The Wangs vs. the World(113)
“All my children!” he said, hugging them each in turn. “All my children in a general hospital!” Charles had known for sure that Grace and Saina would come, but there was a chance that the thieving woman would keep his son in her grasp. He should never have doubted Andrew. A white woman, no matter how alluring, could never be equal to the Wangs.
“Oh, Dad,” said Saina, “that might be the worst joke you’ve ever come up with.” She sat down on the bed and held on to his hand. “Are you okay? What happened? Who is that guy in the red hat?”
“Where’s Barbra? She is not coming?”
“She’s coming. She just has to wait until Monday so that she can get her passport renewed—they wouldn’t do it over the weekend.”
“And your tickets? Not tai guei?” asked Charles.
Even now, it was strange to hear their father speak of money as something that might be lacking, as something to be careful of. “Nope. Grace stowed away in my luggage.”
“Ha!” laughed Charles. “Gracie so small and so cute, she can be a stowaway anywhere!”
“Actually, we ended up doing it all on my frequent flier miles, so it was fine. And the gallery helped me expedite our visas,” said Saina.
“Okay, okay. Andrew you leave that woman? Good boy. Almost everybody here now. Wang?jia all together.”
Andrew was standing at the foot of the bed. He could just barely see the back of the crazy guy’s jacket as he moved around the adjoining space. “Dad, what’s going on? Are you hurt?”
“I feel okay now.”
Just then the man peered out from behind the divider, his cap askew, and addressed their father. “Wang Gege! Lai tan tan hua la. Bu yao niang zi la.”
“Wo men mei you hua lai tan.”
From behind the divider, they could hear another voice, arguing, and the man ducked back in.
“Dad, who is that creep?”
“Oh. It so long story, Gracie. Like Lord of the Ring. So long. Daddy just happy to see you all.”
Saina examined her father. As much as she wanted to understand what was happening, he did look tired and worryingly pale, his skin slack against the parade of ducklings on his gown. “Do you need to rest? We can talk to the doctor. Or do you want some breakfast? Do they have jou?” He loved rice porridge. Even as a child, Saina had known that it was one of the only things her mother did that made him happy. When he came downstairs to a tableful of dark, rubbery thousand-year eggs, dried pork, and stinky cubes of chili-flecked tofu, a pot of thick rice porridge still bubbling on the stove, those were the only mornings he would sit down and eat with his wife instead of rushing off with a Pop-Tart or turning away a plate of scrambled eggs completely untouched.
Still in her father’s arms, Grace pulled back. Saina couldn’t possibly be suggesting that they all leave now and go check into a hotel somewhere, that they let their father continue to tell them nothing. Rebellion coursed through her, forcing her words out. “No! I don’t care if you need to rest! And I don’t care that you’re in the hospital! You came and took me out of school and drove me all the way across country and dumped me at Saina’s house and took off without explaining anything to me and now you’re in a hospital in China? If you don’t tell me, I’m going to get back in the car with Bing Bing and I’m going to make her drive me to the airport and I’m just going to go back home to L.A. and live on the streets.”
Grace was being a little dramatic about it, but Andrew agreed. Now that they were, improbably, in this hospital room halfway across the world, the time for unspoken things seemed to be past.
When the three of them were together, they always acted a little bolder. Charles looked at his children. Grace, Andrew, Saina. Saina, Andrew, Grace. The three sides of his triangle. He could feel a pressure building in his bladder. Could Andrew help him to the bathroom? They all stared at him, waiting. The pressure continued to build and he felt panicked until he realized that he was attached to a catheter. Release. Relief.
“Oh, hai zi, very long story.”
“Daddy, please.”
“You sit down here again,” he said, patting the space Grace had just vacated. For once, she was agreeable and nestled herself in. “You know about World War II.”
“Of course!”
“World War II, China also fighting the Japanese, and there are Communists—”
“Dad! We don’t need a history lesson! Why are you in the hospital? Why are you even in China?”
“Everything a history lesson. Your life part of a history lesson. Meimei, listen. Okay. Wang family have so much land, hao duo, hao duo di. Your grandfather grow up, he manage land with his father, then there is war and many, many people die, but your family mostly are still alive. Wang jia, we support Chiang Kai-shek, Nationalist government, and soon they have to fight Communist, too. Communist worse than Japanese. Communist fight their own people, kill their own people, they hate xue wen, hate knowledge, culture. Chiang Kai-shek have to flee to Taiwan, many people go with him. Your grandma and grandpa go with him.”
“What about our grandpa’s father? What happened to him?”
“Killed. Some family bei kill, some family go to Taiwan, some family stay and become Communist.” He pointed to the divider. “Ta men stay.”
Andrew looked up. “Wait, so that guy really is our uncle? Like, a real uncle?”