"By the way," Ruth now thought to ask, "what was Precious Auntie's real name?"

"Precious Auntie?"

"Bao Bomu."

"Oh, oh, oh, Bao Bomu! You know, only your mother called her that. Everyone else called her Bao Mu."

"What's the difference, 'Bao Bomu' and 'Bao Mu'?"

"Bao can mean 'precious,' or it can mean 'protect.' Both are third tone, baaaaooo. And the mu part, that stands for 'mother,' but when it's written in bao mu, the mu has an extra piece in front, so that the meaning is more of a female servant. Bao mu is like saying 'baby-sitter,' 'nursemaid.' And bomu, that's 'auntie.' I think her mother taught her to say and write it this way. More special."

"So what was her real name? Mom can't remember, and it really bothers her."

"I don't remember either… I don't know."

Ruth's heart sank. Now she would never know. No one would ever know the name of her grandmother. She had existed, and yet without a name, a large part of her existence was missing, could not be attached to a face, anchored to a family.

"We all called her Bao Mu," GaoLing went on, "also lots of bad nicknames because of her face. Burnt Wood, Fried Mouth, that sort of thing. People weren't being mean, the nicknames were a joke… Well, now that I think of this, they were mean, very mean. That was wrong."

It pained Ruth to hear this. She felt a lump growing in her throat. She wished she could tell this woman from the past, her grandmother, that her granddaughter cared, that she, like her mother, wanted to know where her bones were. "The house in Immortal Heart," Ruth asked, "is it still there?"

"Immortal Heart?… Oh, you mean our village-I only know the Chinese name." She sounded out the syllables. "Xian Xin. Yes, I guess that's how it might translate. The immortal's heart, something like that. Anyway, the house is gone. My brother told me. After a few drought years, a big rainstorm came. Dirt washed down the mountain, flooded the ravine, and crumbled the sides. The earth holding up our house broke apart and fell, bit by bit. It took with it the back rooms, then the well, until only half the house was left. It stood like that for several more years, then in 1972, all at once, it sank and the earth folded on top of it. My brother said that's what killed our mother, even though she had not lived in that house for many years."

"So the house is now lying in the End of the World?"

"What's that-end of what?"

"The ravine."

She sounded out more Chinese syllables to herself, and laughed. "That's right, we called it that when we were kids. End of the World. That's because we heard our parents saying that the closer the edge came to our house, the faster we 'd reach the end of this world. Meaning, our luck would be gone, that was it. And they were right! Anyway, we had many nicknames for that place. Some people called it 'End of the Land,' just like where your mommy lives in San Francisco, Land's End. And sometimes my uncles joked and called that cliff edge momo meiyou, meaning 'rub sink gone.' But most people in the village just called it the garbage dump. In those days, no one came by once a week to take away your garbage, your recycling, no such thing. Course, people then didn't throw away too much. Bones and rotten food, the pigs and dogs ate that. Old clothes we mended and gave to younger children. Even when the clothes were so bad they couldn't be repaired, we tore them into strips and weaved them into liners for winter jackets. Shoes, the same thing. You fixed the holes, patched up the bottoms. So you see, only the worst things were thrown away, the most useless. And when we were little and bad, our parents made us behave by threatening to throw us in the ravine-as if we too were the most useless things! When we were older and wanted to play down there, then it was a different story. Down there, they said, was everything we were afraid of-"

"Bodies?"

"Bodies, ghosts, demons, animal spirits, Japanese soldiers, whatever scared us."

"Were bodies really thrown in there?"

GaoLing paused before she answered. Ruth was sure she was editing a bad memory. "Things were different then… You see, not everyone could afford a cemetery or funeral. Funerals, those cost ten times more than weddings. But it wasn't just cost. Sometimes you couldn't bury someone for other reasons. So to put a body down there, well, this was bad, but not the same way you think, not as though we didn't care about who died."

"What about Precious Auntie's body?"

"Ai-ya. Your mommy wrote everything! Yes, that was very bad what my mother did. She was crazy when she did that, afraid that Bao Mu put a curse on our whole family. After she threw the body in there, a cloud of black birds came. Their wings were big, like umbrellas. They nearly blocked out the sun, there were so many. They flapped above, waiting for the wild dogs to finish with the body. And one of our servants-"

"Old Cook."

"Yes, Old Cook, he was the one who put the body there. He thought that the birds were Bao Mu's spirit and her army of ghosts and that she was going to pick him up with her claws and snatch him up if he did not bury her properly. So he took a large stick and chased the wild dogs away, and the birds stayed there above him, watching as he piled rocks on top of her body. But even after he did all that, our household was still cursed."

"You believed that?"

GaoLing stopped to think. "I must have. Back then I believed whatever my family believed. I didn't question it. Also, Old Cook died only two years later."

"And now?"

GaoLing was quiet for a long time. "Now I think Bao Mu left a lot of sadness behind. Her death was like that ravine. Whatever we didn't want, whatever scared us, that's where we put the blame."

Dory flew into the kitchen. "Ruth! Ruth! Come quick! Waipo fell in the pool. She almost drowned."

By the time Ruth reached the backyard, Art was carrying her mother up the steps of the shallow end. LuLing was coughing and shivering. Sally ran from the house with a pile of towels. "Wasn't anyone watching her?" Ruth cried, too upset to be more tactful.

LuLing looked at Ruth as though she were the one being chastised. "Ai-ya, so stupid."

"We're okay," Art told LuLing in a calming voice. "Just a little whoopsie-daisy. No harm done."

"She was only ten feet away from us," Billy said. "Just walked in and sank before we knew it. Art dove in, beer and all, as soon as it happened."

Ruth swaddled her mother in towels, rubbing her to stimulate her circulation.

"I saw her down there," LuLing moaned in Chinese between more coughs. "She asked me to help her get out from under the rocks. Then the ground became sky and I fell through a rain cloud, down, down, down." She turned to point to where she saw the phantom.

As Ruth glanced where her mother gestured, she saw Auntie Gal, her face stricken with new understanding.

Ruth left her mother at Auntie Gal's and spent the next day at her house sorting out what should be moved to Mira Mar Manor. On the take list she included most of her mother's bedroom furniture, and the linens and towels LuLing had never used. But what about her scroll paintings, the ink and brushes? Her mother might feel frustrated looking at these emblems of her more agile self. One thing was for certain: Ruth was not moving the vinyl La-Z-Boy. That was destined for the dump. She would buy her mother a new recliner, a much nicer one, with supple burgundy leather. Just thinking about this gave Ruth pleasure. She could already envision her mother's eyes aglow with wonder and gratitude, testing the squishiness of the cushion, murmuring, "Oh, so soft, so good."

In the evening, she drove to Bruno's supper club to meet Art. Years before, they often went there as prelude to a romantic night. The restaurant had booths that allowed them to sit close and fondle each other.