She takes care of mothers and newborn babies for the first month only. She wondered if she would have an opportunity to see the bird be taught its lesson: she had only twenty-two days left. Her short stories and novels have won several awards, including the PEN/Hemingway Award and Guardian First Book Award for A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, and the 2020 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award for Where Reasons End. “If Baby’s Pa is not coming home, who’s going to shop for groceries?”. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated as of 1/1/21) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated as of 1/1/21) and Your California Privacy Rights. Paul did not say, and Auntie Mei did not ask. Curse you, Waterstones with your little nibbly impulse buy books on the counter! They had been sheltered from worldly reproach by their peculiarities when alive; in death, they took with them their habitat, and left nothing to anchor Auntie Mei. Chanel replied. “You should’ve just given me the shopping list,” Paul said. “I can imagine. They were about to entrust their baby to a stranger, Auntie Mei had wanted to remind them, but neither seemed worried. Auntie Mei worried that, had she left Baby home, he would be gone from the world when she returned, though this fear she would not share with Paul. March 10th 2014 His two sisters, both living in New York and both younger, had beaten him at becoming grandparents. In her interviews with potential employers, Auntie Mei alw. What a world you’ve been born into, Auntie Mei said to Baby now. If I could argue, I’d have become a lawyer, like your husband, no?”. Check out this great listen on Audible.com. I wonder who’s enjoying the rocking more, she said to herself: the chair, whose job is to rock until it breaks apart, or you, whose life is being rocked away? The babies—a hundred and thirty-one of them, and their parents, trusting yet vigilant—had protected Auntie Mei from herself. She had, unlike her mother and her grandmother, talked herself into being a woman with an ordinary fate. I enjoyed this short read. The only thing they make is money.”, “You’re lucky to have found one who makes money. Do you know what I dreamed last night?”. To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Despite her self-diagnosed depression, she seemed to enjoy talking with Auntie Mei more than most mothers, who talked to her about their babies and their breast-feeding but otherwise had little interest in her. In that sense, her grandmother and her mother had been fortunate: no one could claim to have known them, not even Auntie Mei. He was widowed, with three grown children, and none of them had given him a grandchild, or the hope of one. Auntie Mei felt doubtful, but her questioning silence did not stop him from admiring his own invention. “My great-grandmother hanged herself when my grandfather was three days old. Before he left, the husband had asked Auntie Mei to feed the fish and refill the pond. On the placemat sat a bowl of soybean-and-pig’s-foot soup that Auntie Mei had cooked, as she had for many new mothers before this one. “Why do I have to eat for him?” Chanel said. This is a story about the risks of human attachment, through the eyes of Auntie Mei who has chosen to be as detached as possible. Get this from a library! Auntie Mei did not understand their logic: Chanel’s depraved; Paul’s unbending. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. A Sheltered Woman. Was it a heart attack?”. On the placemat sat a bowl of soybean-and-pig’s-foot soup that Auntie Mei had cooked, as she had for many new mothers before this one. Could it be that he had agreed to drive and help with shopping for a reason other than the money Auntie Mei had promised him? Many families lined her up months before their babies were born. ♦. A Sheltered Woman The new mother, groggy from a nap, sat at the table as though she did not grasp why she had been summoned. Perhaps she had said it only once, out of an impulse to sting Paul, or perhaps she had tormented him for years with her approval of a former suitor. Will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy. Instead, he had measured his career against the man’s: Paul had become a real professional; the man had stayed a laborer. The same old story: they all had to come from somewhere, and they all accumulated people along the way. She had not liked the couple when she met them; unlike most expectant parents, they had both looked distracted, and asked few questions before offering her the position. I’m sorry I’m such a pain, but I don’t have a friend here, and you’ve been nice to me. Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing, China and moved to the United States in 1996. I haven’t talked to him for twenty-seven years.”, He couldn’t even lie well. Refresh and try again. Check out this great listen on Audible.com. “You never say a bad word about him,” Chanel said. Paul said that there was this man who played chess every Sunday afternoon at East-West Plaza Park. “If I tell you the story, you’ll understand.”, “Please,” Auntie Mei said. It was past midnight, the lamp in her bedroom turned off. Chanel gasped and then screamed. In her interviews with potential employers, Auntie Mei always gave the precise number of families she had worked for: a hundred and twenty-six when she interviewed with her current employer, a hundred and thirty-one babies altogether. “I’m only explaining what postpartum depression is.”, “Your problem is that you’re not eating. She is the recipient of several prizes for her writing, including the Guardian First Book Award for A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, and an M.F.A. When she moved on to the next place, she would leave no mystery or damage behind; no one in this world would be disturbed by having known her. On the placemat sat a bowl of soybean-and-pig’s-foot soup that Auntie Mei had cooked, as she had for many new mothers before this one. Better than yours, for sure.”. She had slept with an older married man to punish her father, who had himself pursued a young woman, in this case one of Chanel’s college classmates. “That’s the problem. Auntie Mei had worked as a live-in nanny for newborns and their mothers for eleven years. Soon you’ll become a tiresome oldster like Paul, or a lonely woman like Chanel, telling stories to any available ear. I've been interested in this short story for a while and decided to listen to it on audiobook through BookBeat. But where would she start? The world was vast; there had to be a place for a woman to raise a child as she wished. The new mother, groggy from a nap, sat at the table as though she did not grasp why she had been summoned. But when she entered the house Chanel was already in the living room. “I don’t want to nurse this thing anymore,” Chanel said. This is not a good life for you, going from one house to another and never settling down.”, “What’s wrong with that? Twenty-two days, and then the next family would pluck her out of here, egret or no egret. Auntie Mei sniffed under the child’s blanket, paying no heed to the fresh tears. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband and their two sons, and teaches at University of California, Davis. The families’ contact information, the dates she had worked for them, their babies’ names and birthdays—these she had recorded in a palm-size notebook, which had twice fallen apart and been taped back together. On the drive back, Paul asked if the egret had returned. She says she has been doing this for eleven years, which makes 132 babies and 132 mothers — babies and mothers she hopes … With a borrowed lady friend pushing a borrowed grandson in a stroller? “Why are you so quiet, Auntie? Her debut collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, Guardian First Book Award, and … She hadn’t noticed, Auntie Mei replied. ... 3.0 out of 5 stars This is beautifully written as we expect of Yiyun Li. A Sheltered Woman - Ebook written by Yiyun Li. Auntie Mei thought of taking Baby into her bedroom, but this was not her house, and she knew that Chanel, in a mood to talk, would follow her.
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