The Heart Principle

by Helen Hoang

  “He had a stroke, a big one. Come see him, Anna. Come right away.”

  Part Two

  During

  NINETEEN

  Anna

  I’m numb during the hour-long trip to the hospital, barely noticing when Quan stops at the parking garage beneath his apartment building to swap his motorcycle for a black Audi SUV. It has that new-car smell, which I find nauseating, but I like that he cares about my safety. I don’t own a car, so I really appreciate that he’s driving me. I would have arranged an Uber otherwise—was in the process of doing it when he asked me what in the world I was doing.

  So this is what it’s like to have a boyfriend who isn’t gone all the time. When this numbness is gone, I’m sure I’ll have feelings about this.

  For now, I need facts, information. I don’t cry, I don’t grieve, I will hold this ice in place until I know more.

  I’d ask Priscilla—she always knows everything—but according to the text messages I missed while Quan and I were fooling around, she jumped on a red-eye to California and will be unavailable until morning.

  At the hospital, the front desk gives us visitor badges and complicated directions to my dad’s room. I’m on the verge of panic as I struggle to remember all the turns, but Quan takes my hand and shows me the way, like he’s been here before. Maybe he has.

  The hallways are bright and busy. It could be daytime. Sickness doesn’t keep normal hours.

  When we reach my dad’s room, I release Quan’s hand and take a moment to gather myself. I shut my eyes and automatically reach for the appropriate persona. My posture changes. I change.

  I knock once to announce my presence and open the door to step inside while Quan hangs behind. It’s a big double room, but the second bed is empty. There’s a blue curtain around the occupied half of the room, and I pull it aside. My dad’s asleep in the bed, connected to various tubes and wires, and seated next to him, holding his hand, is my mom. Her face is unnaturally pale, but as always, she’s impeccably dressed in a black cashmere sweater with decorative gold and pearl beading and black slacks.

  “Ma,” I say, careful not to be too loud. “How is he?”

  She covers her mouth and shakes her head.

  Swallowing, I approach the bed slowly. My dad has always been on the tall, sturdy side, but he looks small now. Thin. Fragile. His hair wasn’t this gray before. I didn’t notice all these sunspots on his face before. His vitality dimmed them into irrelevance. When I saw him a few months ago, I couldn’t understand why my mom bothered him so relentlessly about applying sunscreen. It’s like he’s aged ten years since then. He doesn’t look like the man who used to buy me candy while he was away and hide it in the trunk of his car so I’d find it when I went to bring his luggage into the house, a ritual solely between the two of us, kept secret from my mom, who would have disapproved.

  I reach out to rest my hand on top of my dad’s free one. He’s cool to the touch and unresponsive, and I glance at the screen next to him where the numbers and lines move, reassuring myself that he’s alive.

  “Ba, it’s me, Anna. I came to see you,” I say.

  His eyes drift open, and he blinks sleepily at the room for a while before focusing on me. I expect to see recognition light up his eyes. I expect him to smile, just a small one, and say my name.

  But his eyes don’t light up. He doesn’t smile. When he speaks, the words seem to take a massive effort and come out slurred and garbled. I can’t make sense of them. I’m not even sure what language he’s trying to speak.

  “What was that?” I ask, urging him to repeat himself.

  His eyelids droop shut, and his forehead creases as more garbled sounds fall painstakingly from his lips. Eventually, his face relaxes, and his breathing evens out. He’s gone back to sleep.

  I look up at my mom, at a complete loss.

  Shaking with quiet sobs, she buries her face in her hands. In a tormented whisper, she says, “I told him to take a nap. I thought he’d feel better tomorrow.”

  A doctor enters the room, a tall woman with the regular white lab coat, long braids pulled back in a thick ponytail, and red glasses. In a low voice, she says, “I just wanted to check up on him before my shift ends.” She acknowledges my mom with a compassionate nod. “Mrs. Sun.” To me, she says, “I’m Dr. Robinson,” and shakes my hand in a firm grip.

