WAITING FOR THE BEGINNING

15. Innocuous Phone Call

With graduation only a few days away, Ping Ping counts the days to finals, then graduation when De Yi will also return; and then to say goodbye to her best friend. Ka Sha and De Ai have become inseparable; he invites her to New York for the summer - where surely, Ping Ping supposes, he will propose and where she will remain.

Nearing those days leading to graduation, De Yi professes his love...simply and naturally added to the end of their goodbye.  "I love you."  He says as if he's said it a million times.  Without pause,  she replies "I love you too."   Only in the pause afterwards, do they each realize what has just happened.

Then the next few calls, De Yi shares his plan to make it official - on her eighteenth birthday, just after graduation. He does drone on about the meticulous details of the trip - from the pictures of the hotels, the cost, the time it takes to travel to Paris for the honeymoon.

Whereas before, Ping Ping would have found this all tedious and boring; she has developed a special desire to listen to his monotonous/soothing voice; she  finds these traits to be caring, no longer overbearing. And while she still addresses him as "Ge", older brother, the fondness has mutated into a more intimate kind of moniker.

At the graduation, De Yi presents each of the girls a ruby necklace.   Looking at the heart shaped gem, she smiles secretly that no one knows that the heart design in De Ai's necklace holds a different meaning. 

If Ping Ping were counting the days, now she counts the hours to her birthday - only a mere week away.   According to the Lee tradition, it is dumplings and cake at the house - with her best friends and family.  As always, that means the Chin's + Ka Sha this year.

Sometimes, the one single event changing one's life is as innocuous as an unpleasant phone call in the evening - when the family gathers around the table to play a game of friendly and unhurried Chinese Checkers.

When her mother puts down the phone, a deep sadness infects the three of them. Ping Ping's father hugs his wife tenderly. "Let's go say a proper goodbye."

On the train to that remote village near Pujian, Ping Ping texts both De Ai and De Yi - saying that she might be out of touch for the rest of the week.  But that they would be back for her birthday.  

Even herself has not heard of her mother's story - the part of when her father came to the remote village to teach for a season. At the end of that season, Ping Ping's mother did the unthinkable - she eloped with Ping Ping's father and broke her engagement to the son of a powerful family in the village.

After the train, they take a ride on a truck to the road leading into the village. Then they walk the remaining mile to the rundown dwelling with cement walls, small courtyard housing the outdoor kitchen and terracotta shingled roof sagging under the weight of years of neglect. The very elderly woman garbed in dark blue mein-pao (Chinese cotton padded jacket) does not recognize them; and even after a teary hello from Ping Ping's mother, she does not respond with open arms.

The three of them take up the concrete kang (traditional Chinese peasant bed) with layers of mein-bei (traditional Chinese cotton comforter). No doors to separate them from the main room where grandma dozes in the large chair and where grandpa's coffin lies, in the middle of the room.

The funeral procession takes the meandering path thru the village, down by the creek and to the river, where the villagers cast the ashes of the deceased after an all-consuming fire to cremate the body. Few groups of people stop by to pay respect, amongst them a large family called Bah. After a few silent exchanges between them and the Grandmother, Ping Ping's mother cries out - "Ping Ping run."

The last words Ping Ping remember her mother speaking are "Don't let them take her."

The her world turns black.