The Many Daughters of Afong Moy

At Dr. Shedhorn’s office, Dorothy awakens from an epigenetic memory of Afong and feels pregnant: She’s not, but Afong was. She receives a text from Louis asking if she has picked up Annabel, even though he agreed to do that. Louis comes to get her and reports that his mother, Louise, has gone to get Annabel. Louise is a high-powered lawyer and former Miss Spokane; Dorothy does not have a good relationship with her.

Louis and Dorothy return home, where Louise makes dinner; she uses artichoke, which she knows Dorothy dislikes. Louise tries to convince Dorothy to let her take Annabel, whom she calls “Annie,” back to Spokane so she can enroll her in an Anglo heritage club. Later that night, when Dorothy puts Annabel to bed, Dorothy asks Annabel if she wants to go to Spokane with Louise. Annabel says no and asks Dorothy to tell her about Dorothy’s mother. Dorothy explains that her mother, Greta, was “very successful” but struggled with pervasive sadness that ultimately led her to leave in search of healing.

The day after her dinner with her parents, Greta arrives at work and learns that the app’s traffic has increased exponentially, meaning that the company’s employees (all women) stand to make a fortune when the company goes public. She also learns that there is a man waiting for her in her office. Rather than Sam, she finds Carter, Syren’s angel investor with a reputation for exploiting women and covering it up. Through some supposedly innocent innuendo, he asks her out, taking her noncommittal response as agreement.

Later, Sam comes by for their date. He and Greta connect, and they have a lovely picnic listening to Greta’s favorite music and eating her favorite foods. She confides that her parents are afraid she won’t ever find a husband; her father’s mother—presumably Zoe—was expelled from an elite boarding school and never married, although she “did manage somehow to get knocked up later in life” (166). That night, Greta asks her mother about Sam and learns that he is a widower whose diverse ethnic heritage makes him undesirable to “traditional parents.”

Despite her attraction to Sam, Greta’s curiosity convinces her not to cancel Carter’s invitation to dinner. He buys out the restaurant at the top of the Space Needle for the evening, and he and Greta enjoy their time together, though Greta constantly second-guesses him and his trustworthiness. On the way down the elevator, Carter kisses Greta in full view of a security camera and suggests that they get dessert at his house. She declines the offer and returns to work feeling violated.

During a second date with Sam, Greta asked him to teach her self-defense; she learned from her parents that he teaches Sanshou and jujitsu. Feeling confident after the lesson, Greta kisses him. Sam is in turn vulnerable about his past and his trust issues, revealing that his former wife cheated on him shortly before the wedding.

Later, while Greta is being interviewed by Bitch magazine, the journalist presses her on a feminist-oriented company relying on a womanizer (and alleged predator) like Carter Branson as an investor. She reveals the security footage of Carter kissing Greta and notes that Carter is selling off his stock in Syren; she assumes this is because he knows the release of the footage will cause a scandal and drive down the stock’s value, though Greta thinks he likely expected her to sleep with him in exchange for his financial support. Within a couple of days, Syren’s stock options are in freefall and Greta is fired. However, she is more devastated by Sam’s decision not to see her anymore without allowing her to explain.

Dorothy remembers what happened to Greta after Syren fired her and Sam left. She never married but spent the rest of her life chasing men who looked like Sam. One of them was Dorothy’s father. Greta was never around and finally checked herself into a psychiatric hospital, dying shortly afterward. Teenage Dorothy was in and out of foster care when she wasn’t unhoused or having thoughts of suicide.

While Louise takes Annabel on an outing, Louis begins kissing Dorothy. When she accidentally calls him “Sam,” he becomes angry and threatening. Though she doesn’t understand where the knowledge is coming from, Dorothy channels the jujitsu Sam taught Greta and knocks Louis out. This scares Dorothy, so she consults with Dr. Shedhorn, who further explains her theories of epigenetic memory: She believes that all intense emotions—not just bad ones—can be passed on, creating a web of genetic interconnections among people. She further speculates that changing the way one remembers something can change reality itself:

Because our habits are generally based on interactions with other people, if we change our memories, we’re inevitably going to change who we interact with in the future and how we engage with them. […] [I]f we make different choices in those memories, we’re literally altering the trajectory of a future reality (198-99).

After Dr. Shedhorn reassures her that “residual memories” are common following treatment, Dorothy reflects on the vivid dreams she has recently experienced of Greta, Zoe, and Zoe’s mother, Faye.

