then said, “Here.” He plucked tender pieces from the rich underside of the bird to arrange upon her plate. “You need these.”
She made a half-smile and brought one to her mouth. It tasted so good, so necessary to her, that she quickly ate all the pieces on her plate, while he sat across from her, also eating chicken, watching her.
“How did your husband die?” he asked, putting more on her plate. “Was he ill?”
“No. He was standing on a street corner in San Francisco, that was all. Waiting for a light. A car veered into him and two other people.”
“Oh,” he said slowly, and put down his chopsticks. “That’s bad.”
“It was,” she agreed. She ate another piece. The chicken was soft, sublime; it cushioned her against these things that were hard to say.
“So have you met the other woman?”
“Not yet. Actually the child lives with the grandparents. They are her guardians, the ones who will have to give their permission. Unfortunately they don’t live here. They live in the south. We are trying to get tickets. That’s the holdup.”
“It’s impossible to get tickets now,” he said. “It’s almost National Day. Everybody has a week off and they go places. I’m trying to get a ticket too. I’ve been trying all afternoon, in fact.”
She sat up. “Ticket to where?”
“Hangzhou. I have this uncle there. Remember the uncles who taught me to cook — two here, and one in Hangzhou? Uncle Xie, the one in Hangzhou — he is dying. I don’t think he can make it even until my banquet. So that’s what I’m trying to do. Get down there to see him, just for a day, before the end. But I can’t get a ticket.”
“I’m sorry, Sam,” she said simply. “That’s very sad. We haven’t been able to get tickets yet either.”
“And where are you trying to go?” he said.
“Shaoxing.”
He jumped.
“That’s where they live,” she added.
“But that’s incredible. Shaoxing is right next to Hangzhou. Literally. A half-hour drive.”
“Really?” she said, and then shrugged, because it didn’t matter. “Anyway. Good luck to both of us on the tickets.”
“Good luck,” he echoed. “I hope you feel better. And I hope what I did was okay. The chicken, I mean.”
“The chicken was great. I wish I could eat it every day.” She lifted her bag onto her shoulder. She knew her eyes were probably puffy and her skin streaked. The strange thing was that she was starting to feel better. “It’s just that now is not the best time for us to sit and talk. I hope you understand.”
“I do,” he said. His kindness was cut by a drift in his attention. It was subtle, but she could feel it. He had to get back to work.
“Thanks.”
Instead of answering he rose and turned, snaked his hand to the back of a shelf, and came back with a simple, lightweight box of lacquer. He wiped it with a clean towel and started to pack the chicken in it. She thought he couldn’t possibly be giving her this box. It was too nice a container. She’d have to clean it and bring it back. But maybe that was what he wanted her to do — come back. “Here,” she heard him say, atop another soft slice of sound as he slid the box across the counter. “Don’t forget to take the chicken.”
The minute she was gone Sam left the kitchen and went back to his east-facing room, where he lived, where his computer glowed on the desk and his books were turning into uneven pillars against the wall. He sank onto his unmade bed with the cell phone pressed to his ear, listening to the far-off ring that sounded in Uncle Xie’s house, a thousand kilometers to the south. He had tried calling before Maggie arrived, and no one had answered.
At last he heard a click, and then, “Wei.”
Relief washed him when he heard the whispery voice of Wang Ling, Uncle Xie’s wife. “Auntie. It’s me. How is he?”
“Not well, my son. He is asking for Liang. He means your father.”
“Can I talk to him?” said Sam.
“Right now he is sleeping.”
“Oh, let him sleep.”
“Yes.” Then she said, “Are you coming?”
“Aunt, I am determined. Zhi feng mu yu,” he said. Whether combed by the wind or washed by the rain. “But I cannot get a ticket! Not yet anyway. It’s the holiday.”
“You must try, my son.”
“I will,” he swore. He could tell that Uncle didn’t have long, maybe only a matter of days. Sam’s father should