‘No! I’m not calling him for you!’ Bì Yù and I were standing by the phone. ‘This isn’t what Harper wants – we have to respect that.’
The feelings bubbling inside of me as I stared at her were so intense, so convoluted, tangled, torturous, that I struggled to make sense of them. I feared if I opened my mouth I would say something I’d regret, so I didn’t speak as she left the kitchen. I heard the sound of chair legs against the floor as she sat at the dining table. I exhaled. She hadn’t totally abandoned me.
I dialled the number for Mr Zhāng with the phone on speaker.
‘Wéi?’
I struggled in broken Chinese to ask when we were to admit Harper to hospital for her surgery. As usual, his response was delivered so fast I couldn’t keep up. He ignored my attempts to interject, to ask for clarification, talking over the top of me.
Before I knew it, Bì Yù was back in the kitchen, shouting into the speaker. I had never seen her so angry before. Mr Zhāng seemed stunned into silence. Then the line went dead.
‘What’s going on?’ All I could muster was a whisper.
‘He said there was another problem with the donor; there’ll be another delay and he has to increase the fees. He also said that Harper’s tests showed she needs a kidney transplant as well. I told him he was a scumbag and asked for a refund. That’s when he hung up.’ Her face was pale.
A cacophony of emotions began to swell inside me and words came pouring out, unfiltered.
‘Go on – say I told you so, tell me how badly I’ve failed! Tell me how I’ve been ripped off, how I’ve squandered my inheritance and wasted everyone’s time. Tell me how unethical I’ve been, tell me how morally –’
‘This isn’t about you!’
Her words stopped me short. I stared at her, breathing hard. No, it wasn’t about me. What was I thinking? This was about Harper. I felt the gears shift in my mind.
‘Please, call him back and tell him Harper can’t wait any longer.’
‘I know you’re hurting, Marlowe, we all are.’
I hated that look she was giving me, the pity on her face.
‘You’re so simple,’ I snarled.
I watched Bì Yù’s face change as my insult sank in. I opened my mouth to apologise, but it was too late.
‘I’m tired of all this. Why don’t you just relearn the language your mother taught you and speak to him yourself? I’m sick of doing your dirty work for you.’
She strode from the room.
‘How dare you!’ I shouted at her back. I followed her into the living room. ‘How dare you bring Mum into this!’
‘Marlowe.’ Suddenly Harper was standing between us. ‘You don’t see with your mind and heart that you are the one who is upset about Mum.’ She was breathing quickly as she spoke, and I felt like my lungs were catching up. ‘You think you are fighting for me, but really you are fighting for Mum.’
Bì Yù must have put her up to this. She wouldn’t… she couldn’t…
‘Everything in your body is becoming dark and rotten with this.’
There wasn’t enough air. The room felt tight and small.
‘Stop it.’
‘Her body is gone and you are broken. Your heart is broken.’
Shut up. Just shut up.
‘I don’t need to listen to this.’
‘You never listen!’ Harper strode out of the room.
I tried to count, to empty my mind, but it wasn’t working.
Mā ma. You felt close. Too close.
‘Why do you think you are going to the ends of the earth to save Harper when she doesn’t even want to be saved?’ Bì Yù asked softly.
Mā ma. The longing made me want to heave.
‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘No.’ I tried to think of something to say but my mind was blank.
I went to Harper’s room – I had to tell her she was wrong; this was not about Mum, it was about her.
But Harper’s room was empty.
Empty.
I went back to the living room.
‘Where did Harper go?’ I felt a curl in my stomach.
Bì Yù’s eyes widened.
‘Where did Harper go?’ I repeated.
‘Harper!’ I ran through the apartment, calling her name, searching. I could hear Bì Yù doing the same.
We met again in the living room. ‘She’s too weak to go anywhere by herself,’ I said frantic. I felt my knees buckle and before I knew it I was on the floor.
‘Marlowe!’ Bì Yù ran to me. ‘I’ll go after her – she can’t have got far. You stay here in case she comes back.’ Bì Yù headed for the front door.
How could I have let this happen?
I went back to Harper’s room, hoping to find some clue to her disappearance.
On the desk, her autobiographical storybook lay open.
In my drems I smell roses. Their sweetnes is all arond me when I wake up in the morning and it stays with me when I go to sleep at nite time.
Did mum smell roses when her body was sick?
My body is doing strang things like rite now my moth and tong are watering for apples diped in salt. Wài Pó says this is wat mum was eeting when I was inside her belly. This is how I no that she is coming for me soon.
I wrote about the man with no fase called deth. But now I wonder in my mind and in my hart if he is a she and she is mum?
I have been thinking a lot in my mind about what hapens when the body is no more. I think to my self about the spases in betweene things. A plase in between plases. This is were storys come from. This is were mum lives. This is were I think I will go wen my time in this body is over. I was scared of this plase and somtimes I still am, but most of all I am scared for my Marlowe.
Even tho I have desided to do the trans-plant, I still ask myself if I shuld get this new hart? This hart that belongs to someone else? The hart that has its own loves and does not no about the things that I love. But I worry about leeving Marlowe alone becos she does not no how to here the mesages from the in between. How to reed the signs. If I go, she will not no how to here my hum. She will not here me wispering in the trees, she will not see me in someone elses feet when they have the gliter nail polish on and she will not feel me under the lite of our one and only moon. My Marlowe does not under stand these things.
My hart is broken, but so is Marlowes. I think in my mind that hers broke when she was 9 years old when mum left her body. Marlowe has never been abel to fix her broken hart, but I can. I can fix it for her. But I will never tell her this. She does not no how to here it.
There is still so much I want to tell her. I want to say I have seen her long hope and it has been like two big arms holding me. I want to tell her I am sorry about my hart and that even though I have the Up syndrome, I could not stop it from being sick.
Marlowe and I are con-nec-ted by an invisibel, sparkelling thred and when my hart is gone, im scared hers will go too.
This is why I will take the hart that is not mine. This is why I will do it.
I will fix my Marlowe. I will make things better again.
An unfamiliar calm washed over my body. I felt my feet on the floor, as if I was aware of the ground beneath me for the first time.
‘What have I done?’
I touched my cheeks; they were wet and warm. I let my fingertips linger on my skin, accustoming myself to the texture of my sadness.
I closed Harper’s book, noticing as I did the title she had written on the cover: The Plum Hart.
I grabbed my coat and ran for the door.