Part 4
Yet another major change in Heather's life was when she her mother introduced her to Feng Dai a few weeks after Darnell had gone home from the hospital.
After hearing what had happened to her daughter, a close friend of Dawn's introduced her to her great uncle, a tiny old Chinese man. He was soft-spoken, gentle and very, very old.
Feng Dai had moved to the United States ten years before to visit and spend time with his American nieces and nephews, it had been a great adventure for him and he had come to love his American family a great deal. Eventually, he decided not to go back to China.
He had a round face covered with fine wrinkles around the eyes and mouth, proof that he smiled a lot. His heavily accented voice was soft with a musical lilting quality to it and his slanted light brown eyes had a merry glint.
To Dawn he looked very unassuming but when she shook his hand the thick, horny calluses made it feel like she was gripping a rough tree branch. Her impression of him changed instantly.
They were in what looked like a small warehouse, just two blocks from Heather's high school, a corner of which was sectioned off and had been converted into a living area. The inner walls of the warehouse were lined with strange stands holding wood and metal implements she didn't recognize, wooden dummies, what looked like folded mats, and other items she couldn't identify.