After braiding Harper’s thinning hair, I climbed onto her bed and slipped beneath the covers. Navigating carefully around the IV drip and the coloured threads of the heart monitor, I snuggled in beside her.
‘I am excited in my heart to meet your Oliver.’
‘You can call him Olly.’
‘I’d like to call him by his full name because that is the name his mother gave him. Also, Olly is your word for him and that should be in the love between him and you.’
‘Okay. Understood.’
‘I want you to have this.’ She handed me her storybook, open at the last page.
There is a tree in a snowy park in Shang-hi. It is a brilient tree with long branchs and pink flowrs. It is tall and wide and holds many memorys and wishes and speshel secrets from those peple who visit.
The beutiful lady that we met at the begining of this book visits the tree. She stands underneth it near the trunk. A long branch bows down to her. On the end of it she sees a plum. It is in the shape of a hart. She opens her hands and lets it fall into her palms.
Imm-or-tal the tree wispers.
The lady takes one bite of the plum.
Wen she is finished eating, she reches her hand thrugh the snow into the soil were it is warm. She makes a cosy little hole and plants the hart plum seed.
One day she nos her seed will grow grow grow into a tree and this is how she will live on, imm-or-tal forever.
Beside me, Harper’s eyes have closed. Her breath is shallow, eyes racing under their lids.
‘May your branches be thick and full with blossoms and colour.’ I ran my index finger over the cool skin on her forehead. ‘May your fruit be ripe and whole.’ I took her hand in mine. The ache in my chest radiated through my body, rising to my throat. ‘May the heart of your trunk beat with the pulse of the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars… and everything.’
I lay with her as she napped, looking at my watch every so often. Now, Olly has landed… He must be going through immigration… Baggage claim… Getting on a bus… Then, just as the moon dropped into view, the doorbell rang. I leaped out of Harper’s bed and ran for the door. I flung it open.
Olly.
My heart stopped.
He let his bags fall to the ground and reached out to pull me into him. I filled my lungs with his scent – traces of thyme from our lab, our London home, his peppermint shampoo, the honeyed sweetness that always lingered on his skin.
He lifted my chin and I couldn’t tell where my breath ended and his began.
‘I need to tell you something.’ Time was something that I was developing a new appreciation of, and I couldn’t waste any more of it, with anyone. I inhaled and counted to three, trying to steady the pounding in my chest. ‘You know I love you, right?’ Words that came so easily to Harper, but words I had to learn how to say.
‘I know you do.’
My body sighed.
He looked over my shoulder. I turned and saw everyone had gathered at the door, and they were beaming at us. I wasn’t anxious as Olly greeted them, like I’d thought I would be. When he reached Wài Pó, she took his hands into hers and told him that she could tell he was a very smart and kind man. I felt overwhelmed by something… was this happiness? Was it regret that I hadn’t let them meet sooner? Or was it just the kind of sadness that had become an ever-present friend?
Olly had reached Dad. At first, they just looked at each other without speaking. Then Dad put his hand on Olly’s shoulder and smiled. ‘Welcome home.’
Olly nodded. ‘Thank you. I’m so glad to be here.’ He looked around in his quiet thoughtful way, then he asked: ‘Can I meet Harper now?’