The direction of life was important. She believed all men and women should marry and make families. That Carey did not do this, that he grew older and continued prowling the world of love, had at first seemed to Zinnia merely American. In time, though, after meeting a number of others from his country, she realized it was not a national trait but individual to him. She watched him with fascination, wondering always which girl would fall for him next. He was appealing, in a rangy yellow-haired kind of way, but he was old. The skin on his face was loosening. Still he drew women, though he always seemed to break with them before they knew him well enough to really see him. Perhaps, Zinnia had concluded, it was that he did not want to be seen.
The door jingled and her husband came in, flush from the climb up three flights, string bags of vegetables and a fish for their dinner bouncing against his legs. He put the food down and beamed as the little boy toddled to him. She watched them with love. “We’ll find her,” she said to Maggie on the phone, her eyes on her two men. “We’ll make sense of everything. There is a pattern. Always. We just have to see it.”
When Sam had finished reading the long document in his father’s jumpy, idiosyncratic English, he went back to the start and began to smooth it out. It went quickly, since this time there was no need to compare the approximated English with an original text in characters. He liked doing it, just as he liked working with his father on the translations; it was the only way they had ever really collaborated. When he was done, he felt close to the old man, sure they’d be able to talk. He called him again.
“Ba,” he said when Liang Yeh picked up, “I love what you sent me. Can we make it the epilogue of the book?”
“Maybe.”
“Think about it. But Baba. What happened to you is not unique. Everybody had a bad time – but it’s the past. I can’t say it’s not cynical here, and internally bankrupt in a certain way; it is. Maybe that’s what’s left, now, of everything that’s happened: nobody believes anymore. But as far as life goes, and whether it’s safe or not – believe me, they have left all that behind.” “Do you think I have no heart?” Liang Yeh shot back. “I do what I can. Do you know how often I call Little Xie now? Every day! That’s right! Do you know how much that costs?”
Sam heard fumbling, and then his mother came on the line. “Sammy,” she said, “I know it’s hard. But let him be.”
He hung up, disappointed. He read his father’s story through again. It wasn’t enough just to read it. He wanted to show it to someone.
Various friends went through his mind. The one he kept coming back to was Maggie. She had been to Hangzhou. She had met the Xie family. She would know.
He rooted in his pocket for her card with her e-mail address. No. He didn’t know where he had put it. He took out his phone to call her.
At that time Maggie was scrolling down her computer screen through all the e-mail messages Matt had sent her, everything from the last two years of his life. For the first time she was thinking about blocking them and deleting them, all of them. There was no backup. She could erase him. Push all this out of her life once and for all.
She blocked them. They all turned blue.
Her phone rang.
She didn’t want to answer. She was busy. This was important. She was getting rid of Matt. But the small screen said it was Sam Liang.
“Hello,” she said, “can you wait a minute?”
“Sure.”
Carefully she clicked through the sequence until she had unblocked the messages and exited the program. If she deleted them, she wanted it to be when she was paying full attention. Not now, with someone on the phone. “Okay,” she said to Sam, “I’m back.” There was a vulnerability in her voice, but she covered it. “How are you?”
“Fine,” he said. And then: “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Maggie,” he said.
“You have so much to do. You don’t want to hear my problems.”
“I’m asking,” he said.
Still she hesitated. Infidelity and lies had a taint to them; she knew telling him could be a mistake. But he already knew half the story. “There is this picture from the news, of my husband’s accident. You can see Matt on the ground, part of Matt, dead, and a woman leaning over him.”
“What part of Matt?”
“His feet and legs.”
“Okay,” said Sam slowly, as if visualizing it.
“This woman. Nobody ever got her name. It was odd because usually people like that come forward. But then today I happened to show the picture to this guy in the law firm here. He thinks he recognizes her. He thinks it’s Gao Lan.”
“With your husband when he died? ”
“That’s what he says.”
“Is he sure?”
“No. The face is not distinct.”
He was silent with her for a minute, or at least his voice was silent. She could hear him chopping. She liked that they could be quiet together. It was like being in a room doing things, different things, two people in proximity but separately productive. It had been that way with Matt, even if they needed their time apart to keep it working.
“I feel like I can’t think about anything else but finding her. It’s like with Shuying, where I had to get the sample, I had to see her face, but even more powerful. I need to see for myself what kind of woman this is.”
He was silent for a minute. “I just hope when you do see her, it’s going to make you feel better.”
“It’s always better to know.” Maggie needed to place the woman in her ladder of esteem, drink in her aura of looks and personality, judge her. She needed to steady herself that even if this woman had attracted her husband’s attention she still was no match for Maggie. That she had never been. It was basic female power restoration.
“I can’t believe it when I hear myself,” she said to Sam Liang. “I tell you the most personal things.”
“I like that,” he protested.
“I think I’ve told you too much.”
“Why? I’ll tell you one about me. Will that make you feel better?”
“Yes.”
“All right. This happened right after we came back from Hangzhou. By the way, it was strange, wasn’t it? Coming back from Hangzhou. After being together for two days. Always the two of us, and then boom.”
“It was strange,” she agreed, glad he had said it.
“So we came back. I called my father. I told him this was it, Uncle Xie was dying, please come. Get over your fears. He needs you. And by way of explaining why he couldn’t, he sent me the story of his life, up to the time he escaped from China. As if I was going to read this and say, Oh, Dad, I see now, you’re right, this was so bad you should definitely never come back to China. But I didn’t feel that way. I called him and said, I understand, but really, you are safe, nothing will happen, and please please come see Xie before he dies. You must. Please. I begged him.”
She felt a pang for him. “Did it work?”
“No. He said no.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Even me, his son, asking like that, it wasn’t enough.”
“You can’t change him. I don’t know what his deal is, but most likely it’s beyond your reach.”
“You’re right.”
“At least now you have his story.”
“It was worth the wait.”
“Will you send it to me?” said Maggie.
“Yes! That’s why I called you, if you want to know the truth. I want you to read it. But I can’t find your e-mail.”
“Send it,” said Maggie, and dictated her address.
He moved over to his computer and clicked a button. “There. I just e-mailed it. Let me know what you think.”