The next morning in bed, with one sweaty hand clenching my cell phone, I watch for its clock to tick to 6:29. On the dot, I speed-dial Age, ready to count the rings. Instead, he picks up immediately. He’s been waiting by the phone, too.
“Hey, it’s me,” I say.
“I was just about to call you,” Age says.
With those words—proof that Age being at Ride for Our Lives yesterday wasn’t just some strange fluke—I release my breath. Then, in a confident manner that would make Grace proud, I tell him, “I know.”
Age laughs. “What? Am I that predictable?”
“Trust me, when it comes to guys, nothing is predictable.”
“Right back at you. So what’s up?”
“I figured it’s my turn to check in on you.”
“Hunh,” says Age, but I can tell he’s pleased.
More relaxed now, I lean back into my pillows. “So in the spirit of me checking in, what are you doing today?”
“Grom duty. My dad’s working on a deadline.”
“Cool, then you can bring your brothers over for lunch. I’ve got in my hot little hands that new Mack Dawg video we can watch afterward.”
Without losing a second, Age says, “Noon, your studio.”
“Noon, the main house,” I correct him.
“You sure?”
“Dude, you’re part of the Syrah Cheng package.” I bite my lip, remembering how Age responded so caustically and honestly the last time I said this.
But Age answers right away: “Good, because, dude, you’re part of mine.”
“Good,” I say.
“Good,” he repeats.
“Then you won’t mind if I get that in writing?”
Age starts laughing again. And I press the phone closer to my ear, because I was way off on how much I missed his chuckle, the way it builds and then recedes, a wave I can count on, day in and day out.
“You Chengs,” he says.
“What?” I ask, all innocent. “So some guy gave me this great new manga-journal yesterday that I need to fill with something.” Next to my pillow is the notebook Age handed me after the event. On the first page, he’s inscribed a poem I’ve read and reread so many times that I could quote it with my eyes closed.
As earth stirs in her winter sleep
And puts out grass and flowers
Despite the snow,
Despite the falling snow.
—Robert Graves
“Some guy, huh?” says Age.
I open the journal to run my fingers over Age’s slanting scrawl, all angular ascenders and descenders, the ridgeline of a beloved mountain. “Yup, just some guy who I really missed.”
He’s silent for a moment before shooting my words right back at me: “I know.”
“You are so…”
“Intelligent? Insightful? Unbelievable?” he prompts.
All of the above, I want to say, but settle on the truth: “Welcome.” And then I grin when Age um-er-uhs his way through a simple see-ya, so I know he’s feeling just as jittery as I am—in that good and oh-so-wonderful, I-am-aware-of-you way.
Hanging up, I place the phone next to the manga-journal and gaze out to the garden, still smiling. Like Mama’s peonies that bloom every year, I survived despite the snow, despite the falling snow. With one leg outstretched, I hug the other, the scarred one, to my chest. My friendship with Age may or may not become something more, but I know that it, too, will survive the winter of other boyfriends and girlfriends and Hong Kong.
I reach to my bedside table, where I’ve stashed my original manga-journal. After my manga marathon at Children’s Hospital, there aren’t many empty pages left, but I only need a few for my final drawings of Shiraz. The thing is, I can’t leave my girl unfinished.
The big question in The Ethan Cheng Way, the one you have to answer before you can begin to formulate a plan is this: what do you want? The only way I know how to answer that is with more questions of my own, which may not be what Baba intended. But it’s what feels right to me.
So propping my journal on both knees now, I draw a hall with door after door, each an open-ended invitation, a possibility. Manga author? Columnist? Snowboard gear designer? Publicist? That’s how I want Shiraz’s future to be. And mine. Endless questions. Infinite possibilities. In the center door, I finally write, Ex-pat in Hong Kong?
That’s all we can do: be prepared to spring on all the opportunities life presents us—on powder days, in business, and especially, in love.
When no more doors can fit on the page, I add the three tiny scars on Shiraz’s kneecap, a constellation tattooed on her, forever reminding her of what she lost—and found—on her mountains. I close my journal, rest my hand on the cover, giving it a benediction. As far as crutches go, Shiraz was an excellent one. But I like me better.
I pick up my gift from Age, my new notebook, the perfect container and mirror and psychoanalyst for my thoughts, dreams, and fears. On the cover is a bottle of (what else?) syrah, the best varietal, don’t we all think? I flip the book over, ready to begin once again in authentic manga style. Isn’t it funny that what the Japanese authors consider their first page is our happily-ever-after last one? When you think about it, it’s not a bad way to approach life. What appears to be an ending—heartbreaking wounds that you can and cannot see—may just be a beginning, a start of a brand-new adventure.
I take a breath and begin to draw my new beginning, my new adventure, starring me, Syrah, on this page as white and unblemished as newly fallen snow.
A few days later, I wake to the scent of soy sauce eggs and remember that it is my birthday, sweet savory sixteen. I trace my fingers around the dragons in my alcove bed, the ones swallowing their tails. And finally I understand what Bao-mu has been trying to tell me all along. You have to swallow your past and learn from it before you can move on. It’s too late for me to get to know Po-Po, but I can learn everything I can about her, my parents, Grace, all the rest of my family, and Bao-mu, who is waiting for me downstairs.
Without wasting another moment, I fling out of my bed and race down the steps so fast my orthopedic surgeon would cringe… or rub his hands in glee that I might be a repeat customer. At last, I reach the kitchen, and there, in front of the stovetop, stirring a pot like she has never left The House of Cheng, is Bao-mu. Her hair may be dyed black and permed curly now, but she is my Bao-mu, all dressed up in the tangerine-colored cashmere sweater she’s saved for special occasions. Like our reunion now.
I swallow my first instinct to cry, You’re home, but Bao-mu’s home is down in California in the house my mother bought for her to be near her own family. So instead, I call out, “You’re here!”
“See-raah,” Bao-mu says, remorse on her face as she turns to me. “I too late for you snowboard!”
“No,” I assure her, and wrap my arms around her. “You’re never too late. I have a video of it.”
She tried her best to come, and in my book, that says it all.
“How go? You do okay? Your mommy said you okay snowboard now. That true?” asks Bao-mu.
Instead of answering, I take her hand, so little in mine, and lead her toward the kitchen table. After I pull out a chair for her, I go to the stovetop and spoon two fragrant eggs into tiny bowls, one for her and one for me.
As I set the bowls on the table, I notice that it’s snowing outside, twice in this miracle season that was so slow to start.
“Look!” I point out the window as the gathering flakes skim and settle on the ground.
“So beautiful,” she says, beaming. “For your birthday.”
Bao-mu doesn’t have to tell me that these are a sign. The most gorgeous snowflakes, the ones with all the intricate shapes and patterns, drop the farthest from the sky. They don’t just survive their 40,000-foot descent. They revel in their fall, that harrowing, sweeping adventure that shapes them. Literally.
What’s the point of reducing life to a question of survival, as if our time on Earth is some ordeal to be endured? We all deserve more than that, me included.
Sitting across from Bao-mu so that I can look her square in the face, I tell her, “Bao-mu, you were wrong. Life is adventure, not just survival.”
I pick up her hands, mine cupped underneath hers like a safety net. With my thumbs, I rub her dry knuckles, hands that are swollen with arthritis but would still pull me up if I fall. In Mandarin, I say, “Wo jiang, ni ting.” Let me talk so you listen.