Ting: Don’t you think you should come back for a while? You can go back when the virus is under control.

Sophie: But we’ve already planned to go to Taiwan for the winter break.

All set!

No worries!

Sophie has always been a precocious and strong-minded child. At the age of ten, she asked to skip a grade to middle school because she felt she was “ready”—she announced matter-of-factly one morning at breakfast before walking a mile to school. She never liked taking the school bus, or to be more precise, she never liked waiting for the school bus. Now that she is on the other side of the globe, Ting doubts that she could be easily persuaded by text messages.

Sophie was only a baby during the 2003 SARS outbreak. Ting’s parents happened to be visiting them in the spring and were spared the scare. To be safe, they postponed their flight back to China and stayed in the States for three more months.

Later, when looking back on her brief marriage to Lin Wan, Ting wondered whether her parents’ prolonged stay precipitated his escape rather than settling him down in family life. More and more often, Wan used the excuse of work to stay away from home. Ting’s parents assumed that their History-Ph.D.-son-in-law was busy with some important research and were pleased to be able to help the newlyweds with their baby.

Late January

Ting:        Have you heard about the new cases in Taiwan?

Sophie:     Yup. Yup.

We are being careful.

Ting:        You should come home now. I’ll book you a flight.

Sophie:     Mom! You are so “seeing snake from the reflection of bow!”

Practicing a new idiom I’ve just learned.

Ting:        This is no time to joke! Hurry! Soon there’ll be no more flights!

Sophie:     Seriously?

We leave Taipei for the east coast tomorrow.

Then go camping in the mountains.

Bet the virus can’t catch up with us!

It is probably safer for them to leave the city, but Ting does not feel much relief. She checks updates on the “new coronavirus” throughout the day. New cases are emerging in Japan, South Korea, and Thailand. Then one case is reported in Seattle. Two days later, Wuhan is locked down.

With some hesitance, Ting drives to the Spring Festival celebration at the community center. She and Sophie had never missed this annual event since they moved to this suburban town. She had just got her job at the insurance company and Sohpie was about fifteen months old. There is still a good showing this year, but one dance troupe cancelled their trip from China last minute, so the main stage performance is shortened. Many families take off right after the lion dance finale instead of socializing over food and crafts.

Stacks of boxed lunches are left untouched in the deserted hall, which would be filled with noises in previous years: hearty laughter, new year greetings, courteous introductions of new acquaintances, surprise exclamations from old friends, all amidst children’s scurrying around, waving paper zodiac animals, or helping themselves to more food.

Conversations are brief and subdued this time, mostly inquiries about the safety of families and friends back home. “When is Sophie coming back?” “Don’t leave the kid out there by herself!” Ting nods as people offer her advice. But she doubts if Sophie even remembers that it is Lunar New Year right now. She has sent the girl a Happy Year of the Mouse ecard but has not gotten a reply. Sophie’s latest uploads are pictures of the blue seacoast, lush mangroves, and deep gorges.

Ting used to worry about Sophie growing up with her alone. She worried if she would be shy and timid like herself. So when Sophie showed a tendency to be outward and adventurous, Ting was relieved and delighted, even though it reminded her of Wan.

Has she over-encouraged or indulged those traits in her daughter? Ting wonders. Has the girl gone too far to be “reeled” back?

End of January – Beginning of February/

Ting: Listen, Sophie, this is your last chance to come back! U.S. is limiting flights from abroad.

Sophie: Haha, Taiwan is limiting flights, too.

Lucky we got here early!

What a child! Still having fun when the world is shutting down. With her long hair hanging loose over her shoulders, she looks like a wild mountain girl. And she’s wearing so little. Is it really that warm over there? Ting can’t help a shudder. There is still a foot of snow on the ground here.

For some reason, the sweeter Sophie smiles, the more tense Ting feels inside, as though her smile has a negative correlation with the urgent state of things. Beibei, too, once had a bright smile, lighting up the world around her wherever she went. At the end of that summer, she was supposed to finish her internship and return to school, but she was having so much fun in New York and so much thrill from working for a hedge fund company that she stayed two more weeks.

