by Ami Polonsky
Mom gives me the originals of Yuming’s note and photo to hold. She has a book open in her lap, but I can tell she’s not reading. I bet the black hole is sitting right on the other side of her. I concentrate on the photograph—on the white creases where it was folded, on the fountain….
The electronic sign reads 61 already. The line is moving faster than I expected, which should make me happy, but actually makes me feel jittery.
Yuming’s photograph looks like it went through a lot even before it traveled to the United States in a purse. The edges are worn and white, and there are little creases all over it, as if it was kept in a backpack instead of a frame.
Mom leans over and studies the picture, too.
“Mom,” I ask, “do you really think someone will save them?”
“I do,” she replies quickly, but I can’t tell if she believes it or she’s just trying to humor me.
After Lola’s relapse, when we found out that she needed a bone marrow transplant, I begged Mom and Dad to let me get tested; I wanted to be her donor. They explained to me over and over again how it worked—that they had already found a donor of Chinese ancestry; that I most likely wouldn’t have been a match for Lola anyway, because of our different backgrounds. But I wanted to be; I wanted my bone marrow to save her. At least Mom and Dad could’ve let me get tested.
I glance up at the electronic sign on the wall and then back at Yuming’s face. It’s almost our turn. I wonder for the millionth time why she said in her note that she has no family to help her if she’s standing with people who look like her grandparents and brother.
Mom squeezes my hand. “We’re next,” she says. I look at the sign just as it switches to 70.
With my eyes fixed on Yuming’s smile, Mom and I walk up to the counter. I hold tightly to the papers as Mom asks for Susan Zhau. A minute later, quick footsteps approach.
“I am Susan Zhau. How can I help you?”
I look up. She is younger than I expected, but unsmiling, just like I thought she’d be. She pushes up her glasses and waits for Mom to say something.
Mom clears her throat. “I believe you spoke to my husband yesterday about a note and photograph that my daughter found in a purse at the mall? Al Clay?”
“Yes,” she replies without hesitation.
“So”—Mom ignores her rudeness—“we brought the originals in.”
“I told your husband to mail them. I have already received the scanned copies.”
Mom shifts her purse on her shoulder. “Well,” she goes on, like she’s not quite sure how to respond, “anyway, here we are. And we brought them.” She nods at me, and for the last time I glance at the photograph that Yuming’s hands touched, at the words that her hand wrote. Then I look up at Susan Zhau. Her expression makes it seem as though we interrupted her right when she was in the middle of dealing with something way more important.
She reaches out her hand, but I don’t want to give her the note and picture.
“Clara?” Mom prods.
You have the copies, I imagine Lola calling out from the black plastic chairs to our right. Anyway, I can picture her saying, jumping up and running over to me, this is just more proof that you need to talk Mom and Dad into going to China. And soon. She’d roll her eyes at Susan Zhau. Look at her—she doesn’t even care!
“Clara, honey?”
I put the originals on the counter. Susan Zhau swipes them up without even looking at them. “It would have been easier for you to mail them.”
“Well, we, ah, we just wanted to be sure—”
“Is there anything else?” she asks.
“Ah, no,” Mom says. “Thank you.” She puts her arm around my shoulder and gently pulls me away.
I imagine Lola following us, making a gag me gesture.
“She’s so rude,” I whisper as we walk toward the elevators.
“Definitely not the friendliest person I’ve ever met,” Mom agrees. “But I’m sure she’ll take care of it.”
It doesn’t sound like Mom believes what she’s saying. I picture Lola getting into the elevator with us, mouthing to me, There’s no way.
Back home, I grab the laptop off the counter. “I’ll be in my room,” I tell Mom. I close my door, sit on my bed with the computer, and pull out my copy of Yuming’s note to read it again.
It says she’s a few hours from Beijing, in Hebei Province. I search for that first, because I can never keep track of where any of the provinces are, and I study the first map that pops up. Beijing is surrounded by Hebei Province, and I look at the area around the city.
A few hours outside of Beijing, the note says. North of the city, I see mountain ranges, jagged lines that represent the Great Wall, and some smaller cities and villages. To the east of Beijing is the Yellow Sea, and to the west and south are more little towns. There’s nothing that indicates where a pale-pink factory would be. Obviously.
