The Astonishing Color of After(68)

I know what she means. “It’s easier knowing that they’re still part of this world, somehow.”

“Exactly.” Feng gives me a sad smile. “Go on. Eat.”

The rice balls are sticky and filled with sesame paste that melts out like a runny yolk. Delicious. The soup itself is sweet, slightly tart, with the hint of an alcoholic tang.

“So good, right?” says Feng, cheering up a bit. “My favorite thing about it is the texture. My sister used to argue that the best way to eat it was to bite a hole in one of the balls, and eat the filling first.”

I pause with the spoon halfway to my mouth. “You have a sister?”

Feng blinks. “Yes. I had a sister.” She looks away. “I didn’t mean to bring her up.”

My throat is scratchy when I tell her, “My mother has a sister, too. But I didn’t know. I only just found out recently.”

A woman in a stained apron reaches between us to remove a stack of dirty bowls and spoons, and we fall silent for a long moment.

“Actually. I wanted to ask Waipo about this. Could I, um? Could you translate? I just… I don’t know anything about my aunt.”

Feng turns to my grandmother, speaking in a low voice. Waipo’s eyes light up. She pushes her soup aside and begins to speak.

“Your aunt loved to eat. She loved discovering new treats. Popo says she’s never seen another girl who could eat so much—it was… Jingling’s favorite thing. If she went hungry for too long, she’d become angry and stubborn.”

My face stretches into a smile.

“She tried so hard to be a good older sister. Smart, reliable. A good teacher. Anything she was passionate about, she wanted to share with the world. Like American poetry. She was obsessed with a poet named Emily Dickinson.”

The name rings in my ears like a gong. “Emily Dickinson?”

“Yes,” Feng continues. “She was always reciting this poem, that poem. Whenever she tried to teach your mom about American poetry, she lit up like a fire—it was her greatest love.”

My mother had that same passion. The way she’d shout, Yes! Exactly! after a piano student nailed a run. Her face full of lilac eagerness whenever she suggested I sit down for a first lesson.

“Sisters are very lucky,” Feng says quietly. “They get to be family and they also get to be best friends. Even in the afterlife, I think they recognize the presence of the other better than anyone else.”

The afterlife. I wonder if Feng’s felt the presence of her own sister?

“Can I ask you something?” My voice is nervous and hesitant.

“Of course,” says Feng.

“Have you ever seen a ghost?”

“I think people see ghosts all the time,” says Feng. “And I think ghosts want to be seen. They want to be reassured that they truly exist. They drift back into this world after passing through the gates of death into another dimension, and suddenly they hear every thought, speak every language, understand things they didn’t get when they were alive.”

I nod.

“What about you?” Feng asks. “Have you seen a ghost?”

“I’m not sure about ghosts, specifically. But I guess that’s the closest thing to it. If I told you…” I pause, tasting the words before they come.

Her eyebrows pop up. “If you told me what?”

“Would you believe me if I said I’ve seen my mother?”

Feng is silent as she considers the question. She picks up a napkin and begins folding it like origami, into quarters, then triangles, making creases with her nails. “Yes,” she says finally. “I would believe you.”

I lean back in my chair, feeling somehow a bit lighter.

Feng gives me a sidelong glance. “So where did you see her?”

“Here. And back at home, a couple times. She’s—” I pause because I know it sounds ludicrous. “Um. I see her as this… well. She’s this huge red bird.”

“A bird,” Feng repeats.

My grandmother makes a sound that gets our attention. I watch as she slowly bends to pick up something in the dark, shadowy corner beneath her side of the table.

She holds up a long, silky feather, the color of a rose.





71





I thought I would be able to sleep after tonight, but instead all I can think about is that feather, and ghosts, and other dimensions. And what’s real.

And colors.

I see colors in the dark now. Sometimes they form shapes, or even faces. Sometimes they get angry with me, turn a dirty, boiling crimson. Sometimes they try to soothe me, drawing themselves like crystals in a pale dusty blue.

I don’t even have to close my eyes. The colors are just there, floating above me, like little truth tellers. Wherever my thoughts go, they follow.

I desperately want to sleep. I would even take a nightmare.

The colors shape themselves into a face. Like a sketch made with oil pastels. I know those eyes. That nose. That chin.

“Mom?” I say softly.

She vanishes in a cloud of red, and the colors crumble away to nothing.





72





FALL, SOPHOMORE YEAR


The late September chill was just beginning to set in. My sophomore year Art II was ninth period—the last period of the day—and as I packed up, Dr. Nagori pulled me aside to say he’d called my house.