"Oh, but you must!" Mr. Kim was saying agitatedly in Chinese while Lucien looked on, aghast. "Your father has come such a long way-"
"I have no father," the young woman responded.
It was difficult to reconcile the hard-faced, stern looking woman facing him with the bright, sunny girl he remembered. Difficult to look at this shack, and the thin wooden door she was hiding behind, and think to himself that his child lived there. Difficult to hear her say those words, and not shatter, but he kept silent, for he felt that he must. Any meeting between himself and Li must be undertaken on her terms; her happiness, her comfort, were his only concern, and if she would not see him he would not force her. It would be enough, he thought, to know that she was living. Even if she hated him, even if she refused to see his face, even if she cursed him, he could go forth from this place with the knowledge that Li was alive, and that, he thought, would be enough to sustain him, after so many years of fearing that she was lost to him. Guilt was an old friend, and it appeared that he would not soon be parted from it, but he had long since learned to live with it.
He hung his head, and beside him Nemea shifted, rested her heavy bulk against his leg in a show of support at a time when he needed it most.
"But-" Mr. Kim started to protest once more, but Lucien cut across him.
"No," he said. He was not looking at Li; he could hardly even see her through the crack in the doorway, and she was certainly not keen to see him just now. "She said no, Mr. Kim. It's her decision, and I respect it. If she'll not see me, I'll not force her."
Mr. Kim rounded on him, flabbergasted, perhaps because Doctor Lucien Blake had spent years and a veritable fortune trying to locate his lost child, and now that she had been found he was content to leave without speaking to her properly. Perhaps he worried he'd not be paid, since Doctor Blake was not reconciled to his daughter, but Lucien had every intention of making good on his promises. Mr. Kim had done as he had been asked, and found Li at last, and he would be compensated for his efforts, no matter how this meeting turned out. It was not Mr. Kim's fault that Lucien's child felt abandoned and betrayed and had no desire to see the white man who'd sired her and left her behind. Lucien would not punish the man for his own mistakes.
A commotion in the doorway caused Lucien to look up, then, and he had no sooner raised his head than a small voice called out papa! Startled, he took a step forward as if by reflex, responding to that name no one had called him for seventeen years, responding to it viscerally, as if he always had done, as if Li had been with him all this time. But the voice did not belong to Li at all; it belonged to a chevrotain, a small, deer-like creature no more than a foot high, and as Lucien watched, bemused, the little thing came hurtling towards him and settled between his feet, looking up at him with huge dark eyes gone wide with admiration.
"Papa, is it really you?" the chevrotain asked him eagerly.
"Hou Yi?" he replied, stunned. It must be, he thought. It must have been Li's daemon, settled at last into his final form, a sweet little thing, soft and fleet-footed and easily startled, but beautiful, too, in his own way.
"Yes!" the daemon cried. "Oh, papa, you came back! We thought you'd forgotten-"
"Hou Yi!" Li called to him sharply, and the little creature flinched, startled by the sound of her voice. He shot Lucien one last, longing sort of look, and then left him, returned to his mistress's side. Lucien watched him go, wonder and devastation roiling in his belly, for he had seen it, now, had seen the shape of Li's own soul, had heard it crying out for him, and the thought filled him with joy, but Li had called her daemon away, and meant to send Lucien off as well, and he'd never see them again, either of them.
Li had thrown the door wide when her daemon escaped her, and Lucien could see her now, could see her properly. Could see the drab, severe clothes she wore, and her frown, could see her long dark hair and her uncertain eyes. Could see her belly, grown big with child, and a sob lodged itself in the back of his throat. She was going to be a mother; his daughter, his own precious baby girl, was about to have a baby of her own, and he wanted, so desperately, to hold her. The ten feet that separated him from her might well have been an ocean, however, and he had no idea how to cross it.
For a moment Li looked at him, and he could almost see it, her mind churning with questions, her heart at war with itself. Hou Yi had been glad to see him; was there a part of her that was glad to see him, too? A part of her that recognized him, as Hou Yi had done, a part of her that had never forgotten her father, even for a moment?
"I'm so sorry, my darling," he said to her, very softly. "I never wanted to be parted from you, and I have been trying, for so long now, to find my way back to you. I only wanted to know if you were safe, if you were well, and I can see that you are. I hope that you are happy, Li. May your family be blessed."
He pressed his hands together, and gave a short bow the way Mei Lin's father had taught him, and then he turned to leave. He had said all he could, and done all he could, and if Li would not see him -
"Wait!" she called out sharply, and he spun on his heel, his hand reaching for Nemea's head on instinct, steadying himself as his heart rocketed up into his chest.