  “I’m Anna, his daughter,” I manage to reply. I realize I forgot to smile, and I do it belatedly, though my lips feel like plastic.

  As she examines my dad, scrutinizing his vitals, making sure the IV and medications look right, she explains, “As I already told your mom . . .”

  I feel like I step outside myself as she goes into detail regarding my dad’s condition. I hear her talking. I hear myself asking questions from a distance, like it’s someone else. I see her, my dad, my mom. I feel like I see myself, too, that clueless, ineffectual woman, even though it’s impossible. Quan is somewhere on the other side of the blue curtain. Dr. Robinson uses medical terminology that I’m not familiar with, but I come to understand that my dad suffered significant brain damage because he didn’t receive medical treatment soon enough after his stroke. The doctor doesn’t recommend surgery because of my dad’s age, and there’s little they can do anyway. He might not make it through the week. If he does, half of his body is paralyzed. His cognitive ability may be impaired. With the proper therapies, he might someday be able to talk, sit up on his own, and eat solids.

  Does he have an advance directive?

  My mom tells her no.

  When the doctor leaves, a heavy silence descends upon us. I’m so overwhelmed I don’t know what to think or do. I think my mom feels the same. She must be waiting for Priscilla to come and take charge. We just have to wait until morning.

  Fifteen minutes pass while we sit there, wooden and speechless, and finally I say, “Ma, you look tired. You should go home and get some rest.”

  “I can’t. What if he . . .” Her face crumples, and she doesn’t finish her sentence.

  “I’ll stay. If something happens, I’ll call you right away. You need to take it easy. You’ll get sick otherwise.” Adrenaline is running through my body, giving me energy that my mom has clearly run out of.

  She thinks it over a moment, and I can see that she’s torn. She wants to stay, but today must have been horrible. She doesn’t look like she can take much more, let alone handle an all-nighter.

  “Please, Ma. Home isn’t far from here. If you come right when I call, it shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes to get here.”

  She finally nods and gets slowly to her feet. “Okay, this way I can clean the mess at home. People will come to visit, and they need somewhere to stay.”

  As she loops her Louis Vuitton purse over her arm, Quan steps around the curtain, and she physically recoils at the sight of him.

  “I can drive you home if you need. I’m Quan, Anna’s . . . friend. Nice to meet you.” He holds his hand out to shake my mom’s, smiling in his disarming way.

  It doesn’t work on her like it does on me. She just stares at him with unnaturally wide eyes, like she’s being held up at gunpoint. I know what she’s seeing—his tattoos, his buzzed head, his motorcycle jacket. I know what she’s thinking. And I start sweating uncontrollably.

  “Your friend?” she asks me in a stunned voice.

  “Yes,” I say. I’m so anxious it feels like cold needles are pricking my lips. “D-do you want a ride? Quan drove me here.”

  “No, thank you,” she says with extreme politeness and the world’s fakest smile. “I drove here. I’ll drive home. Good night.” She hurries past Quan, giving me a horrified look over her shoulder, and leaves.

  Quan watches her go with an unreadable expression on his face and then looks downward. He seems so alone, so sad, like a dog who’s tied to a tree outside his owner’s house, and I feel awful.

 
“I’m sorry,” I say. I desperately want to take away the cold reception my mom gave him. He didn’t deserve that, not at all. “I should have—”

  “Hey,” he whispers, hugging me and kissing my forehead. “It’s okay. It’s not a big deal.”

  “It is a big deal.”

  “Your dad is not doing great. No one’s expected to be at their best right now. Don’t worry about me, okay?” he says.

  “But—”

  “I mean it. I’ll work on your mom, figure out how to get her to like me. It doesn’t have to be right away.”

  I’m too tired to argue, so I tell myself I’ll figure everything out later. For now, I just nod and let myself relax in his arms. I let him hold me up. I’m so grateful he’s not making this harder.

