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When the sorghum turns gold, when the frost covers grass, when the frogs no longer croak, red lanterns are to be hung up on the eaves and a girl of age will be married off.
She saw her mother receiving guests by the wooden door, her shoes polished, her hunchback straightened, her wrinkles smoothed out. She heard her father chatting with her uncles, his coughs gone, his throat cleared, his voice as brisk as the autumn air. She could not sit. She could not stand. She imagined her fiancé whom she never met. She laid her wedding dress on her wicker chair. She pulled out her wedding shoes from under the bamboo bed. Her fingers traced mother’s embroidering of pink water lilies, half-blooming buds floating on fabric of silk. She rolled up the curtains to look at the backyard pond and saw how there were lotuses no more, only lotus leaves left; how there were ducklings no more, only feathers shed. She wondered if the boy next door would still knock on her window after the twilight fell, if they could still sneak out to dip their toes into the icy pond, if he still remembered his promise to marry her when her hair grew to her waist. So she waited and waited until she saw the red lanterns lit up. Mother was calling her name. Father was calling her name. "Water Lily, Water Lily, the sedan chair has arrived." She soaked up her tears with her wedding veil. Tonight, she must be pretty. Tonight, she must be a woman.
Siyu Lu