I go to a travel website Dad showed me once. It was a couple of weeks before Lola died, when he was arranging Grandma Betty’s flight in from Minneapolis. I knew he was trying to distract me from what was going on, and partly I was grateful, but partly I felt like a baby for needing to be distracted.
I type in information for flights from Chicago to Beijing, leaving this week. I check the box that says MY DATES ARE FLEXIBLE, and carefully pull Yuming’s photograph out of my pocket as the computer searches. I scan the flights as they pop up and swallow hard. Almost six thousand dollars per ticket for a flight leaving Tuesday; four thousand per ticket for one leaving tomorrow. I have to look down at Yuming’s face so I don’t start to cry. Mom and Dad could never pay that much for anything.
“Clara, come have something to eat,” Mom calls from the kitchen.
“’Kay.”
I click on a tab to sort the flights from least to most expensive and hold my breath as the information rearranges itself. A flight for $575 per person appears at the top of the screen. Underneath it, it says, $725 TOTAL. Compared to all the others, $1,725 doesn’t seem so bad. I click on the flight and examine the details.
“Clara?”
“Coming!” I can smell pancakes cooking, but I’m not hungry.
It’s a ton of money, but nowhere near what the other flights cost. I look at the departure date and time: this Wednesday, at 10:20 PM. My heart leaps into my throat. Wednesday? Just a few days from now? It seems too good to be true and impossible at the same time.
I lie back on my bed and stare at the ceiling. Then I hold up Yuming’s photograph. I’m trying, I say to her in my mind. I don’t know how I’m going to do this, but I need to figure it out. And fast. I tuck the photograph and note carefully back into my pocket and go downstairs.
Dad is sitting at the kitchen table drinking his coffee while Mom slides some pancakes onto a plate. “Hey there, honey,” Dad says as I sit down next to him, across from Lola’s empty chair. Mom goes back to the stove to flip the pancakes in what suddenly seems like a pathetic attempt to make us feel like a normal family again.
I take a deep breath. The image of Lola nods at me encouragingly from the kitchen doorway.
“So, uh, how’s it going at work?” I ask Mom’s back.
She looks over her shoulder, surprised. “It’s okay, sweetie. You know, Caryn took over so much of the fund-raising while I was away. I’m just easing back into it.” She brings the pancakes to the table and sits down.
“Did you finish the newsletter?” Dad asks, lifting a pancake onto his plate.
“Not yet,” Mom says, studying her coffee. “I can’t concentrate.” Then she nods, like she’s trying to convince herself of something. “But everyone has been really helpful.”
“Maybe you need a break,” I tell her. I picture Lola grinning at me.
“I do,” she says, smiling. “I definitely do. But you know, with all the time I’ve already taken off since…” She clears her throat. “Well, ah, this isn’t the right time for a break.”
I look down at my empty plate. Keep trying! Lola’s i
mage pleads. Four days! You only have four days! But I don’t know what to say. I have no idea how I’m going to convince Mom and Dad that we should go to China. And this week? It suddenly seems completely ridiculous. Mom is back at work. Dad is teaching summer school. And we don’t have the money. Plus, even if we did, four days to get ready to go to the other side of the world? The whole idea is absurd.
But what do you have to lose? I imagine Lola saying frantically. I can picture her bouncing up and down.
“So, I was thinking—” I say, tears suddenly sliding down my face.
Baby, I hear Lola say.
I look around the kitchen. Her image is gone.
“I was thinking that we should go to China.”
Mom puts her fork down. Dad swallows quickly and stares at me. Suddenly, I can’t stand the thought of hearing their response. Of course they’re going to say no—and then what? The black hole will come. It will choke me and suffocate me; it will kill me.
Mom and Dad look at each other, then back at me. I need to get out of the house. This is never going to happen. “I’m gonna walk down to the park,” I say, wiping my eyes. “I feel like getting out.”
Mom and Dad don’t say anything as I grab my backpack and leave through the kitchen door. I can’t stop crying. I don’t know how to do this! I scream to Lola in my mind.
