They stood against the railing, watching cars pass. It was past noon. The sun was searing and Daniel wished he had sunglasses. He’d left his in Ridgeborough.
They began to walk again, more slowly. “When I saw her, after she got back,” Leon said, “there was something broken in her. She didn’t want anyone to know.”
“You saw her? You said you only spoke to her on the phone.”
“We did see each other. It was when Yimei was a baby.”
“But you told me—”
“Don’t blame Vivian or your mother. Blame me. I left on my own. If only we could do it over again, Deming, we could still be there, on that ugly couch your mother hated.”
“We’d have bought a new one by now.” A black SUV with tinted windows barreled down the hill. “Did you know I went back to the apartment about a year after you left? A new family was living there.”
“Sometimes,” Leon said, “when Shuang and I are tucking Yimei into bed, I think, this is the way it turned out. This is my life, the woman who wanted to marry me, the child we had. How could I give this up now?”
Daniel thought of playing a show, coming to and hearing the cheers of the crowd. “I think the same thing sometimes.”
“So maybe she thinks the same thing, too,” Leon said.
Daniel saw two apartment buildings across the street, half hidden by a clump of bushes. His mother, with her new life—it wasn’t the same thing. He needed to tell her she couldn’t just walk out on him, pretend he didn’t exist. “I still want to find her.”
HOURS LATER, THEY HAD gone to all the visible buildings in the neighborhood with balconies and the heat had become sweltering. They chugged bottles of water they’d bought at a convenience store, where Daniel had seen a woman his mother’s age and had a flash of hope it would be her, though the woman looked nothing like her. They reminisced about New York, and Daniel told Leon about Ridgeborough, how he was taking a break from school.
He was getting more comfortable speaking in Chinese, no longer caring so much. Even if each sentence took effort, and even if he felt more like himself in English, hearing and speaking Chinese was like replaying an album he hadn’t listened to in years, appreciating how solid the sound was.
“Should we go back to the buildings without guards, see if there’s a way we could get in?” At Leon’s apartment, there would be beers waiting. He could come back here another day, but doubted he would.
“Maybe,” Leon said.
“You want to go back?”
“Soon.”
They turned up another street, steeper than the last, the park only slightly visible below. “Let’s go back.”
“Here, let’s try this building.” Ahead of them was a six-story structure with a silver gate, balconies protruding from the sides. There was a list of names on the outside. “There’s a Gao, but no Guo.”
“Let’s go back,” Daniel said. “I’ll try the Internet café tomorrow, find English schools.” But he had lost steam for the search. It had been enough to spend the afternoon with Leon. He could always tell himself that he had looked, that he’d tried.
“Wait.” Leon pointed. “Over there.”
Daniel followed Leon’s finger and saw a speck of water, so far down he could barely tell what it was. “Yeah, you can see the ocean. We must be pretty high up.”
“Deming. Where did your mother like to go when she was a little girl? Where did she like to go in New York City?”
“To the river. But we’re in the middle of the city. There’s no river nearby.”
“If she was going to live in an apartment with a balcony, what would she want to see from there? Water! This is the street she lives on,” Leon said. “It has to be.”
They continued up the hill. The next two buildings had no balconies, so they skipped them. At the end of the block was one last building. It had balconies.
“This is where she lives,” Leon said, and Daniel wished he could match Leon’s conviction.
The security guard was an older man with a jowly face, reading a paperback inside a narrow booth. “Can I help you?”
“We’re looking for a Peilan or Polly that lives in your building,” Leon said. “Would it be possible to ring her apartment?”
“There isn’t anyone by that name here.”
“Are you sure?” Daniel said. “She’s about average height and weight, with a loud voice and a mole on her neck.” She could have lost weight or gained it, gotten plastic surgery for all he knew. But this was the last building, their final chance. “Her last name might not be Guo, but her first name is Polly, or Peilan?”
“Nope.”
“She’s married to a man that owns a textile factory? She works in an English school?”
The guard returned his book. “Told you. Nope.”
“Okay,” Leon said. “Thank you.”
They walked down the sidewalk. “Well, we tried,” Daniel said.
“We tried.”
“Let’s go home now.”
“You hungry? I know a restaurant we can stop at. Not in this neighborhood, the food is too fussy here. But this place, they have soup with lamb, and the noodles are handmade.”
“Can’t wait,” Daniel said. “I’m getting hungry now.” He hadn’t booked a return plane ticket, but he could find one that left in a few days. Leon and Shuang were nice to him, but he didn’t want to push it. You couldn’t show up out of nowhere and expect to be treated like a real son.
Compared to downtown, the sidewalks by West Lake were spotless. There was no gum or litter marring their path, no mysterious orange puddles or booby traps of dog poop like in New York. A pebble rolled down the sidewalk, its trail unobstructed, and Daniel kicked it, watching as it veered to the right.
“Stop,” Leon said.
Daniel saw a gap in a hedge and a short path that led to a wider lot. Beyond that was a building. When he craned his neck up, he saw a beige high-rise. Rows and rows of balconies.
“We must have missed that one,” Leon said.
They turned onto the path. In front was a security guard, dressed in black pants and a dark gray shirt. He was putting a cigarette out into a metal ashtray.
They asked the same questions they’d been asking all afternoon. The guard shook his head. No Polly Guo in the building. No Peilan.
“No Peilan?” Leon repeated, like he couldn’t believe it.
“She’s an English teacher. Director of an English school.”
“Oh! You should have said that. I know the teacher lady you’re talking about.”
“Polly,” Leon said.
“Polly Lin.”
“You said there’s no Polly in the building,” Daniel said.
The guard lifted a telephone receiver and pressed numbers on a hidden keypad. “I’ll ring the apartment for you.”
Leon paced along the path. The back of his T-shirt was covered in sweat. The guard put the receiver down and said, “He’s coming down to meet you.”
“He?” Daniel asked.
“Yong. Polly’s husband. She’s not home right now.”