"You've come all this way," Li said. "At least have a cup of tea before you go." Her tone was wary, as if she doubted the wisdom of engaging with him further, but she extended the invitation to him just the same.
"I would like that," he told her earnestly. "Very much."
Li's home was very small, but they managed, somehow. There was a low table in the center of the main living quarters where she led him, and he sat himself down on the floor there, trying to arrange his limbs to take up the least amount of space possible. Nemea settled at his side, and as Li gathered together the tea things Hou Yi raced to them, curled himself up between Nemea's great paws and folded his legs underneath him, content once more to be near her, though they had not seen each other for such a very long time. The sight of them together was bittersweet, for though Lucien was relieved to see the affection between them he could not help but think of all the time they had missed, all four of them, and all the joy they should have had, and all the sorrow that hung in the air between them instead.
When Li returned she poured their tea with easy grace, and then sank very slowly to the floor.
"Where have you been?" she asked him, cradling her teacup in her hands.
Lucien drew in a very deep breath, and then began to explain. His Chinese was rusty but it came back to him as he spoke, as he explained why he had sent his family away, explained about his capture and his time in the camp, explained how once he was released there was no trace of his family to be found. He told her how he had traveled throughout Asia for years, desperately searching for some sign of her, and how he had retained Mr. Kim's services, and how she had finally been found. He talked until his throat was raw, and Li said not a word, only listened, and watched him appraisingly, as if with every word he spoke she was searching for some evidence of a lie. She'd not find any, he knew, for he told her only the truth.
When his tale was done she was quiet, for a moment, sipping her tea, but at last she set her cup down upon the table, and spoke.
"I have spent many years hating you," she told him in an even, steady voice that cut him to the quick. "I was adopted by a family in this village after several years at an orphanage. My mother was dead, and I was told that my father wanted to be rid of me, and that no one was coming for me."
"Your mother - your mother is dead?"
Lucien had resolved himself not to interrupt her but he broke that promise almost immediately, too overcome with sudden grief to keep his questions to himself.
"She took ill on the ship that brought us to Hong Kong," Li told him wistfully. "She died a few days after we landed there, and then I was all alone."
The tears he had been fighting valiantly to hide came for him then, and slipped silently down his cheeks, winding their way down to vanish in the midst of his beard.
"Oh, my darling," he said brokenly. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."
Sorry sorry sorry; that word echoed through his mind, an eerie, miserable refrain. He was sorry, and there was nothing he could do, no penance he could pay that would absolve him of this sin, that would undo the damage of this grief.
"You cared for her," Li said softly, and it struck him as strange that she sounded almost surprised by that fact. Then again, if she'd been told all her life that her father wanted no part of her, perhaps she was surprised.
"I loved her," he told her earnestly. "She was my wife. You and your mother, you were my whole world. Here, let me show you."
He reached into his pocket and withdrew the faded photograph of his family, and passed that precious relic across the table to Li.
"We were so happy, for a time," he said as she picked it up, as she silently studied the faces of her family in the picture. "Our home was full of love, and joy. When the war came I only wanted to protect you. I wanted you to be safe. And I failed. For that I will forever be sorry."
"You could not have known," she told him. It wasn't clear, just then, whether she was forgiving him or not. Li was proving a difficult young woman to read, but then she'd had a difficult life, and he could not blame her for her reticence. She made to pass the photograph back to him, but Lucien did not extend his hand.
"You should keep it," he said. "I have others-" in truth he had only two other photographs, the last memories of a family that had been shattered by the war - "and you ought to have one as well. Something to remember your mother by."
"I will keep it," she said. "And when my child is born, I will show it to him, so that he may know his grandfather."
"I would like to come and see him, if you'll let me visit again."
There was nothing he wanted more than to return to this place. He could not stay; the village was poor, and wary of outsiders, and he'd not be welcome, and he'd only make life difficult for Li. He belonged in Ballarat, where he had a home, and a profession. It was in his mind to offer to bring her home with him, and her husband, too, but he wanted to talk to her a little while before he suggested it. So far Li had been understandably standoffish, and somehow he didn't think she'd warm to the idea of a stranger taking her across the water, far away from the only home she'd ever known. But even if she did not return to him Lucien knew where to find her, now, and when he thought about it, thought about coming back to this place, thought about holding his grandchild in his arms, his heart swelled within his chest until it was almost painful, until it was all he could do to keep from leaping across that low table and enveloping Li in his arms right there. He had found her at last, his darling girl, and he would not lose her, not ever again.
"I would like that, I think," she agreed, and Lucien smiled, and they drank their tea together, and slowly, very slowly, both their hearts began to mend.
