The Many Daughters of Afong Moy(114)

Dorothy wasn’t sure if she admired him more for saving her life, for not judging her, or for respecting her in this odd moment. The one thing she was sure of, however—she loved the way he held her gaze. “It’s okay. I understand.”

“But if there’s anything else I can do, if there’s anything you need, just ask.”

Dorothy thought for a moment.

“There is one thing,” she said. “Someday when this is all over, I’d like my daughter to meet the person who saved her ah-ma.”

“Done,” he said. “And you saved yourself, remember.”

Dorothy winced.

“Are you all right? I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?”

“I just realized,” she said, chagrined. “It’s a bit embarrassing, but… I’m between addresses at the moment. Not just this—tonight—but out there, in the real world. I’ll be fine, you don’t need to worry about any of that. I’m just thinking out loud. I’m better off than most. I have options. It’s just…” She looked around for her phone.

“Don’t worry about it.”

She looked at him, certain that she’d said too much.

He knelt down and held her hand. “I’ll find you.”





Epilogue





21 Annabel




(2086)

When Annabel opened her eyes, she saw her mother’s face. Her ah-ma was young, the way she’d recalled seeing her in old photographs. The way Annabel’s father had once seen her. The way Annabel remembered her from when she was a little girl.

Her Baby-bel.

Seeing her mother again, if only in memory, made Annabel both happy and sad. Happy to feel so near to her ah-ma again, so close she could almost touch her. In that mnemonic proximity, that lucid dream, that unsealed envelope of consciousness, she knew, without a doubt, how much her ah-ma loved her. But Annabel felt sad as well, disheartened as she slowly realized where she was and that her ah-ma had been gone now for almost three years. Every Mother’s Day since became a day of mourning but also an observance—a celebration—that she’d been so close to her dear mother for nearly four decades. How fortunate Annabel felt, knowing that when she was five years old, she could have lost her ah-ma, lost everything, on one fateful day.

But she didn’t.

During the subsequent years, which Annabel now considers a gift, her ah-ma’s life became less… stormy. The epigenetic clouds that her mother inherited, that muddled her thoughts, finally parted, making way for sunnier days with bluer skies.

“Goodbye, for now,” Annabel whispered as she closed her eyes, drew a deep breath, and let it all go, feeling her mother’s warm presence recede.

When she opened her eyes again, Annabel was seated beneath an array of lights that had stopped spinning and were fading to black. The aromas of rain-soaked clothing, sweat, and sandalwood were replaced by the smell of antiseptic and dried flowers.

“I can’t believe how close I came to losing her,” Annabel said to Dr. Shedhorn, whose hair was long and thinning and as white as her old lab coat. She looked at the doctor with admiration, knowing that she could have made millions with her medical breakthroughs, but instead had open-sourced all her methods. Rather than licensing what she created or selling it outright, she let others build upon her work so she could care for the families that had endured her earlier, more experimental treatments.

“We both came close to losing her that night,” Dr. Shedhorn said, her tone filled with apology. “At least I was able to ease her distress in the years that followed.”

You weren’t the only one, Annabel mused as she thought about her stepfather, who was reunited with her ah-ma a few years after he saved her life. Annabel was seven or eight at the time, holding her mother’s hand and leaving one of her poetry readings, and there he was, waiting. Her ah-ma recognized him immediately even though he was out of uniform. He came to listen to her, to know her better, to see her again. Annabel remembered walking with him that evening to the International District for lychee ice cream, her ah-ma’s favorite, and after that they never spent more than a day or two apart. Even when her ah-ma went into the hospital and eventually to hospice care. He’d slept in a reclining chair right next to her, holding her hand.

For Annabel, those days were filled with so much sadness and grief, but her ah-ma never felt sorry for herself, never saw her life as one of loss.

She said, “It’s okay, Baby-bel. You know, the best thing anyone can ever hope for in life is a good third act. And I’ve had a great third act.”

She called me Baby-bel even though I was in my forties.

Annabel wished for more time. But she was comforted knowing that her mother was still a part of her, literally and figuratively. Her ah-ma had been the seed and Annabel the flower, and she was growing in a field with fewer weeds and thistles.

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you,” Dr. Shedhorn said as the transdermal cuffs on each of Annabel’s arms deflated. “How are you feeling these days?”

Annabel sat up.

She felt a beautiful mix of joy and melancholy, like a warm tropical rain, or the happy exhaustion you feel when you’ve worked so hard for something and finally, after a great struggle, achieved it.

There was so much to say.