The Many Daughters of Afong Moy(6)
She read each page carefully, pausing, wondering, letting the words fill the air.
Lastly, she read the classic “Annabel Lee.”
She held his hand as she read the poem of love and loss and a kingdom by the sea. She looked over at him, speaking the words from memory, first in Chinese and then in English. “But we loved with a love that was more than love…”
His hand squeezed hers, so tight she thought her fingers might break. Her pulse raced as his body jerked, racked with violent seizures that shook the army bed and brought the IV bottle crashing to the floor, shards of glass fanning out like rice thrown at a wedding. She watched his lips turn purple, then all color drained from his face and she knew he’d stopped breathing. Faye shouted for a doctor and tore her hands away from his grip. She tried to hold him down, keeping the spasms from ripping open his sutures, but she felt spreading warmth across his torso and knew that he was bleeding out. Another nurse hurried over to assist by holding his legs, keeping them from thrashing about while an orderly ran for help. Patients who were awake began shouting, screaming. As Faye applied pressure to the wound, she heard herself pleading, “Don’t you do this, John Garland. Don’t you dare leave.” Then she loosened her grip as his whole body relaxed. As a long gurgling breath escaped his lips, his body seemed to deflate. His eyes opened, staring up at Faye, stormy pools of blue and gray.
* * *
An hour later, Faye took it upon herself to make the bed where the American had died in her arms. She changed the sheets and tucked in a freshly laundered wool blanket that smelled of lye. The broken glass had been swept, the old book returned to its place on a shelf. The only evidence of his death was the lingering redness beneath her eyes from when she’d walked outside, sat on the stone steps, and broken down sobbing. Now she wondered why she cared so much and what she might have done differently.
“I’m still going to recommend you for that citation,” Dr. Gentry said when he left the hospital and found her there. “Believe me, you earned it.”
Faye didn’t feel like she’d done anything special. She’d saved him only to watch him die hours later. Hardly an act that was medal-worthy. Why am I even here? She rubbed her forehead. I should be back in Canton looking for my parents.
When she walked back inside, Lois found her and offered a small cigar box. “I gathered up what little he had, his ID, a few personal effects.”
Faye nodded solemnly and took the container with both hands.
Lois opened her mouth as though she were about to say something, then fell silent. She gave Faye a long hug and then left her alone.
Sitting on the nearest empty bed, Faye sighed and lifted the lid. She gently touched John Garland’s dog tags. Then she sorted through a few notes, a faded flight map, a New York subway token, a silver pocket watch, a blue flight pin with a gold bar, a half-empty pack of Camel cigarettes, and his lighter. There was also an old leather wallet. Faye hesitated. The pilot didn’t have a wedding ring, but still, she expected to find a photo-booth snapshot of a stateside sweetheart, some Rita Hayworth–esque girl, all curves and dimples. Instead, she found well-worn photos of smiling siblings and grim-faced parents.
She took his pocket watch, which was old and tarnished, and held the heavy timepiece to her ear. The clockworks were silent. Idle. Dead. As she wound the stem, she felt tension and the spring-hinged cover popped open.
Faye dropped the box.
The room fell silent to her ears, all but the hum of a generator.
Inside the watch was a photo clipped from a newspaper.
The photo was of her, but she looked much younger, almost a teenager. She had no idea where or when the photo was taken. She’d never seen it before.
Faye felt light-headed; she turned the paper over.
Written on the back, in her handwriting, were the words FIND ME.
2 Dorothy
(2045)
Dorothy Moy found herself in the beverage aisle of her neighborhood Safeway, watching two old Korean women fight over the last case of bottled water.
Couldn’t you just share it? Dorothy wanted to ask. Or take plastic jugs and go outside. This is Seattle, we’re not exactly lacking for moisture these days.
Then the lights flickered and the power went out.
Dorothy heard the collective gasps of dozens of last-minute shoppers, followed by worried cries for loved ones and affirmations of “I’m okay” from all around the darkened grocery store. She reached for the light of her phone as monsoon gusts from Tropical Storm Mizuchi made their presence felt, banging and flexing the sheets of plywood that protected the store’s enormous front-facing windows. The sound died down to a rattle and the power snapped back on—along with the lights—which were now only half as bright, leaving the store looking pale and funerary, like a dimly lit basement.
Dorothy left the quarreling women behind. One had snatched the case of water in the brief amnesty caused by the momentary blackout, and they swore at each other in broken English amid the squeal of rusty shopping-cart wheels and the watery squelch of Dorothy’s rain boots on wet linoleum.
She hurried through the aisles looking for powdered milk, duct tape, candles, anything that might be useful, but the shelves had already been stripped bare by locusts in duck shoes and Eddie Bauer raincoats. Gone were the canned goods and bottled beverages, the garbage bags and paper products, the diapers and formula. The produce section reduced to a few soft, overripe pumpkins and an enormous sixty-pound jackfruit that no one even knew what to do with.