The Wangs vs. the World(112)

“They see too much,” her father had said once, when she was doing a report for history class and asked him whether his own parents had ever talked about the war. “They see too much so they have to close their hearts tight. Can’t get them open again.”

She didn’t understand that fear. If she was lucky, she never would.

Saina turned down another corridor. A ward full of babies. New life. Little creatures who hadn’t yet seen the things we could do to one another.

Saina looked at her cell phone. Another text.



917-322-XXXX

Please.



She turned off her phone.



After another ten minutes of wandering around the hospital, light-headed and unsure of herself, down another hallway and then another, she peeked inside a door that had been left ajar and she saw her father. He was asleep. Peacefully, blissfully asleep. The heart-rate monitor attached to him hopped encouragingly. There was an IV drip that worried her, and the black eye he got in the car accident had bloomed, but otherwise he looked decent.

An accordion screen stretched across the middle of the room, blocking off the windows. Whoever was on the other side had the window and the privacy, something that Saina couldn’t imagine her father allowing. What had happened to him? She wanted to sneak in and read his medical charts, but they would be in Chinese, and though she could make her way well enough when trying to speak the language, she really could only read numbers and a handful of words.

Instead, she slid to the floor outside his door and finally, finally, fell asleep.



“Xing lai! Xiao meimei xing lai! Zao an, xiao meimei! Hel-lo! Rise and shi-ine!”

Ugh. Grace’s neck was twisted and sore, and her legs were numb from hanging over the armrest all night.

“Wa! Xiao meimei xing lai le!”

Oh. That noise was being directed at her. A man wearing a red baseball cap popped into view. He peered down at her with a giant smile that stretched from one sparsely whiskered cheek to the other.

“Xing lai! Xing lai! Lai kan baba!”

His teeth were yellowed and uneven, and tiny bits of spittle flung themselves onto his lips as he talked way too close to her face. Why was this man telling her to wake up?

“Ni shi shei?” asked Grace.

“Ha ha ha!” He cocked his hat up and looked around the room, searching for someone to confirm that this was, indeed, the funniest thing he’d ever heard. “Wo shi shei?”

“Andrew! Wake up!” She kicked at him.

Her brother startled and opened his eyes. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know. Who is this guy? He keeps telling me to wake up and go see Dad.”

“Maybe he’s a relative?”

The man stood there patiently, still smiling at them. “Lai! Lai kan baba!”

Grace whispered, “Do you think he’s . . . you know.”

“Slow?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know.”

“Wang xiao hai, shi de ma? Wo shi shushu!”

“I mean, he seems to know us, right? He just called himself our uncle.” He turned to the man. “Hao, shushu. Uh . . . qing deng yi xia.” Andrew started gathering their stuff. “Wait, where’s Saina? Her stuff’s gone.”

“Oh god, who knows. You realize that at this point I’m the only family member who hasn’t disappeared?” said Grace, a little angry.

“Maybe she’s with Dad already,” said Andrew.

It would be just like Saina to sneak up to see their father while she and Andrew were asleep. They followed the man past the deserted nurse’s station and into an elevator. When the elevator doors slid open, there was Saina, asleep on the floor.

Grace was startled. “Saina! What’s happening?”

Saina opened her eyes as if she had just been waiting there for them, half sprawled out on the floor. “What time is it? This is Dad’s room.”

Andrew shrugged. “Morning time?”



The man who had gotten off the elevator with her siblings immediately squatted down next to Saina, delighted. “Ah! Wang Jiejie! Ne me piao liang! Lai lai lai, bu yao zuo zai di shang!” He put out a hand to help her up and, not wanting to be rude, she took it, nearly colliding into him as they both stood. The man kept hold of her hand and began shaking it. “Ni hao, ni hao, wo shi shushu!”

Uncle? What was this man talking about? Ignoring him, Saina pushed open the door.

Grace and Andrew stopped in the doorway, shocked. Their father was in a hospital gown printed with, of all things, tiny little ducks. He had an IV drip in his arm and wires attached to his chest. His face looked strange. Saina hadn’t noticed it when he was asleep, but awake, something seemed off, like he’d gotten Botox accidentally or something.

Their father’s eyes fluttered open, and instead of looking at them, he fixed on the man who had brought them to the room. “Wha! Andrew! Grace! Saina! Why are you talking to him? No! Tell him go away! Ni bu yao gen wo de xiao hai zi shuo hua!” Charles shouted, his attempts to make a shooing motion hampered by the wires webbed in front of him.

Meanwhile, the stranger who seemed to know them had disappeared behind the accordion divider and was murmuring to an unseen patient on the other side.

“Daddy! Are you okay?” Grace hugged her father carefully as he patted her hair, and then he stretched his arms out for Saina and Andrew.