  “Do you have everything you need? Want me to get you anything?” he asks.

  “I think I have everything.”

  “I can ask the nurses if they can bring in a cot or something.”

  That suggestion reminds me of the long night ahead, and I sigh. “It’s probably better if I don’t sleep. But you should. You have work tomorrow. You should go home, actually.”

  “I don’t mind staying,” he says, and I can see from the look on his face that he’s worried about me. “I can take tomorrow off.”

  “You don’t need to, and maybe . . . I want to have some time alone with my dad.”

  He searches my face before saying, “Okay, but you can call me whenever and I’ll come right away.”

  I touch his cheek and scrape my fingertips over the buzzed hair on his scalp. “Thank you.”

  He kisses me on the lips once and pulls away. “Text me if you need someone to talk to, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  With one last smile at me and a silent glance at my dad, he leaves, and I’m alone with my dad. It feels like good-bye as I sit there with him. I hold his hand. I look at his sleeping face, which looks like him, but not him. I remember our times together. He used to be an engineer at an international semiconductor company and was out of the country for most of my childhood, but he always tried to be there for the big moments in my life—opening concerts, graduation, et cetera. He made an effort to be there for small moments, too, even though he was gone so often, and looking back, those were more important. He wanted to know what I was interested in. He always wanted to see me when he came home. He quietly checked up on me when I got in trouble with my mom and often defended me, even though he was scared of her, too.

  I miss his full-bodied laugh. I miss his dry humor. I miss his crotchety stubbornness. I am afraid, very afraid, that those parts of him, the parts that differentiate him from everyone else, the essential parts of him, are gone forever.

  TWENTY

  Quan

  Monday morning, my alarm wakes me up at the regular time. After shutting it off, I immediately check for text messages. I don’t have any. I rub my face and sigh. Knowing Anna, she didn’t want to bother me.

  She doesn’t understand yet that I want her to bother me.

  But I’ll do my best to help her understand. Toward that end, I quickly type out a message: Hey, just woke up. How are you? How’s your dad?

  She doesn’t respond right away—I don’t expect her to—but my bed, my whole goddamn apartment, feels enormous and sterile. I want to wake up with her next to me. I want to continue where we left off yesterday.

  Thinking about what we did, the sounds she made, the way she called my name when she got close, makes me instantly hard, and it feels completely normal when I lower my boxers and grip myself in my hand as thoughts of Anna fill my head. Just remembering the way she looked as she searched under the couch for her phone, wearing nothing but my T-shirt, makes me groan out loud. I fantasize about what I would have done if circumstances were different, things like putting my mouth on her and making her come on my tongue, then pulling her hips back and pushing myself deep into—

  My phone dings loudly, and I yank my hand away, pressing my palm against the cool sheets as my lungs heave. When I can string two thoughts together, I pick up my phone and read her message: I’m okay. My dad is the same as yesterday. My sister just got here from NYC, and things are really hectic.

  I throw my head back and stare up at the ceiling, all sexy thoughts banished from my mind. Is there anything I can do?

  Not really, but thank you for asking, she says, and her next message is a red heart.

  It’s super pathetic of me, but I fucking love getting hearts from Anna.

  Because I’m crazy about her, I send her a heart of my own, followed by Do you want me to come see you?

  It’s probably better if you don’t for now, she replies.

  Okay. Just let me know, I say.

  I will. Thank you. I have to go, she texts, and I know that’s the last that I’ll hear from her in a while.

  It doesn’t feel right to me that she’s going through hard times and I can’t be there with her, but I get it. This is a family time, and I’m not part of her family. Based on the way her mom looked at me, I have a long road ahead of me if I want to be accepted by the people in her life. I’ve always had a take-it-or-leave-it attitude when it comes to people, meaning if they don’t like what they see, they can fuck off. But this is Anna’s mom. I have to make an effort and figure this out, even if it’s uncomfortable and frustrating and goes against who I am.

