The Wangs vs. the World(110)
“Yes! I like slam dunk!”
Finally, Grace smiled, too. “Me, too. It’s the best thing about basketball.”
Before they could stop her, Bing Bing had stacked their suitcases on top of each other on her cart and wrestled the bags off each of their shoulders. Even at the helm of the loaded cart, she stalked ahead of them, stopping every few minutes to let them catch up.
四十六
Gaofu, China
ON THE FAR WALL of the waiting area there was a poster of hospital rules and regulations topped with a symbol of a sleeping man, eyes closed and dreaming of a moon. A giant red circle with a slash through it surrounded the illustration. The message was clear. No sleeping allowed. And, according to the rest of the symbols, no eating, no drinking, and no cell phones either. Yet the chairs below the poster were full of people dozing off, care packages of food on their laps and half-empty cans of tea on the floor below them.
Bing Bing had offered to recline the seats in her snub-nosed minivan so that they could sleep in the hospital parking lot, but now that they’d come all the way across the globe it seemed important to close the last few feet of distance between themselves and their father.
Andrew stood in front of the vending machine considering the unfamiliar coins in his hand, change from his airport fried rice. Saina was talking to someone at the nurse’s station as Grace staked out a row of seats for them. He looked at the clock, 1:34 a.m. In New Orleans it was still yesterday. He dropped a coin into the slot and waited for the can of chrysanthemum tea to roll to the right and clunk down the chute. Holding the hot can carefully between two fingertips, he popped the tab, releasing a hiss of steam.
After they’d drunk up the tea, holding the cans against their faces as comfort against the swampy chill of the waiting room, Grace curled up in one of Andrew’s sweatshirts and fell asleep with her feet dangling over the armrest.
Saina and Andrew whispered to each other.
“Is she going to go to school in your town?” he asked.
“I think so. But we haven’t even gotten her registered yet.”
“She could just take the GED.”
“She has all of senior year left!” said Saina.
“I doubt Grace cares.”
“About senior year?”
“Yeah.”
“You loved high school.”
“So did you.”
Had she? “No, I loved having a driver’s license and hanging out with my friends.”
“Same thing.” Andrew looked at his sleeping sister. “Poor Gracie. Too bad she had to go to boarding school.”
“I tried to get Dad to send me to boarding school. I had this East Coast fantasy—boys who played lacrosse, long talks about J. D. Salinger, hot cocoa in dorm rooms, that kind of thing.”
“I didn’t know that!”
“You were a little kid.”
“What happened?”
Saina nudged one leg under Andrew’s. “Mom died. And then I felt bad about wanting to leave.”
He was quiet for a minute. “I hope Dad’s okay.”
“I think he is.”
“I hope so.”
“Hey, so what happened in New Orleans anyways? Why’d you end up ditching them? Grace said that you fell in love. Did you really?”
“Yep. An older woman.”
“Andrew!”
“Shh . . . hospital voice!”
“Okay, sorry! How much older?”
“Mmm . . . kind of a lot older.”
“Fifty? Sixty? Was she a sexy octogenarian?”
“No! Like, thirty, maybe.”
“Ancient!”
“Sorry, sorry, you’re not old, but she—”
“I’m kidding! That is a lot older than you. Was it, um . . .” Saina realized that she had never discussed sex with either of her siblings.
“Actually, she was probably more like thirty-five.”
“Probably?”
“Probably definitely.”
“Were you . . . uh, was it . . .”
Andrew wanted to giggle. “Are you trying to ask me if we did it?”
“Well, I know you once said that you were waiting to fall in love when, well, remember? We had that talk.”
“Yeah, let’s not do that again.”
“Okay! Okay. Well, whatever happened, are you alright? Do you feel okay about everything?”
Without permission, a tear forced its way out of his eye. And then another and another. But he nodded.
“What? What’s happening? I don’t get it. Are you okay? Are you sad that you left her there? Did she break your heart or something? Are you going to go back there?”
More tears. “Whisper!”
“Sorry!”
“I’m . . . yeah.” How could he even explain it to her? He wiped his right eye, then his left. “I’m not going to go back there, probably.”
“Okay . . .”
He looked at his sister. Her eyes were a lighter brown than anyone else’s in their family, and now the glow from a wall sconce shone through them, making them look almost golden. He couldn’t say it. “Don’t worry, Saina. It just wasn’t what I expected, but I’m fine. Let’s go to sleep now.”