Falling Leaves

Martin takes Adeline to his family’s boardinghouse, where a northern Chinese man named Byron Bai-lun Soon is staying. The two men compete with each other for Adeline’s affections, and Byron woos her particularly aggressively. They marry after just six weeks, and Adeline rationalizes her marriage by reasoning that most arranged marriages in China begin similarly.

Soon after the wedding, Adeline discovers that Byron has not been entirely honest with her. While doing Byron’s laundry, she finds an overdraft letter from the bank in the pocket of his pants. When she calls Byron at the engineering firm where he told her he worked, she is informed that he only comes in occasionally on a part-time basis. Eventually, she learns that Byron works as a waiter at a Chinese restaurant.

When Adeline confronts Byron about his dishonesty, he is dismissive toward her, saying, “‘Marry a chicken, follow a chicken; marry a dog, follow a dog’” (161), suggesting that wives must be subservient to their husbands and that she has no right to criticize him.

They move to California after Byron accepts an engineering job and Adeline finds an internship at a hospital in Long Beach. After her internship ends, she obtains an anesthesia residency at Orange County General Hospital, and her career flourishes.