Beibei had always been bold and impulsive since the day they met as freshmen in a Chinese university. They both came from provincial towns, but while Ting felt intimidated on a big city campus and buried herself in classwork, Beibei was like a bird set free, trying everything new, including a relationship with a junior named Lin Wan. Ting can almost feel a tingling of excitement whenever she recalls those late nights when Beibei snuck back into the dormitory and crawled into Ting’s bed to tell her about her date. Wan was dark and lithe, resembling a certain South American soccer star at the time. Ting would blush imagining the sensation of holding his hand or leaning on his shoulder and often break into giggles with Beibei under the cover.

They came to America for graduate school in the same year but in different states. Ting worked hard as a research assistant in Applied Mathematics. Beibei did too for a couple years but gave up research one summer for an internship in New York. It was shortly after the dotcom bust, a lull in venture investment. Yet Beibei was unfazed.

“This is the perfect time to get a job, don’t you think?” She shared with Ting her “bullish” outlook the last time they talked on the phone. “I’ll be perfectly positioned when things pick up again. I’ve got to get a job now!”

To Ting, going to college and earning degrees is like a fixed set of parameters in her life. Being a student was both a privilege and an imperative. On the other hand, she was used to Beibei’s rule-breaking lifestyle, knowing that she had no sway over her friend’s decisions but could only stand by and watch, with anxiety and admiration.

Early September, Beibei continued with her internship while looking for a permanent job. Just after she sent out one round of applications, the World Trade Center was attacked. That morning, Ting was catching up on her sleep after finishing her summer research project. Her phone was off. When she woke up and saw all the messages she had missed, she turned on the television immediately. The crashing of the twin towers was replayed on every news channel. She felt like she was watching a video game, with little sense of reality. When it occurred to her that Beibei was supposed to be working in one of the offices, she froze. The next time she saw the planes ramming through the towers in flames, her head exploded, and each time after that.

She tried to reach Beibei on the phone but couldn’t get through. She held on to her phone and pressed the redial button mechanically. Sometimes she got beeping signals, and sometimes a recorded message about “busy circuit boards.” She kept checking group emails from college alums until there was confirmation that Beibei did go to work in the South Tower that morning but never returned to her apartment in Brooklyn.

Mid-February

Ting:         There are already fifteen hundred deaths in Mainland China.

I’ll buy you a plane ticket right now!

Sophie:    Why? I’m not on the Mainland.

Ting:         The virus is already in Taiwan. It is not safe to stay.

Sophie: The virus is in America, too. It is not safe to go back, either.

This is no time to argue! It is time to be home! To be with your family! Ting wants to scream. She is so tired of writing text messages. But Sophie has limited access to wireless from where they are camping; she says she’s actually enjoying her time offline. But how can she cut herself off from her mother at this juncture? They have never been this far apart and for this long.

It is indeed less and less safe in the U.S. There is confirmed community spread. Ting would like to put on a mask in public places but does not want to attract any unnecessary attention.

In March, Covid has reached every state. Ting puts on a mask when she goes out but is surprised to see how few people are wearing them. She has an ominous feeling.

She turns on her television every night. Watching the endless debate over the virus and masks, she feels as though she is previewing the advent of a catastrophe. She was also sitting in front of a television set alone during those days after 9/11. She avoided getting together with friends because she did not want to be seen. Her eyes were swollen from crying, and her colorless, hollow cheeks looked even more pale in the fluorescent light.

It was then Lin Wan appeared in front of her. They hardly said anything to each other but hugged each other so tight as if they had been waiting for this very moment, as if this were the only way to fill the void left by Beibei. Their world had suddenly become so fragile that they must hold each other as close as they could, so it would not collapse like the lonely towers, and they would not perish in a pile of burning rubble.

She did not ask how Wan had found her in her dorm. She only knew he was studying in a neighboring state. She was afraid that if she asked too much, he would disappear as mysteriously as he appeared. He left for a while to buy a couple bottles of wine. Ting could not drink but tried to take sips along with him.

