Liuyu Ivy Chen is a writer and translator. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Washington Square Review, LIT Magazine, Columbia Journal, Ploughshares, No Tokens, Spittoon, Asymptote, LARB China Channel, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and elsewhere. In her home language of Yongkanghua, there is no word for “love”; the closest verb is zeidie (Mandarin: 值钿 zhí diàn): worthy of money.
On the question of whether to keep the baby, my sister wavered while her husband was determined to raise his daughter, a decision that continues to strain their marriage. Six months after her birth, my niece Didi was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.
