Still in her father’s arms, Grace pulled back. Saina couldn’t possibly be suggesting that they all leave now and go check into a hotel somewhere, that they let their father continue to tell them nothing. Rebellion coursed through her, forcing her words out. “No! I don’t care if you need to rest! And I don’t care that you’re in the hospital! You came and took me out of school and drove me all the way across country and dumped me at Saina’s house and took off without explaining anything to me and now you’re in a hospital in China? If you don’t tell me, I’m going to get back in the car with Bing Bing and I’m going to make her drive me to the airport and I’m just going to go back home to L.A. and live on the streets.”
Grace was being a little dramatic about it, but Andrew agreed. Now that they were, improbably, in this hospital room halfway across the world, the time for unspoken things seemed to be past.
When the three of them were together, they always acted a little bolder. Charles looked at his children. Grace, Andrew, Saina. Saina, Andrew, Grace. The three sides of his triangle. He could feel a pressure building in his bladder. Could Andrew help him to the bathroom? They all stared at him, waiting. The pressure continued to build and he felt panicked until he realized that he was attached to a catheter. Release. Relief.
“Oh, hai zi, very long story.”
“Daddy, please.”
“You sit down here again,” he said, patting the space Grace had just vacated. For once, she was agreeable and nestled herself in. “You know about World War II.”
“Of course!”
“World War II, China also fighting the Japanese, and there are Communists—”
“Dad! We don’t need a history lesson! Why are you in the hospital? Why are you even in China?”
“Everything a history lesson. Your life part of a history lesson. Meimei, listen. Okay. Wang family have so much land, hao duo, hao duo di. Your grandfather grow up, he manage land with his father, then there is war and many, many people die, but your family mostly are still alive. Wang jia, we support Chiang Kai-shek, Nationalist government, and soon they have to fight Communist, too. Communist worse than Japanese. Communist fight their own people, kill their own people, they hate xue wen, hate knowledge, culture. Chiang Kai-shek have to flee to Taiwan, many people go with him. Your grandma and grandpa go with him.”
“What about our grandpa’s father? What happened to him?”
“Killed. Some family bei kill, some family go to Taiwan, some family stay and become Communist.” He pointed to the divider. “Ta men stay.”
Andrew looked up. “Wait, so that guy really is our uncle? Like, a real uncle?”
“No,” said Charles, dismissive. “Maybe like a cousin. But very far away. Not really Wang family. But listen, for a long time after the Communists take over, we don’t know what happen in China. Everything closed. No communications. I grow up in Taiwan; I come to America. And then China open up and we find out everything so sad. I don’t even tell you; nobody talk about it.”
“What was it?”
“Tai tsan ren le. My aunties, they stay in lao jia, and when Communists come, they are dragged out in the street. You know xiao hong wei bing?”
“Yes, Dad. Little Red Guard, we know.”
“Okay, xiao hong wei bing very scary, they abuse aunties, put them in parade, everybody hit and punch. They spit.”
“That happened? To our relatives?”
“Everything happen.”
A terrible thought made its way into Grace’s head. “If you grew up in China, would you have been one of them? Would you have been a Little Red Guard?”
“Probably. Later on, no choice. Everyone have to be Communist. Okay, so you know I think maybe we can get back the land, all of Wang jia de di. There are some story, sometime, I hear of people who can live again in their old family house, or who can have some of land again, so I hire a lawyer to look, to see who own the land now. And lawyer contact the local council—”
“What’s that?”
“China so big, even government can’t be everywhere. So every town and district have a local council, still Communist, and now they control many thing. So the local council say there is an owner, and the owner is me!”
All three of his children lifted their heads at once and brightened. It broke Charles’s heart to look at them, but he tried to laugh.
“Oh,” said Saina, “it wasn’t really you, right?”
“No. Not really me. I find out that it is him!” Charles pointed towards the divider so fiercely that one of the wires monitoring his vital signs, whatever those might be, came loose. He suctioned it back onto his chest.
When the email came, Saina thought that her father had slipped and fallen on an unfamiliar street or gotten into another car accident, but this was shaping up to be a very different story.