“Ay, I can’t remember why on earth I broke up with her. Now that she’s gone, I feel that I have done her wrong.” Wan gulped down his wine. His chin flopped on his chest with each sigh, his long hair scattered over his forehead.

“You don’t need to feel this way,” said Ting, softly. “It was so long ago.”

“We were happy together, you know, it wasn’t like I didn’t like being with her.”

“She liked you, too.” Ting blushed, even though she was explaining for her friend. Beibei and Wan only dated for a few months, but to Ting, or even to Beibei, those days would always carry a halo of dreaminess of “campus love” in the freshman year.

Wan stayed with Ting for three nights. After he left, she tried to put it out of her mind. The episode could be considered a statistical anomaly, she decided, and she should be able to forgive herself for “losing control” once in her life. When she found out she was pregnant two months later, she kept it to herself. She and Wan did not use any contraceptives, which would be too embarrassing to admit. She was going to wait till she had a formal boyfriend to consider such protection, or when marriage was in order.

She couldn’t muster enough courage to call Wan, so she decided to drive. The twelve-hour car ride, which Wan sped through in one day, took Ting two. She splurged on a decent motel room around the halfway point and made sure she was well rested and mentally prepared to face Wan.

He was shocked to see her at first, then speechless after hearing about her pregnancy. He stared at her as if at a total stranger. Ting clutched her stomach and felt like throwing up. Wan finally got up to his feet to help her sit down. He moved about clumsily, offering her a glass of water and a warm washcloth.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Then Wan asked Ting what she planned to do. Ting raised her head and looked at him, and Wan seemed to understand the answer in her eyes. He nodded, curving his lips into an awkward smile. “Ay, I guess it’s about time. I’m turning thirty. My parents will be so happy to finally have a grandchild.”

For her parents, Ting rehearsed an elaborate lie: she had been in a relationship with Lin Wan for some time and was waiting to tell them when she was one-hundred-percent sure of his commitment. To her surprise, he proposed right before the fall semester, and they planned to marry after his dissertation defense. But because Wan was an especially devoted son and would like to give his parents a grandchild as soon as possible, she already got pregnant before their wedding. Though apparently uncomfortable with their daughter’s pregnancy, Ting’s parents couldn’t help feeling a great relief over her engagement. They were getting more and more concerned about her prospect of marriage as they were keenly aware of her inward personality and her tendency to hide herself in work. They promptly made preparations for their trip to America.

One month before Ting gave birth, she and Wan registered for marriage. Then, together with Ting’s parents, they moved into a two-bedroom apartment off campus and welcomed the arrival of a baby girl.

Mid-March

Sophie:    Look, Mom! We’ve just built a tree house!

The coolest shelter in the world!

Ting:         Be careful, Sophie!

The East Rift Valley of Taiwan looks like paradise indeed. How could the girl imagine what it is like here? Schools are all closed, and so are most businesses. People are taking classes or working online, in front of a lonely screen, regardless of how many participants can be crammed on Zoom. There is not much traffic on the road. When Ting gets on the highway one morning out of habit to avoid street traffic, it looks so empty that she feels rather disoriented.

She is working from home now. She tried working from home once when Sophie was small to save on childcare expenses. She thought it would be easy because her data analysis work could be quite flexible, but she was usually too distracted during the day and ended up working a lot of nights. It is much different this time. The house is always quiet. Her workload as the director of her unit is somehow less taxing than when she was a junior analyst. She has plenty of time to keep an eye on the television news, watching the number of cases and deaths reaching new highs every day. By the end of March, there are a million cases worldwide.

“Be careful?” Be careful doing what? Is it just something she says automatically as a mother? Or has she sensed something wrong? Maybe because one of the boys looks like he is too close to Sophie in the picture. Maybe a little more than just a friend? Is it possible that they are in a relationship? What does it mean exactly? She refrains from thinking along that line. She hasn’t talked much about relationship matters with Sophie. She is still young, and she has not had a formal boyfriend.

Could she be hiding something from her? Ting is always glad that Sophie is more curious and daring than herself but not necessarily in this aspect. She takes a deep breath. No. Sophie doesn’t lie. She and Sophie have always trusted each other.

