The Astonishing Color of After(31)

“My parents aren’t going to tell me anything,” I said.

“Then there has to be something you can dig up yourself.”

My instinct was to shrug it off, but then I thought about it. Was there something to dig up?

I nodded slowly. “Maybe.”

“You at least have to try,” she said, picking up a tube of paint and squeezing out a liberal amount of orange. “And keep me posted.”

“Can I ask you something else?”

“You just did,” she said.

I rolled my eyes. “You and Cheslin were friends before you ended up together, right?”

Caro eyed me as if she knew what was coming. “For a while. Why?”

“Was it ever… weird?”

“This is about Axel Moreno,” she said.

It wasn’t exactly a question, and I did not confirm or deny.

“Listen, Leigh. If you’ve got shit to work out with him, you work it out with him. You can’t work it out with me. I’m not Axel.”

I took in a slow breath. “You’re right.” Work it out with him. It sounded easy, but I wasn’t sure how. I couldn’t even be sure what it was, what exactly I was feeling. I sighed and cleaned off my brush.





I’d never snooped on my parents. Even the thought of it sat in my stomach like something I shouldn’t have eaten. I thought it was worth at least one more conversation before I really began the investigation, as Caro called it.

It was an evening that Dad was home for dinner. He’d be flying out again the next morning, but for the night he was ours. He was a husband and a father. Mom cooked his favorite things. I put on his favorite Nachito Herrera tracks and cranked up the volume. We sat down to eat and it actually felt normal. It was the kind of dinner we hadn’t had in a long time.

I wanted to catch them in a good mood, so I waited until we were halfway through, laughing at a story about one of Dad’s students. My mother had a smile on her face and my father was spooning more fried rice onto his plate.

“When will I get to meet Mom’s parents?” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

Dad put down the rice. “Leigh,” he said in a warning tone.

My mother stopped chewing; her smile melted off. “Why ask this now?”

I shrugged. “It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve asked. Why haven’t we ever gone to visit? I don’t know anything about them. That’s pretty damn weird.”

“You have bad tone, Leigh,” said my mother. “You do not speak like this to your parents.”

Guilt curled its fingers around my gut, but I refused to cower. “It’s just not fair.”

“Many things not fair. Many things hard to fix.” She pushed her chair back and left the room, the food on her plate unfinished.

“Dad—” I started to say.

“Leave it, Leigh. It’s complicated. Stop asking. You’ll stir up things that aren’t any good for anyone.”

I slumped back in my seat.

Dad took a few lackluster bites. “I, uh, have some emails I need to take care of.” He picked up the plate and headed to his office.

“Right,” I said. I stayed at the table, listening to the sounds upstairs: Mom turning on the shower, Dad settling into his creaky office chair. It was hard to believe that only moments ago this room had held a family full of laughter.

Overhead, one of the yellow lights buzzed and flickered.

“Hang in there,” I said to the bulb. It went out anyway.





32





My mother is a bird.

And I am only a girl.

A girl, human and wingless—but what I have is the beginning of a plan.

Because why was the incense given to me, if not to guide me? There must be hints in those memories. There must be answers to my questions.

Waipo promised we’ll go everywhere that’s important. The places my mother loved. The places that were her habits, where she walked, where she found inspiration, where she dwelled on things that made her sad, where she might have left traces of herself.

We’ll visit all those places. I’ll burn those inky black sticks. Search out every last clue, gather all of them up like the torn pieces of a map.

The bird wants to be found. She has something to tell me. And this is the way I’ll get to her. I’m absolutely certain.





33





We’re on our way to a temple, and the dust-colored brick road is thronged with people. Every so often a slow moped noses its way through, and for the briefest moment there’s a gap and I can glimpse what’s up ahead. Milliseconds later the space disappears. People pour back together like granules of sand sliding into a crack. I can’t imagine anywhere back in the States looking like this, with mopeds and motorcycles sharing the pedestrian walkway.

I follow closely behind Waipo, with Feng tailing me, as we squeeze our way through tight clusters. Heads turn; gazes track over me.

“Hunxie,” I hear someone say, not bothering to lower their voice. Mixed blood.

“Shi ma?” someone else asks, not quite believing.

I suck in a deep breath and quicken my steps to press closer to my grandmother. Her proximity feels like a shield. If only I didn’t stand out so obviously with my lighter eyes, with my lighter hair and its streak of green. If only I had been raised more Taiwanese, and could somehow prove to these people that I belong here. This was my mother’s home for the first half of her life—can’t it feel a little bit like home to me, too?