Outrun the Moon(50)

Then I set off at a run, zigzagging my way up street after ruined street, dying a thousand deaths each time I spot a child Jack’s age who doesn’t turn out to be him.

The earth begins to tremble again. People scream and grab onto whatever or whoever is closest. I fall to the ground, cutting my hand on glass.

The trembling stops. I am in Union Square surrounded by the smoldering remains of its former occupants, metal skeletons for smoke to seep in and out of. Winged Victory still holds her head up high, and her stony gaze seems to order me to dust off my sorry bloomers and get moving. I rise, ignoring the pain. The anxiety that wends through my chest is slick and reptilian, stirring me onward.

Finally, I reach California Street, one of the main avenues into Chinatown. The smoke here is thick enough to hold a bottle in place. The faces turn Chinese, all hurrying in my direction as I approach.

I stop a man holding a picture frame. “What of Chinatown?”

He doesn’t want to stop, and so I tag along after him. “Burning! It’s all burning!” he spits.

A bolt of panic shocks me in the chest. “Burning?”

“Hai.”

I set off at a run toward the smoke, tears running down my face. They must have escaped. They had to.

“Mercy!” I look frantically toward the sound of my name. A thin man in dark pants and a jacket like mine waves at me.

“Ah-Suk!” I cry, collapsing upon him and almost knocking off his skullcap.

Tom’s father holds me steady with one hand. The other is holding a suitcase.

I blurt out, “Ma—?”

He shakes his head.

“Dai-dai?” I whisper the word, not able to say Jack’s name aloud.

He closes his eyes, and when he opens them, they are wet.

“Their building was one of the first to go. I am sorry—” he begins to say in Cantonese.

I tear away from him, continuing on toward Chinatown. No! It can’t be true.

“You cannot go that way, Mercy! The fire is still hungry. Your clothes will melt off!”

After running half a block, I hit an invisible wall of heat that my body refuses to push through. Chinatown lies just a block ahead, though it’s no longer the scene I remember, but a searing spectacle of hot yellows and reds.

I find myself kneeling on the ground, and then I crumple, burying my head into my lap as if I could disappear inside myself forever.

Oh, my baby brother. I wish I had never left you. If I had known your time had such short measure, I would have spent every second watching you grow. And, Ma! You predicted your own death, but of all the times you had to be right, why now?

I sob and sob, so hard I think my heart may give out from the effort. I imagine the flames licking at Jack’s tiny feet, his terrified voice calling, “Mercy!”

Someone pulls me to my feet.

My limbs have gone numb, and nothing can shake me from my stupor. I barely register the screaming people, the fire trucks whose horses have run off, the wagons pulling away the dead. Fires roar, and children wail, but all pass over me as if I am in an impenetrable glass bubble.

The only sound I hear is the voice of my regret, like a howling wind in my ears.





23



WHEN BA PLACED JACK IN MY ARMS FOR the very first time, I decided that he belonged to me. If anything deserved to be called “perfect,” it was this warm bundle, with his round pearl of a head and starfish hands. He hardly cried, and when he slept, sometimes fourteen hours at a time, I longed for him to wake so I could tickle his feet. Jack’s birth proved to me that God exists.

People are like boats, always coming and going. Sometimes never returning. Now that his boat has sailed, the sea is empty for me.



Someone pats my shoulder. I’m covered with a blanket, and there’s a pillow under my head. The smell of dirt and grass is all around me. Maybe I’ve died of grief, and they’re readying my plot. During my time at the cemetery, I never saw grief kill a body, though I’ve seen plenty of mourners try to throw themselves into the grave. Surely the pain I feel is worse than a shot to the heart, powerful enough to send me where I want to go.

Strangely, the thought comforts me. I will see Ma and Jack again, maybe in a city like this, though on a higher plane where we can look down and watch the living.

Of course, Ba might still be alive.

And Tom. Do earthquakes affect the ocean? My insides clamp with worry.

With a groan, I open my eyes. Katie hangs not a foot from my face, staring at me with her green eyes. “Hi.” She sits back on her haunches and beckons someone over. “She’s awake.”

Soon, Harry and Francesca are also staring down at me. Beyond them, Georgina—the only senior I see—braids Minnie Mae’s hair. The Southerner’s puffy face is as red as the sun. I must have been sleeping all afternoon.

I wiggle out of the tight blanket. Vaguely, I remember stumbling to the park, aided by Ah-Suk and Francesca. I meet Francesca’s warm eyes. “Thank you.”

She gives me a smile so full of concern that I almost break down. I swallow the hot ball in my throat. “Where’s Ah-Suk?”

“The man who brought you back? He’s over there.”

I push myself up, but the pain in my hand makes me wince. My stomach bucks, and every muscle aches as if I have been treading water for hours. Francesca puts a steadying hand on my back.