But she was once a good, trustworthy girl, too, wasn’t she? And she lied like a pro, from her pregnancy to her marriage. Even when her parents were staying with them, she led them to believe that Wan was being paid to do research in Chinese History. In fact, Wan had failed to find any teaching or research work, and for a stretch of time, the family of five were all living on Ting’s savings.

When Wan eventually gave up his job search and his marriage to go back to China, Ting covered for him one more time. She said that Wan had an offer from a prestigious university in China, but she did not want to go back with him and had to divorce him. Fortunately, she had finished her doctoral degree before the divorce and landed a good-paying job, so her parents did not pressure her to stay married to a mostly “absent” husband.

Early April

Ting:         Is that curly-haired boy your boyfriend?

Sophie: Not really.

We’re just good friends.

Ting:         Why isn’t he going home?

Sophie:    Covid is bad in South America. Safer here.

We are like “being stuck on the same boat and must help each other to stay afloat.”

Is this the right idiom?

She sounds too glib. Ting is getting more suspicious with each chat. The girl is most likely hiding something. Meanwhile, Ting is getting tired of gleaning information from WeChat and cable news. Everyone sounds like they are telling the truth, but nobody is totally believable. She works with numbers and always trusts numbers to be simpler and more reliable than language. Yet, these days, she feels that even numbers are being manipulated to tell lies.

One day, an unfamiliar name pops up on her chat screen. It takes her a few seconds to recognize him from when Lin Wan was an undergraduate in China. He apologizes for seeking her out. He understands that she has not been in touch with Wan, and neither has Wan mentioned their marriage much after returning to China. But, as an old friend, he feels he should let her know that Wan died in February, and the cause was confirmed recently to be Covid-19.

How could this be true? Ting stares at the screen. She only knew that Wan had worked for some media companies, married again, more than once, but no children. When they parted, he felt down and out. Deep in self-pity, he told her to let their daughter forget about ever having him as father. She’d be better off not knowing him at all for he would never know how to explain his abandonment.

“I don’t blame you,” Ting whispers, tears running down her cheeks. “I’ve never blamed you, you know that?” She hopes that it is not too late to tell him. She imagines that he can still hear her from somewhere out there.

Wan had at least attempted to create a family with her, Ting has and would always believe. She has felt sorry for his lack of success in America and is sometimes thankful that he knew himself well enough to call it quits early, considering that their marriage would have led to inevitable contention, resentment, or detente. He has left her a swath of loneliness and emptiness; he has also left her a child and a memory of love. She has not been able to give herself up so completely to another man.

She turns off her phone and television and sits silently in the dark. In her mind’s eye, she can see a clear blue sky of mid-September. On the tree outside her dorm window were thick green leaves, a few of which have already turned red. She and Wan were still catching their breaths, his head on her chest, her hand in his tussled, dampened hair. She remembered how Beibei used to describe wiping off beads of sweat from Wan’s face. He sweated so easily. She even bought him a set of new handkerchiefs from a department store downtown. Ting felt a pang of guilt and the need to ask Beibei for forgiveness, but just as she was about to close her eyes to murmur the words, she caught sight of the red leaves on the tip of branches. They came in and out of focus, as she gazed at them, gently swaying in the breeze. She could see Beibei’s flushed cheeks, bright and translucent like the leaves, whenever she laughed her infectious and carefree laughter. She could hear Beibei tell her not to bother to say sorry.

Live. Just live. Live free. Live in love. It’s the only way to overcome the fear of death!

Ting wipes tears off her cheeks. She can’t quite sort out the emotions that are overwhelming her—grief, regret, loss. As her mind tries to escape the darkness around her, she thinks of Sophie and her friends in the faraway mountains: the misty coconut groves, the crimson clusters of ixoras, and the earnest faces of youth. Despite the gnawing suspicion of lies and deceit, Ting tells herself that she should allow herself, at least at this moment, to feel the warmth and joy of these young lives. It may be the only thing that can penetrate the shroud of silence and bleakness and reach her halfway around the earth. Perhaps even Wan can feel it, even just briefly, from where his soul rests, in peace.