Chapter 11

The eleventh chapter flashes back to the moment that Leila learns her sister has died. Leila is at the back of the classroom preparing supplies for the afternoon class when the children fall silent and stare at the door. Miss Lagomarsino breaks the news to Leila in fragments and finally tells her that she needs to go down to the Vallejo Street police station to identify the body. Leila escapes to the girls’ bathroom and is reminded of a time when she came to the same bathrooms and found Ona hiding in a stall, crying. Leila didn’t ask Ona why she was crying but merely scolded her for ruining the dress Mah had made for her.

Leila eventually goes to the police station, where she is asked questions about whether there had been any previous suicide attempts or any particular warning signs that something was amiss. The officer is focused on the present, while Leila knows that Ona felt stuck, as a middle child, as a resident of Chinatown, in the middle of the trouble between Leon and Luc Ong, Osvaldo’s father. Mason picks Leila up from the police station and drives her to the Baby Store, where Leila tells Mah and Leon about Ona’s death. Mah collapses to the ground, and Leon becomes quiet and withdrawn. Mason drives them all back to Salmon Alley, where Leila rushes past Ona’s unmade bed.

As the news settles in, Leon becomes angrier and angrier, demanding to call Osvaldo and blaming him for Ona’s death. Everyone ignores Leon’s ravings, and eventually he leaves to go down to the police station in person. Leila calls Nina, who is in New York, and explains the situation, becoming enraged when Nina says she doesn’t know when she will come back. When Nina’s flight arrives, Leila is there to pick her up, and the sisters immediately fall into an inane argument. However, they resolve to put it behind them and go as a united front to Salmon Alley.

Chapter 12

The twelfth chapter recounts the events of the summer that Leon finds out about Mah’s affair with her boss, Tommie Hom. By the time Leon returns from a long voyage, the affair is common knowledge. That night, Leon does not return for the feast Mah has prepared for the family, and Ona discovers that Leon’s duffel bag is missing from beneath the bed. For the next few days, Leon stays at the union hall, waiting for his number to be called so that he can ship out on another voyage. He curses Mah as a traitor and calls the girls ungrateful daughters.

Leon lands a job on a trip to Australia, and while he is away, Mah finds a job at another sweatshop so that she no longer has to work for Tommie Hom. When Leon returns, he moves back into Salmon Alley and tries to find a steady job on land. After many failed positions and business ventures, Leon is approached by Luc Ong, whose wife, Rosa, had worked with Mah in Tommie’s shop. The two couples decide to go into a laundry business together, with Leon working the interior part of the operation and Luc handling the clients and finances. One day, without warning, Leon and Mah arrive to find that the laundromat has been foreclosed on and that Luc has run off with all the money.

Because they chose to do things in the “old world way,” there was never any formal contract signed between the couples, and Leon has no legal way to recover his and Mah’s life savings. After this ordeal, Leon insists that Ona break up with Luc and Rosa’s son, Osvaldo, under the belief that a corrupt father will always have a corrupt son.