I wanted to hug her more than anything, yet for some reason I held back. “Do you know where Sendo is?”
“He’s upstairs,” Mama said.
Was there a staircase in Baba’s shop? “Upstairs?”
Mama pretended not to hear me. She dipped a ladle into the pot, stirred, and offered me a taste. “Come, Maia. Try this.”
“Later, Mama.” I shook my head, still puzzling over this mysterious staircase. But as I left the kitchen, there it was. The stairs were steep and uneven, and I clutched the rail as I ascended. There were many more steps than there ought to have been. They wound up and out of the shop, so high I could no longer smell Mama’s cooking.
My legs grew heavy, and my breath grew short. But the sound of someone singing and the soft strumming of a lute lured me to the top, promising that my search wouldn’t be in vain.
“East of the sun, the sapphire seas gleam. Dance with me, sing with me….”
I hummed along. I knew the melody, but I always forgot the words.
Like Edan. I shook my head. Who in the Nine Heavens is Edan?
The song grew louder as I finally reached the top of the stairs. There a narrow hallway awaited me. This was familiar, yes. My parents’ bedroom was to the right. Which meant Sendo’s was—
I turned left, and my hand pressed against the door to slide it open.
The singing stopped; my heart gave a lurch.
There was Sendo. Alive. Breathing. Whole.
Relief bloomed in me. Then the relief grew into wonder, so that whatever string tethered me to the earth snapped and I floated up and up with joy.
Of course he was alive. Why would I think he wasn’t? His warm brown eyes blinked at me, as real as the dirt we used to play in by our shophouse, and so were his freckles and the jagged scar on his left thumb from cutting himself with scissors. This was my Sendo.
I wanted to touch him—to stick out my fingers and rub the soft stubble on his chin. I wanted to sit at his feet and listen to his tales of the sailors and merchants who’d come by Baba’s shop since I’d been gone. I wanted everything to be the way it used to be…but something held me back. Maybe it was the fear that if I got too close, he would disappear. For the life of me, I could not remember why I had this fear.
“Shouldn’t you be working on that scarf for Lord Belang?” Sendo teased.
His voice startled me. I tried to crush the emotions roiling in me, but my voice cracked slightly when I spoke. “The one…the one with all the tassels?” My fingers twitched, remembering something about tassels. A carpet. I shrugged away the memory. “I hate knotting. I can do it after lunch.”
Sendo held a round-bellied lute—I hadn’t realized he knew how to play. A sailor’s hat slanted on his head, like a soupspoon about to slide off the uneven slope of his black hair. Seeing it, I felt something in me melt.
“Since when do you play the lute?”
“Don’t you remember?” he said. “You bought it for me for my birthday. I’ve been practicing every day ever since.”
Oh, I did remember now. Baba had let me take on my first customer, and allowed me to keep the money I earned from the order. It’d been enough to buy presents for everyone. My parents and my brothers. I hadn’t bought anything for myself.
I sat on his bed, stretching out my legs and crossing my ankles. A breeze tickled my bare arms from the open window.
“Someone needs to provide entertainment on a ship,” Sendo said, strumming again. “Why not me? I can write poetry and sing. And I can tie knots better than anyone in Gangsun.”
“Sewing knots are very different from sailing knots,” I rebuked him gently. “Besides, Baba will never let you become a sailor.”
“He doesn’t need me in the shop,” Sendo persisted. “Business is doing so well. We have twelve hired hands now.” He stilled the lute strings with his fingers. “Will you talk to him about it?”
I softened. Seeing him had brought an ache to my heart, as if we’d been separated for a long time. “Anything for you.”
“Thank you,” Sendo said.
I made a motion to stand, but Sendo tilted his head. His thick brows knitted.