  Anna cares, so I care.

  In good news, I have an inbox full of emails relating to the possible acquisition by LVMH and a meeting today with all the lawyers. I’ve been trying to keep my head cool, but things are getting real. My gut tells me this is going to happen. It’ll be the culmination of years of hard work and the start of a new phase of my partnership with Michael. We’re going to take over the world together. And I’m going to make a shitload of money in the process.

  That won’t hurt when it comes to Anna’s mom. If I’m rich enough, I know that woman will respect me. It won’t matter what I look like or where I went to school or how I sound when I talk or what’s left of my body.

  I’m going to be good enough for her daughter.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Anna

  As we all knew would happen, Priscilla takes charge as soon as she arrives at the hospital. She arranges for second opinions and third opinions on our dad’s condition. She scrutinizes all the records she can get her hands on, she gets copies of his brain scans, she dogs the nurses and doctors with so many questions and directions that I feel sorry for them. They look positively harassed, and her lack of confidence in their competence must be hard for them to swallow. They don’t understand that this is just her way, it’s not personal, but she’s already put one of the nurses in tears. To make up for it, I try to be as nice to everyone as humanly possible. I am kind, I am sweet, I am considerate, I buy the hospital staff pastries.

  I appreciate you. Please don’t hate my family. Please care about my dad.

  Priscilla sends word out through the family grapevine that our dad is possibly on his deathbed, and it works like a homing signal, summoning everyone near and far to come. Within the next few days, the hospital is inundated with a conspicuously large number of Asians. We’re packed into my dad’s room. We’ve moved into the visiting room on my dad’s floor and stocked it with beverages and seafood-flavored snacks. We’re occupying all the chairs in the lobby. There’s a long bench in the hallway by the elevators, and we’ve claimed that for ourselves, too. I’m bracing myself for the moment when the hospital administrators ask us to dial it down. I honestly don’t know how we’ll do that. My dad is the oldest in the Sun clan, the patriarch, and everyone wants to pay their respects and say their good-byes.

  The problem—that’s not the right word, but I can’t think of a better one—is that every time we believe it’s the end, he miraculously pulls through. We cry, we say good-bye, we let him go. And then he opens his eyes the next day, not rec
overed, not remotely improved, but definitely still here, still alive. We rejoice and cry happy tears. But as time stretches on, something new happens; he appears to have an episode of some kind or his heart rate fluctuates dangerously, the doctor says he won’t make it through the night, and everyone rushes back to his room. We cry, we say good-bye, we let him go. And then he opens his eyes the next day again, and we rejoice again. This happens three times before his condition seems to stabilize. It’s an emotional roller coaster unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.

  Tonight, the elders (that means my mom and all four of my dad’s siblings and their respective spouses), Priscilla, and I are in the visiting room with the door shut. It smells like the eggrolls that my cousin brought back after lunch, and the air is stale, overwarm. There aren’t enough chairs, so as the youngest and least important, I’m standing with my back against the wall, hugging my arms to my chest and trying to blend in with the wallpaper. I’m so tired that I’ve been seeing double, but I do my best to focus. This is important.

  I watch as Priscilla explains the situation and guides the discussion. Her Cantonese is excellent (I’ve been told) for someone born and raised in the States, but she still has to use English when things get technical. Words like paralyzed and feeding tube and hospice care stand out, and my aunts and uncles look stricken as they absorb the news. In an unusual physical display of affection, Aunt Linda rubs my mom’s back as she cries into her palms. She’s repeating the same sentence over and over, and even though it’s not English, I can guess what she’s saying: I thought he was sleeping.

  There’s some back-and-forth, but it’s not heated. Everyone is sad and exhausted, not angry. However, when it looks like a consensus has been reached, Priscilla leaves the room without telling me anything. I have to race after her to find out.

  Behind her in the hall, I ask, “What did everyone decide?”