Beautiful Country: A Memoir

Qian wanted a pet. She told her classmates that her parents said they could barely afford to feed her, let alone a pet. Qian then worried that perhaps she had revealed too much, that child services would check to make sure she was being fed and then her family would be deported. On one of the McDonald’s excursions, James Lombardi—whom the Wang family now called Lao Jim—told Qian that his sister had a cat she could have. He ignored the protests of Ba Ba and Ma Ma. Qian checked out books from the library about caring for a cat, but she was shocked at the amount of things the books suggested buying. On the morning that Lao Jim was to bring the cat, Qian was full of excitement. 

Lao Jim’s sister was a nun, and she introduced the cat to Qian and taught her how to care for it. Ma Ma and Ba Ba were disdainful: The cat was black with asymmetrical markings, bad luck in Chinese culture. Qian named the cat Marilyn after Marilyn Monroe. She loved watching Marilyn jump, chasing the makeshift toys Qian had made. Ba Ba did not like Marilyn because the cat was not cuddly.