The Astonishing Color of After(71)

There isn’t much space, but the three of us pile inside anyway. The black piano gleams with our reflection; I lift the cover to let it smile with its shiny teeth, like my mother would prefer.

Feng pushes open the only window; the smell of sulfur sweeps in, and something compels me to get a photo of the view. I guess I want to capture what my mother must’ve seen when she looked out there after hours of practicing. When she was only a student, without the burden of a family. When she was—I hope—happy.

As my finger taps the button to get the picture, a screech pierces the sky, stabs right through me.

Waipo grabs my wrist and points with her other hand just in time for me to see a red tail gliding away.

I press into the window, lean myself out as far as I can, but she’s gone.

“Did you get a picture?” says Feng in a hushed voice.

“I don’t think so.” But I check my phone anyway. On the screen I see the eaves of the roof. The watercolor mountains in the distance. The faraway trees like broccoli.

And on a balcony floor a couple stories down, in one sunlit patch of stone: the shadow of a bird.





I’ve been shivering nonstop since our visit to the school. And as the day progresses, the hallucinations are flaring up again. Colors brightening and mixing. The edges of things sharpening then blurring. Inky cobweb lines returning.

Everything around me looks shattered.

The seconds tick their way toward midnight, which will mark the end of the forty-fifth day.

But we must be getting closer. A tiny voice in my brain screams, Closer to WHAT? The rest of me swells defensively.

Closer to seeing her again. Speaking with her. Hugging her.


I want you to remember



She has to tell me what it is. Before she runs out of time.

We’re so close. I’m so certain of it that it feels like I can justify using one of the precious remaining incense sticks. I pull open the drawer and reach for the two photographs I was able to salvage from the ashes. Both of them are a bit damaged, but whole enough.

I choose my parents’ wedding photo, slightly bent, one edge discolored by heat, one corner entirely missing. There’s my mother in her modest white dress, a delicate veil flowing down her back. My father young and handsome in his rented suit. It’s a posed portrait, but the happiness in their faces is real.

With shaky fingers, I light the shortest stick.

Touch the ember to the photograph, watch it begin to burn.

Flicker and flash.

Flicker. And flash.





74





—SMOKE & MEMORIES—


The smoke has brought me to a large room sort of like the college student community center where Dad used to take me to play foosball and get lemonade from the vending machine. The room’s packed. Most of the people are college-age, clustered in little groups, some appearing friendlier than others.

In the center of my vision: young Dory and young Brian, being introduced by friends. She’s looking shy in a lavender dress. Giant plastic glasses perch on the edge of her nose. My father in his baggy button-down shirt leans in to say something funny. The rest of the room is too loud for me to hear them, but it’s enough to see my mother laugh, her face erupting like a firecracker, eyes squinting, thin fingers coming up to hide the wideness of her grin.

Flash.

Dory and Brian in an empty auditorium, sharing the piano bench. He watches her fingers move. Her eyes are closed, and Schumann pours out from her hands, one sneakered foot pressing and releasing a golden pedal.

Flash.

Dory outside Brian’s apartment, clutching at the jade cicada that hangs from her neck. Her face tight and shuttered. He opens the door.

“Dory, it’s—God, it’s three in the morning. What is it?”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “When they call me it was one o’clock afternoon time for them, and after I have to find somebody to drive me here—and they’re all asleep—”

“Slow down,” says Brian, taking her wrist and tugging gently to bring her inside. “Who called?”

“My parents,” says Dory. “They call because—they call about—”

Brian waits. His eyes are full of fear. Dory shakes harder and he guides her to a chair.

“My sister,” she whispers finally. “Dead.”

My heart seizes, turns to ice.

“What? Oh my god, Dory.” He wraps his arms around her. That’s when her face crumples. “I’m so sorry.”

Dead. The word is cold and flat, aquamarine like the thick buildup of frost, and it fills my body with that color, with that echoing syllable, dead dead dead.

Jingling died. My mother had a sister, and my mother lost her sister, and no one ever told me.

“They don’t know what happen. Her roommate found her on the floor. She only look like she just faint.” Dory waits for the shaking to stop, waits for a pause in her heaving breaths. “I fly back to Taiwan tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” says Brian. “When will you be back?”

“I’m not coming back,” she tells him.

He pulls away as understanding settles over his face. “But… there are still three weeks.”

“I have talk to the program director already. I—I’m finished.”