“Well, maybe it was just the little girl.”

Lee went to the kitchen and brought back a big cardboard box. “Here are the accounts. Every year has a rubber band around it. I’ve been over it. It’s complete.”

“You mean all accounts?”

Lee said, “You’ll find a book for each year and receipted bills for everything. You wanted to know how you stood. Here it is—all of it. Do you really think you’ll move?”

“Well, I’m thinking of it.”

“I wish there were some way you could tell the boys the truth.”

“That would rob them of the good thoughts about their mother, Lee.”

“Have you thought of the other danger?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, suppose they find out the truth. Plenty of people know.”

“Well, maybe when they’re older it will be easier for them.”

“I don’t believe that,” said Lee. “But that’s not the worst danger.”

“I guess I don’t follow you, Lee.”

“It’s the lie I’m thinking of. It might infect everything. If they ever found out you’d lied to them about this, the true things would suffer. They wouldn’t believe anything then.”

“Yes, I see. But what can I tell them? I couldn’t tell them the whole truth.”

“Maybe you can tell then a part truth, enough so that you won’t suffer if they find out.”

“I’ll have to think about that, Lee.”

“If you go to live in Salinas it will be more dangerous.”

“I’ll have to think about it.”

Lee went on insistently, “My father told me about my mother when I was very little, and he didn’t spare me. He told me a number of times as I was growing. Of course it wasn’t the same, but it was pretty dreadful. I’m glad he told me though. I wouldn’t like not to know.”

“Do you want to tell me?”

“No, I don’t want to. But it might persuade you to make some change for your own boys. Maybe if you just said she went away and you don’t know where.”

“But I do know.”

“Yes, there’s the trouble. It’s bound to be all truth or part lie. Well, I can’t force you.”

“I’ll think about it,” said Adam. “What’s the story about your mother?”

“You really want to hear?”

“Only if you want to tell me.”

“I’ll make it very short,” said Lee. “My first memory is of living in a little dark shack alone with my father in the middle of a potato field, and with it the memory of my father telling me the story of my mother. His language was Cantonese, but whenever he told the story he spoke in high and beautiful Mandarin. All right then. I’ll tell you—” And Lee looked back in time.

“I’ll have to tell you first that when you built the railroads in the West the terrible work of grading and laying ties and spiking the rails was done by many thousands of Chinese. They were cheap, they worked hard, and if they died no one had to worry. They were recruited largely from Canton, for the Cantonese are short and strong and durable, and also they are not quarrelsome. They were brought in by contract, and perhaps the history of my father was a fairly typical one.