The Astonishing Color of After(14)

There’s only one guest room, and when I turned in last night, my father had already taken the floor—likely feigning sleep on top of those blankets—and left me the bed. I didn’t expect to actually fall asleep, not after the shock over the box that should have been destroyed.

How long has Dad been up? What time is it? Purple confusion clouds my mind.

When I get to the end of the hall, Dad’s back is to me, but I can tell from the way his shoulders hunch and how he has one fist pressed to his head: He’s crying. It’s the first time I’ve seen him cry since the funeral.

My grandfather, Waigong, is standing on the other side of the room—which might as well be across the Pacific Ocean—one hand gripping the back of the couch. There’s a terrible look on his face. Waipo’s in the doorway separating the kitchen from the living room, shaking her head at the floor.

Nobody sees me for a long, quiet moment. Then they all notice at the same time, my presence announced via some frequency I can’t detect. Waipo’s eyes snap up. Dad pivots around.

“I’m sorry, Leigh,” he blurts at the same time Waipo utters a string of syllables. My father heads back toward the guest room, sweeping past me so quickly the air churns into wind.

Waipo ducks into the kitchen and reappears half a second later with plastic containers stacked between her hands. She calls out words that sound like music and like nothing.

“Sorry for what?” I turn to send my voice down the hallway after my father.

“She’s asking what you want to eat,” Dad translates over his shoulder.

I take a step toward him. “Dad, what are you doing? What’s going on?”

Waipo gently takes my elbow, guides me back to the kitchen. She pulls bag after bag out of the fridge, stacks box upon box, showing me endless food options. Vegetables and uncooked dumplings and porridges and tofu and pickled things— “Yao buyao?”

“Yao,” I tell her. Yes. Want. It’s a relief that I understand this at least.

My grandmother’s eyes light up at my effort to speak the language. She grabs a pan, and I turn back into the hallway in time to see my father rolling his backpack and suitcase out of the room.

“Dad!”

He looks up at me guiltily. “I’m sorry, Leigh. I just can’t do this.”

“What?” I glance at Waigong, who’s now sitting on the couch. His eyes are closed, his shoulders rigid.

“Your mother—” Dad’s voice breaks. “She wouldn’t want us arguing.”

I jut out my chin. “I’m not arguing with anyone.”

“She wouldn’t want there to be this… anger. And resentment. Over her. Over the past. This is what she tried to avoid. And here I am, breaking the promises I made when we got married.”

“You got married almost twenty years ago. Things change.”

He gives me a tired look. “I thought so, too. But some things don’t.”

I cross my arms. “We just got here. You can’t make me leave.”

“I’m not,” Dad hurries to say. “I’m not making you leave. Okay? You can stay. I’ll head to Hong Kong for a little while—”

The disbelief shakes me like an earthquake. “Are you kidding me? You’re just going to… leave me? Here?”

“You’re in safe hands,” he says, rubbing his temples. There are dark pouches beneath his eyes, flecks of gray in his hair. “You’re with family. I’ll be back to pick you up when you’re ready to go home. In the meantime, I’ll get a phone card. And I saw an internet café around the corner, so you can—”

“They don’t even speak English! How am I supposed to talk to them?”

“Practice your Chinese,” he says quietly. “Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”

It sounds like a joke. Like he’s mocking me. How much Chinese do I really have? Almost nothing.

Someone needs to make it illegal for parents to throw things you once said back in your face.

I watch him push his suitcase out the front entrance, kick off his slippers, and slide into his shoes without untying them. Before he shuts the door, he says in a voice so apologetically fuchsia, “I love you, Leigh.”

I’m too pissed to say anything back.

Nobody even says goodbye.





16





More pieces of Chinese that I learned years ago are trickling back:

Shengqi = to be angry

Weisheme? = Why?

Hao buhao? = Is it okay?

Buhao. It’s not okay. In fact, it’s very bad.

I can’t believe that not an hour ago I watched my father walk out of here. Part of me is relieved he’s left; part of me is disgusted. How am I supposed to get my answers without him? How will I find the bird? Rage flares through me alizarin crimson, and a scream holds itself ready in my throat.

In the guest room, I sit on the bed, cupping the necklace in my lap. That cold silver chain. The stone pendant as real as anything can be. How is it here in my palms? How did this—and all those letters, those photographs—survive?

The act of burning destroys something. But these are not destroyed.

My anger hisses and sputters like a lit match hitting water, and suddenly all I am is exhausted.