticking out of the opening as she let the envelope fall into my hand, its weight a thousand times the weight of the butterfly. Poh-Poh took it away as quickly as she had lifted the silver amulet.
    “These your Ma-mah’s documents, Kiam-Kim,” Poh-Poh told me, putting the package into Father’sreaching hands. She looked at Father. “Belong always to First