The door opened. 'He's in here,' the woman said. She had a stethoscope around her neck. 'Please.'
The house was surprisingly warm for a spring day. Jin Li followed the woman into the living room, where an emaciated man of about seventy lay propped up against some pillows, arms at his sides, tubes going into both wrists.
'Oh, I'm sorry, so sorry,' Jin Li protested, 'I meant Ray Junior.'
'He should be back soon,' the nurse said.
She stopped where she stood, unwilling to intrude. In China, a sick person's privacy was never disturbed. 'I–I don't-'
'Please stay,' the nurse said. 'Mr. Grant doesn't get too many visitors, and he certainly doesn't get any like you.' The nurse smiled. 'He's going to wake up any moment now.'
'Are you sure?'
'He's a charmer, I better warn you.'
So she sat on the couch, trying not to appear like she was waiting, trying not to be intrusive. She looked at Mr. Grant and then around the room, down the hall, anywhere she could. This was the house where Ray had grown up. Not at all luxurious by American standards and yet a very beautiful home as far as she was concerned, with nice wood floors and big, simple rooms. He was a boy here, she mused. So different from where I grew up.
'I think I am being given too many drugs,' croaked a voice, Mr. Grant's, his eyes open now and studying her intently, with alarm, even. 'If I am not mistaken, though I could be mistaken, I am looking at an exceptionally beautiful Chinese woman who has got to be the most beautiful woman, except for my wife, Mary, who has ever been in this house in the last thirty-nine years, and let me tell you that is saying quite a lot!'
Jin Li stood up but wasn't sure she should go to the bed. He looked so sick, and smelled a little, too. 'Oh, hello, excuse me, Mr. Grant, I am so sorry that I woke you up, I was hoping to come see Ray, your son. My name is Jin Li. I don't think that you know who-'
'Lady, I know I'm lying in my deathbed, but let me tell you something, I know exactly who you are!' Ray's father stole a look toward the kitchen. His eyes narrowed. 'Please, I'm going to ask you…' he said in a loud whisper, 'she's in the bathroom maybe. Please go into the kitchen and get me a little coffee. It's usually on the stove. Wakes up my brain. Will you do it?'
She stood tentatively. She could, in fact, smell the coffee.
'That's the ticket. Quick, quick, though!' said Mr. Grant. 'Just a little milk, no sugar.'
She tiptoed into the kitchen. It was very dated by American standards, she saw. It looked like one in a television show she'd seen many times with the voices dubbed in Chinese, something called The Brady Bunch. She poured a little cup of coffee with milk she found in the refrigerator and brought it back.
'I know just who you are,' said Mr. Grant when she returned.
'You do?'
'Of course… you're the girl my son is so worried about. Just terribly worried, doing everything he can to find you…' He took the coffee cup with both hands and took a sip. Then another. 'Good,' he pronounced. A machine next to Mr. Grant's side beeped, followed by a mechanical click. He turned toward it and licked his lips. 'Sooner than I expected,' he noted aloud. Then he nodded in satisfaction at something and returned his gaze toward Jin Li. Except this time his eyes barely blinked. Was he falling asleep? She could see he was about to drop his coffee and rushed to catch the cup before it spilled on his sheet. 'Thank you…' he said, strangely. She set the cup down on the floor near her feet, out of sight of the nurse, if she came back.
Suddenly an idea came to her. 'Mr. Grant? Can I ask you something?'
'Yes, I suppose you can.'
'What did Ray do all of those years he was away from the United States?'
'Do?' The machine next to Mr. Grant clicked again but he did not seem to hear it.
'Yes. Did he work in the military, did he fight in a war?'
Mr. Grant frowned. 'Did he tell you that?'
'No.'
'I didn't think so… he did not tell you anything… right?'
How did he know this? She felt humiliated. 'Yes, that's right.'
'He was saving them… helping… hurricanes and earthshakes, I mean, quakes… hundred of people, many countries..' He closed his eyes, as if better to see what he was describing, and she watched his eyeballs moving to and fro beneath their lids, searching, maybe seeing. 'Sometimes I read about it in the newspaper.. terrible things he saw, much worse than anything I ever… saw too much, oh, you can see too much!' Mr. Grant lifted his face upward, his cheeks hollowed as he opened his mouth. 'Never would talk about it, broke my heart, you see, I wish he would get… it's good for a man, to have a wife and children… sometimes he went down into.. deep into, where all the dead people were… he was supposed to find the people, the children… very very difficult… sometimes… he… it… my garden, did you see the roses-?'
His head swayed, a man seeing only visions now. 'Mr. Grant, how did Ray get the terrible scar on his stomach?'
'Aaah, ha-' He groaned horribly.
'Mr. Grant?'
'— that was… God gave it to him!'
His eyes opened, then rolled up in his head. A foul breath came from him, from deep within him. Then his head slumped to the side. One eye was nearly closed, the other open. Jin Li looked away. Why was she thinking of her grandfather? I must look at him, she thought, I must see this so that I understand Ray.
A minute passed, in silence. Mr. Grant's meager chest continued to rise and fall, and his features were slack now.
The nurse came back in, looking at her watch.
'Did you get a chance to talk?' she asked brightly.
Jin Li realized she was breathing quickly. 'Yes.'
'And you got a little coffee?'
'Yes.'
'He's a very nice man.' She lifted the sheet a bit to fix it and when she did so Jin Li saw the half-full urine bag. 'He'll sleep now awhile.'
'Maybe I should wait for Ray outside-?'
'Whatever you'd like.'
Jin Li nodded affirmatively and stood, suddenly wanting to flee the room. But instead she bent down and ever so gently kissed Mr. Grant's forehead.
'You're sweet,' said the nurse. 'I'll tell him when he wakes up. And he'll like knowing it, too.'
Jin Li slipped back down the hall, idly studying some of the family pictures. She hadn't noticed them when she came in. There was a picture of Ray in a football uniform, then another of him in a New York City fireman's uniform, getting a medal in his hospital bed. With his father and mother to either side. And a smiling, bald man whose face she recognized. Mayor Giuliani. ' FOR VALOROUS SERVICE TO THE CITY OF NEW YORK ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 ' read the gold-script caption.
Oh, she thought, oh. So he was there.
She stepped out to the porch. Why hadn't he told her? How she wished she had known, how she missed Ray now-loved him, even. Everything-everything made sense.
She wandered toward the sidewalk, a little dazed in the bright sun, wondering why she was crying. Perhaps the sight of Mr. Grant, the conversation about Ray, the pictures, it was all a little much…
Too much, in fact, to notice the battered service van that had pulled up next to the sidewalk. A large man in worn laborer's clothes stepped in front of her. His dark eyes fixed on her face.
'What, excuse me-!'
He grabbed her with one dirty hand, flung open the van door, and threw her inside. She hit her head on the metal floor. He reached in and took her purse. She glimpsed a piece of rope and an empty plastic bucket. The door slammed shut, was locked from the outside, and the van lurched forward. She put out her hand to steady herself in the dark.
A sliding sound. The driver's narrow rear window opened into the van body. Behind a metal mesh, she could see the face. 'Don't you fucking scream,' he warned her.
