“But what did he say?”
“It was . . . a weird love letter. I don’t know. I don’t really want to talk about it now. It’s so late, and I just want us to get to the hospital, okay?” She slipped her arm through Grace’s and pulled her in closer. “Are you hungry? Should we get something before we go?”
Grace dropped her arm. “No, I’m fine,” she said, moving forward to catch up with Andrew.
Once they made their way through customs, minus an apple that Grace had in her bag, they spotted a gangly young woman in a black necktie and a driver’s cap holding up a sign that said SAINA WANG. A girl! That was a surprise. Andrew was impressed. As they walked towards her, he asked Saina, “How did you know how to hire a driver in China?”
“The assistant at the gallery did it.”
“Are you Miss Wang?”
“Yes. Wo men yie ke yi shuo zhong wen.”
“Oh no. It good. For me. To practice. English,” said the driver, who stuck a hand out for them each to shake. “I am Bing Bing.”
“I’m Saina. This is Andrew and Grace.”
“Did. You all. Have. Good flight. From America?” She picked out her words carefully. Things were going to take a lot longer if they were going to let Bing Bing practice her English, but Saina didn’t have the heart to embarrass her by insisting on a switch to Chinese.
“Someday I go. To America. I like Michael Jordan! And Titanic! Very good.”
Andrew laughed. “Yeah! You like basketball?” He mimed a shot. “Three-pointer?”
“Yes! I like slam dunk!”
Finally, Grace smiled, too. “Me, too. It’s the best thing about basketball.”
Before they could stop her, Bing Bing had stacked their suitcases on top of each other on her cart and wrestled the bags off each of their shoulders. Even at the helm of the loaded cart, she stalked ahead of them, stopping every few minutes to let them catch up.
四十六
Gaofu, China
ON THE FAR WALL of the waiting area there was a poster of hospital rules and regulations topped with a symbol of a sleeping man, eyes closed and dreaming of a moon. A giant red circle with a slash through it surrounded the illustration. The message was clear. No sleeping allowed. And, according to the rest of the symbols, no eating, no drinking, and no cell phones either. Yet the chairs below the poster were full of people dozing off, care packages of food on their laps and half-empty cans of tea on the floor below them.
Bing Bing had offered to recline the seats in her snub-nosed minivan so that they could sleep in the hospital parking lot, but now that they’d come all the way across the globe it seemed important to close the last few feet of distance between themselves and their father.
Andrew stood in front of the vending machine considering the unfamiliar coins in his hand, change from his airport fried rice. Saina was talking to someone at the nurse’s station as Grace staked out a row of seats for them. He looked at the clock, 1:34 a.m. In New Orleans it was still yesterday. He dropped a coin into the slot and waited for the can of chrysanthemum tea to roll to the right and clunk down the chute. Holding the hot can carefully between two fingertips, he popped the tab, releasing a hiss of steam.
After they’d drunk up the tea, holding the cans against their faces as comfort against the swampy chill of the waiting room, Grace curled up in one of Andrew’s sweatshirts and fell asleep with her feet dangling over the armrest.
Saina and Andrew whispered to each other.
“Is she going to go to school in your town?” he asked.
“I think so. But we haven’t even gotten her registered yet.”
“She could just take the GED.”
“She has all of senior year left!” said Saina.
“I doubt Grace cares.”
“About senior year?”
“Yeah.”
“You loved high school.”
“So did you.”
Had she? “No, I loved having a driver’s license and hanging out with my friends.”
“Same thing.” Andrew looked at his sleeping sister. “Poor Gracie. Too bad she had to go to boarding school.”
“I tried to get Dad to send me to boarding school. I had this East Coast fantasy—boys who played lacrosse, long talks about J. D. Salinger, hot cocoa in dorm rooms, that kind of thing.”
“I didn’t know that!”
“You were a little kid.”
“What happened?”
Saina nudged one leg under Andrew’s. “Mom died. And then I felt bad about wanting to leave.”
He was quiet for a minute. “I hope Dad’s okay.”
“I think he is.”
“I hope so.”
“Hey, so what happened in New Orleans anyways? Why’d you end up ditching them? Grace said that you fell in love. Did you really?”
“Yep. An older woman.”
“Andrew!”
“Shh . . . hospital voice!”
“Okay, sorry! How much older?”
“Mmm . . . kind of a lot older.”
“Fifty? Sixty? Was she a sexy octogenarian?”
“No! Like, thirty, maybe.”
“Ancient!”
“Sorry, sorry, you’re not old, but she—”