“Wang xiao hai, shi de ma? Wo shi shushu!”
“I mean, he seems to know us, right? He just called himself our uncle.” He turned to the man. “Hao, shushu. Uh . . . qing deng yi xia.” Andrew started gathering their stuff. “Wait, where’s Saina? Her stuff’s gone.”
“Oh god, who knows. You realize that at this point I’m the only family member who hasn’t disappeared?” said Grace, a little angry.
“Maybe she’s with Dad already,” said Andrew.
It would be just like Saina to sneak up to see their father while she and Andrew were asleep. They followed the man past the deserted nurse’s station and into an elevator. When the elevator doors slid open, there was Saina, asleep on the floor.
Grace was startled. “Saina! What’s happening?”
Saina opened her eyes as if she had just been waiting there for them, half sprawled out on the floor. “What time is it? This is Dad’s room.”
Andrew shrugged. “Morning time?”
The man who had gotten off the elevator with her siblings immediately squatted down next to Saina, delighted. “Ah! Wang Jiejie! Ne me piao liang! Lai lai lai, bu yao zuo zai di shang!” He put out a hand to help her up and, not wanting to be rude, she took it, nearly colliding into him as they both stood. The man kept hold of her hand and began shaking it. “Ni hao, ni hao, wo shi shushu!”
Uncle? What was this man talking about? Ignoring him, Saina pushed open the door.
Grace and Andrew stopped in the doorway, shocked. Their father was in a hospital gown printed with, of all things, tiny little ducks. He had an IV drip in his arm and wires attached to his chest. His face looked strange. Saina hadn’t noticed it when he was asleep, but awake, something seemed off, like he’d gotten Botox accidentally or something.
Their father’s eyes fluttered open, and instead of looking at them, he fixed on the man who had brought them to the room. “Wha! Andrew! Grace! Saina! Why are you talking to him? No! Tell him go away! Ni bu yao gen wo de xiao hai zi shuo hua!” Charles shouted, his attempts to make a shooing motion hampered by the wires webbed in front of him.
Meanwhile, the stranger who seemed to know them had disappeared behind the accordion divider and was murmuring to an unseen patient on the other side.
“Daddy! Are you okay?” Grace hugged her father carefully as he patted her hair, and then he stretched his arms out for Saina and Andrew.
“All my children!” he said, hugging them each in turn. “All my children in a general hospital!” Charles had known for sure that Grace and Saina would come, but there was a chance that the thieving woman would keep his son in her grasp. He should never have doubted Andrew. A white woman, no matter how alluring, could never be equal to the Wangs.
“Oh, Dad,” said Saina, “that might be the worst joke you’ve ever come up with.” She sat down on the bed and held on to his hand. “Are you okay? What happened? Who is that guy in the red hat?”
“Where’s Barbra? She is not coming?”
“She’s coming. She just has to wait until Monday so that she can get her passport renewed—they wouldn’t do it over the weekend.”
“And your tickets? Not tai guei?” asked Charles.
Even now, it was strange to hear their father speak of money as something that might be lacking, as something to be careful of. “Nope. Grace stowed away in my luggage.”
“Ha!” laughed Charles. “Gracie so small and so cute, she can be a stowaway anywhere!”
“Actually, we ended up doing it all on my frequent flier miles, so it was fine. And the gallery helped me expedite our visas,” said Saina.
“Okay, okay. Andrew you leave that woman? Good boy. Almost everybody here now. Wang?jia all together.”
Andrew was standing at the foot of the bed. He could just barely see the back of the crazy guy’s jacket as he moved around the adjoining space. “Dad, what’s going on? Are you hurt?”
“I feel okay now.”
Just then the man peered out from behind the divider, his cap askew, and addressed their father. “Wang Gege! Lai tan tan hua la. Bu yao niang zi la.”
“Wo men mei you hua lai tan.”
From behind the divider, they could hear another voice, arguing, and the man ducked back in.
“Dad, who is that creep?”
“Oh. It so long story, Gracie. Like Lord of the Ring. So long. Daddy just happy to see you all.”
Saina examined her father. As much as she wanted to understand what was happening, he did look tired and worryingly pale, his skin slack against the parade of ducklings on his gown. “Do you need to rest? We can talk to the doctor. Or do you want some breakfast? Do they have jou?” He loved rice porridge. Even as a child, Saina had known that it was one of the only things her mother did that made him happy. When he came downstairs to a tableful of dark, rubbery thousand-year eggs, dried pork, and stinky cubes of chili-flecked tofu, a pot of thick rice porridge still bubbling on the stove, those were the only mornings he would sit down and eat with his wife instead of rushing off with a Pop-Tart or turning away a plate of scrambled eggs completely untouched.