Lai King’s father translates for public health officials and allows himself to be inoculated in exchange for money. He falls ill shortly afterward, as expected, but when his condition worsens, Lai King’s mother instructs her to fetch a suitcase packed with Lai King’s belongings and come with her. As they emerge into the street, Lai King smells smoke, and Lai King’s mother explains that Chinatown is being burned to stop the disease from spreading. She leads Lai King to the docks and tells her that she and Lai King’s father have paid for Lai King’s passage to China, where she will join her mother’s family. Lai King boards, expecting her mother to join her, but her mother remains on the dock, “wav[ing] back” amid the flames.

Onboard, most of the passengers—Lai King included—are confined to steerage to control the spread of disease. They are allowed one hour on deck each day, provided they show no symptoms. While on deck, Lai King sees an obviously sick man being dragged away to be quarantined over his protests. A young boy introduces himself as Alby (short for Albert) and explains that the man is his uncle. The two children befriend one another, although since Alby and his uncle had been traveling in second class, they have limited contact. Alby explains that his uncle died the day after the scene on deck and was buried at sea; his mother died of polio several months before and his father abandoned him, so he is now alone in the world. One day, Alby and Lai King spot dolphins playing in the ship’s surf, and she tells him a Chinese legend about a girl who drowned herself and was reborn as a dolphin.

When Alby begins showing symptoms of the plague, Lai King convinces the steerage matron to create a small space where she can care for him rather than sending him to be quarantined. After a few days, Alby goes missing after getting up to use the bathroom, and none of the ship’s crew can say what happened to him; looking out at sea, she sees a lone dolphin exulting in the waves.

Dorothy has pulled Annabel out of preschool for a day trip on a ferry in the stormy sea. Annabel keeps saying that a boy wants her to join him on the bow, but Dorothy won’t permit her to do so in this dangerous weather.

Dorothy’s epigenetic treatments cause her to dissociate. She finds herself (as Faye) on a ship to Kunming and meets a charming young pilot named John Garland. While they dance, he suggests that she apply for a transfer to the Fighting Tigers base in Burma (as Myanmar was called in 1942). The dissociative episode ends with cries of “Someone grab that little girl!” (240). Annabel, in her own epigenetic dissociation, has followed the boy she sees out onto the bow. Dorothy saves her and frantically scolds her for endangering herself; she senses the other passengers judging her for her supposed negligence as a mother.

Dorothy and Annabel return home and learn that Louise has had Dorothy followed. Louis had expressed concerns about her mental health and the treatment she’s been receiving, and now Louise has footage of Dorothy shaking Annabel on the ship. She threatens to strip Dorothy of her custody if Dorothy doesn’t agree to let Louise take “Annie” to Spokane for the foreseeable future. Dorothy leaves the room to put Annabel to bed. Later that evening, Louis approaches her. She says she won’t let his mother take Annabel away, but he says that he wants to talk about their relationship. She tells him bluntly that she doesn’t love him and then stays up all night, processing and planning. The next morning, she takes Annabel and some of Annabel’s things and boards a subway train. On board, a British woman with dark curly hair—Mrs. Bidwell, though Dorothy doesn’t recognize her, or realize that she’s immersed in an epigenetic memory—advises her to take care of her daughter “when the time comes” (252).

The first day of experimental fascism begins with a group of children bursting into Zoe’s room and demanding that she come with them. She and other students from “a class of people subjugated by British rule” will be responsible for all chores (255). Guto buys Zoe’s acquiescence by confiscating her volume of Sappho, which includes a love letter Zoe has written to Mrs. Bidwell.

One night, Mrs. Bidwell and Zoe meet. Mrs. Bidwell seems unhappy and urges Zoe to remain true to herself. Zoe asks why Mrs. Bidwell can’t leave her husband, who is rarely at home anyway, and Mrs. Bidwell explains the country’s stringent divorce laws. She seems to be saying farewell. Before leaving, Mrs. Bidwell kisses her cheek. The next time Zoe sees Guto, she learns that Guto has mailed Zoe’s letter. Zoe blackens his eye, but the damage is done. Mr. Bidwell opens the letter, sends it to the local newspaper, and retaliates against Mrs. Bidwell by checking her into Broadmoor, a psychiatric hospital. Zoe sneaks away from school and visits Mrs. Bidwell in Broadmoor, finding her an anxious shell of the beautiful woman she revered.