I walk toward the park where Lola and I always used to play when we were little. I’m sure Mom and Dad are watching from the window. I feel like a toddler. I stop at the end of the block near the bus stop, across from the park. Three little kids are playing on the jungle gym while their dads sit and talk on a bench. In a minute, Mom and Dad will probably run up behind me, put their arms around me, and explain with sad faces why there’s no way we can go to China on such short notice. I can’t bear the thought.
I watch the bus rumble down the street, toward the stop. I recognize the driver: Charles. This is the bus we took back and forth from the hospital once we knew Lola wasn’t coming home again. He pulls up and opens the doors.
“Good morning,” he says brightly. “Clara, right? Haven’t seen you in a while. You going to the hospital?”
I guess I am. I nod and climb the steps, then pull out my bus pass.
“No parents today?” he asks as I swipe the pass.
“Just me.” I try to smile at him.
“Okay. Just so long as you’re not getting me into trouble.” His words make me nervous, but I can see from his face that he’s teasing. “Take a seat.”
I sit right behind him. The bus is almost empty. Mom and Dad are going to kill me, but I don’t really care. I take out my phone, put it on vibrate, and shove it into my backpack. Then I unfold Yuming’s photograph and tell her again, I’ll figure it out. I have to. I lean my head back and squeeze my eyes shut to try to keep the tears inside.
Twenty minutes later, we’re in the city. The bus stop is only half a block from the hospital. “Thanks, Charles,” I say, standing up and inching toward the steps.
The doors swish open. “My pleasure, Clara,” Charles says. “Say hi to your folks.”
I nod, get off the bus, and walk slowly to the hospital. It smells so familiar inside the lobby. I pass the gray-and-navy couches, the fake plants, the front desk, and head over to the south elevators without checking in. I don’t even know why I’m here. I ride up to the third floor, Oncology, and step out of the elevator.
On the opposite wall is the same mural I saw every single day for months and months. Lola’s orange handprint is on it, along with every other kid’s who has stayed on this floor. I wonder how many of them got to go home, and how many of them died here—like Lola did.
Sherry, one of the nurses who took care of Lola, starts to walk past, her nose buried in someone’s chart. Then she glances up and sort of jumps when she sees me. I guess I must look ridiculous, standing in the middle of the hallway holding a photograph of a Chinese family and trying not to cry.
“Clara, honey,” Sherry says, looking around—probably for Mom and Dad—and then wrapping her arms around me. After hugging me she studies my face intently. “What are you doing here?”
I shrug and she leads me over to the bench across from the nurse’s station. Right down the hall is the room that was Lola’s. The whole time she was here, there wasn’t a thing I could do for her other than pull the extra blankets off when Mom wasn’t looking and put her stupid pink notes into my backpack. I couldn’t donate bone marrow; I couldn’t make her comfortable; at the very end, I couldn’t even make her smile.
Two nurses I don’t recognize give me sad looks and then go back to their computer screens. Machines beep and buzz, and being back in this hallway with its bright fluorescent lights and smell of rubbing alcohol is making me dizzy. Marisol, another one of the nurses who took care of Lola, comes around the corner, pushing an empty wheelchair. When she sees me, she gasps, rushes over, and gives me a hug. “Clara! Nice to see you! Are your parents with you?”
I shake my head.
“Oh,” says Marisol. Then: “Do they know you’re here?”
I shrug again, and I can’t hold back the tears anymore.
Sherry tucks my hair behind my ears. “Let me get you some apple juice,” she says. “Don’t move.”
“She’s not going anywhere. I’ve got her,” Marisol says, patting my knee affectionately. She hands me a box of Kleenex. I notice that she’s looking down at the photograph in my hand, and I shove it into my pocket.
Sherry comes back and gives me a little plastic cup of apple juice with a foil top. I don’t want it. It’s what I used to drink here all the time, and it reminds me of Lola’s room: of the tubes and machines, of her tiny body and—
“Why don’t we call your parents?” Sherry says gently.
