I didn’t have the heart to tell my aunt no. She was already wrapping the gold chain around my neck as she brushed my hair out of the way.

Somehow, I had forgotten I was wearing it. In fact, bent over as the needle slid into my back, looking at Guan Yin, I was certain I had taken her off. I tucked her inside my hospital gown while asking her forgiveness for hiding her away.

Thirty-six hours and two vacuum-suction attempts later, my daughter was delivered. The nurse brought her over and gently placed her on my chest. Silent tears streamed down my face. All my numbness and pain fell away like a leaf floating from a tree. A warmth came over me, and my body no longer shivered through the thin hospital gown. When the baby grabbed John’s finger tightly for the first time, he looked at me with a large grin.

I gazed at my daughter, elated to meet her. She had a lot of hair for a baby. I couldn’t help feeling disappointed at how dark it was, how broad and flat her nose, how she looked so much like me.

Four months after Mother left, I woke to wetness and saw blood on my sheets. I ran to the washroom and saw more blood on my underwear. I started to cry and sat on the toilet for a long time, wishing for Mother.

Auntie Choo Neo came to the bathroom door and asked if I was inside. She practically lived at our house with Mother gone. I didn’t answer, hoping she would go away. She knocked on the door and told me to open it. I opened the door slightly. She handed me a clean pair of underwear, a box of sanitary napkins, and some newspaper. She told me to put on my underwear with the napkin on the bottom and wrap the soiled pair in newspaper before putting the whole package in the garbage.

“Don’t use toilet paper to wrap it, lah! Use the newspaper! We are not rich here, remember. We only use toilet paper for ourselves, okay?” She closed the door and left.

I spent the next few days avoiding Father and Bea. I didn’t want them to know what had happened. I hid in my room reading, and when Bea tried to cajole me into playing, I snapped at her. She cried and ran away.

My first period was heavy, and the cramps were unrelenting. I was lying on the living room floor in front of the TV before dinner when Auntie Choo Neo yelled at me to get up and set the table. Seeing my discomfort, Bea said, “Auntie, I think Lily is really sick.”

“She’s not sick! Being a woman is not easy,” Auntie Choo Neo informed us both. “Get up!” she shouted as she nudged me with her foot. “The table will not set itself.”

On the fourth day of my period, Father implored me to get changed, as we were going to Uncle Paul and Auntie Betty’s goodbye dinner. Father had become even less social without Mother, but our friends were leaving Sparwood. Uncle Paul had been laid off, and they were moving to stay with family in Kelowna. I pleaded with Father to let me stay home, telling him I was sick. But he gave me one stern look and I knew it was non-negotiable. “Becoming a woman means taking on more responsibilities,” he said.