I study the top of the apple juice and nod. I’m sure Mom and Dad are wondering why I’ve been gone so long without calling. They’ll freak when they find out where I am. I may as well get it over with. I take my phone out of my backpack. There is a missed call from Mom, and a text from Dad: Coming home soon?
I text him back.
Half an hour later, the elevator dings, the doors open, and I hear Dad’s frazzled voice. “My God, Clara!”
I look up quickly.
“Shh, Al,” Mom says. She rushes over, crouches in front of me, and takes my hand. “Thank you, guys,” she says to Sherry and Marisol.
“We didn’t do a thing,” Marisol says. “She was just keeping us company.”
Mom pulls me toward her. “Honey—you cannot do that. You cannot run off like that. You absolutely may not ever—”
“I need to go to China,” I say, standing up. Lola peeks out at me from behind Dad and gives me a thumbs-up. I ignore her. I feel like kicking her.
Mom stands up, too. All the nurses who had tried to help Lola are trying to look busy, but I can tell they are listening. Mom and Dad glance at each other. I don’t want to be here, in this place where Lola died. I want to go to China, where she was born, so I say it again. “I have to go to China.”
“Honey, it’s just…it’s expensive,” Mom stammers. “And these kinds of things, they take planning, and—”
“There’s a flight that leaves Wednesday night,” I say.
“What?” Dad asks.
“There is.”
“Sweetie, I’m sure it’s exorbitant,” he goes on. “And we can’t just—”
“It’s less than six hundred per person,” I say quickly.
“You’ve researched it?” he asks, looking at Mom. “Six hundred?”
Sherry hands me a piece of tissue and I blow my nose. “I’m going.” I know I sound like a brat; I know I can’t go to China on my own. But I can’t come up with anything else to say. “I’m going.”
Mom and Dad look at each other for a minute, and then Mom puts her arm around my shoulder. “Let’s go home,” she says. “We can talk about everything there.”
“Promise?” I ask.
“Promise.”
Yuming
<
br /> I FALL ASLEEP with my cheek sticking to the bare mattress in the barracks, which, I have to admit, is better than the cement floor of the sewing room. I wake up the same way. The air is thick and hot, and next to me, Li, the smaller of the new boys, is still asleep, his thin chest rising and falling smoothly under a threadbare, stained sheet.
Older boys aren’t allowed into the barracks where the young ones sleep, in case there’s an inspection. Last night, Li refused to go without his brother. It reminded me of how close Bolin and I used to be when we were younger. Before he left.
Li had looked Mr. Zhang in the eye, little fists on tiny hips, and yelled, “No! I won’t!”
His older brother, Kai, had wrapped his arm around his shoulder and nodded in approval, as if saying I taught you well, little brother. Mr. Zhang’s eyes narrowed to slits in the almost-dark sewing room. I immediately thought of his tight grip on my arm outside of Molihua Park. I imagined Li crying quietly on a filthy mattress, surrounded by empty-eyed women, and I stepped forward. “I’ll stay with him.” I looked at Kai as I said it and saw relief on his face.
“You will owe me, then,” Mr. Zhang said quickly. “Three extra hours of sewing. And if you speak with the women in the barracks…” He patted the pocket containing his knife.
I nodded.
Since arriving here, I’d avoided the barracks, mostly out of spite. I wasn’t going to work overtime for Mr. Zhang for anything. This time, though, I’d thought, Weigh the options, picturing Kai’s darting eyes.
Now, I turn over and study the ceiling in the morning light. It is low, cracked, and moldy, and I recall Kai’s word yet again. It floats around my mind like Wai Po’s lullaby.
Anywhere.
It’s obvious what I need to do. I feel as though I’m outside my own body, as if I’m seeing myself as Wai Po and Wai Gong would see me. I’m too thin and dirty. I’m alone. I’ve lost everything and everyone, and I know what Wai Gong would advise.
Cloaked in the spirit of my old self, I look my new, true self over—from my raggedy pants, cinched at the waist with an old piece of discarded fabric, up to my bangs, which hang well below my eyes. You’ll be okay, Yuming, I whisper into my own ear. You’ve waited more than six weeks. Nothing is going to come of that note. It is clever and wise to come up with another plan.