Page 29

From the Reforged pencil of Wong Yun

I am writing through a fog, writing until my mind clears again.

The fog will pass.

It always does.

Until one day it won’t.

The surrounding is entirely unfamiliar.

A woman came in my room earlier.

“Your husband wanted you to have this.” Her voice was gentle, her words in Chinese.

I probably reminded her of her mother

or grandmother as she reminded me of Monica, if Monica were older and confident and where was Monica?

Where was I?

Where was

this husband the woman mentioned?

Who was this husband?

She handed me a bundle of paper wrapped around a single black pencil.

I pulled out the pencil, the feeling of its solid wood

against my fingers the only familiar thing.

Each paper was blank.

What kind of husband did I have, who would give me blank

paper?

“The doctor is coming to see you again. Your granddaughter is waiting to see you, too. We’ll let her in after the doctor.”

So now I write, the only familiar act in an otherwise entirely foreign environment.

The fog is beginning to pass.

I am in a hospital, I understand now, scribbling on blank paper.

Torou likely thought this would

comfort me.

He was right, of course he was.

I am beginning to remember falling down those stairs Monica always warned us about—and I am remembering that I am writing

to you, Meng, and that was related to the fall.

I had woken up in a fog.

Not the worst since I knew I was home, Torou next

to me, but I suddenly could not remember where you were.

It was almost as if I were living two lives.

Part of me knew Monica

was in the room next door, and yet another was convinced I had just received your letter, that you were still waiting for

my response, except that was before Monica even existed, before even Edward.

I did not reply to you when you needed me most.

Maybe that’s why I wear this pencil down now, to apologize for all these years.

And maybe that’s why I stirred awake, thinking I still had time to reply, that you were alone and lost in Shanghai.

The letter

you sent is tucked away downstairs, underneath all the boxes of tea we’ve received throughout the years, in the bottommost

drawer of the cabinet farthest from the oven.

I never wanted to unearth it before—probably why we never drank the gifted teas.

I can only say that the time has come, that even my harried mind can sense it, where we must iron out our misunderstandings.

The doctor just left.

He barely spoke to me, whether it was because he did not think I would understand English or because

he did not think I would understand any language due to my memory loss, I do not know.

At last, he brought Monica to my room,

my sweet, precious Monica, and told her I had a fractured hip and would need surgery, but that I would be able to go home

soon.

When she looked at me, I wanted to cry.

She would always be, to me, the small, quiet girl whose hair I tied into a bun each morning before school; who wore the same green vest every day to kindergarten because I worried her stomach would get cold, who, when others on the playground asked her to play, said no thanks, and sat quietly reading by herself.

Her eyes did not accuse.

Still, I understood.

She had thought she would be left alone in a world we had never let her be alone in.

“I scared you, didn’t I?” I asked.

She nodded, her jaw tight.

“Did Grandfather go home?”

Another nod.

“He was very tired,” she said stiffly.

After a pause—“Louise drove him home.”

“Oh.” And even though I could tell she wanted to move on, I could not help lingering over this.

“She must be in love with

you.”

Her cheeks, predictably, flushed.

“That’s—there’s no reason for that to be the conclusion—”

“Either that or she really loves driving.”

“She doesn’t,” she murmured, looking away.

“Ah.”

She shook her head and changed the subject.

“How are you feeling?”

“I can’t feel much of anything right now,” I said honestly.

“Do you remember why you were going down the stairs?”

It was my turn to look away.

I knew I had to tell her because it was likely the next time I had an accident of this sort,

I would not recover, and I would rather her find out from me than from your pencil or from her software.

“There is something I need you to know about me and Meng.” I nodded to the chair next to the bed so she would stop standing

and fidgeting.

Instead, she sat and fidgeted.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“I will tell you the important part.” It took me a moment to gather the words.

“When she needed me most, I ignored her.” That is true, isn’t it?

“Because I wanted to move on from our past, even if it meant moving on from her.” In that moment, I could almost see you there in the room with us, how you were when I left, when we thought we would only be separated a few months, only to have it turn into the rest of our lives.

You were a ghost, floating by the door, lying down, chin propped up in your hands, the same as you were when we wrote our story at night.

I could never tell, back then, if you enjoyed my additions, your face a mask of concentration.

It was the same as I explained myself to Monica.

I could not tell if you would forgive me.

I told her about the letter you sent, the first one I had received from you since I arrived in America.

By then Torou and

I were married.

It was my fourth year in this country, eight since I left Shanghai.

And I was, this is important, carrying

Edward.

I need you to know this because it is the only bit of information that might excuse my actions.

You sent a pencil,

no other note, and I told myself it would be too dangerous to Reforge it with Edward growing inside of me.

Our mothers had

never told us if that was the case.

I did not want to risk his little life, even though I knew you would only write to me

if you desperately needed help.

There was nobody else who could Reforge it, so I kept your pencil locked away until Edward

was born.

Even then, I delayed.

I can partially blame being a new mother.

Torou was working late all the time, doing all he could to

attain a tenured position, and Edward wasn’t a happy baby.

I convinced myself you did not need my help anymore, that it had

been months since you sent the pencil, that you would have figured out a way, as you always did.

And I had not Reforged in

years, had sworn off it, was terrified to do so again.

It was not until Edward was a year old that the guilt overcame me,

and I Reforged your pencil.

The note was short, so simple, it would have been nothing to bleed it back out, probably would

not have affected Edward.

I can still see the words now.

Mother has died.

Will you please come back?

I am alone.

Why did you not just write it on a piece of paper?

There were no incriminating words that would have been censored.

So there had to be somebody after you, somebody who would take advantage of knowing you were alone and without your mother.

Your mother would not have been old by then.

How had both of our mothers died so young?

Our greatest defenders, our greatest teachers, who danced and gambled and then left us to fend for ourselves after their lives burned out too soon.

You did not say what happened to your mother.

Was it not safe even for the hearts of our pencils to carry?

In a way I did

not need to know.

Your words— I am alone —were enough to tell me you had reached your lowest point, as I had in California.

I imagined you alone, and it was the same image of Monica sitting before me now, not quite looking at me, not quite accusing,

though not absolving either.

And as I told her all of this, she tried to defend me.

“It was unlucky timing,” she said.

“You were pregnant when you got the pencil.”

Then I told her my true mistake, the one that still haunts me, the one that makes you a ghost listening in on my conversations

even now.

“I never replied.”

At first, I told myself I would eventually.

Even after I had stashed the letter away, deep inside the cabinet drawer.

I was

afraid I would write, and you would be dead, and I would never hear from you again.

I was afraid I would write, and you would

be alive, and you would ask me to return to Shanghai.

I feared Shanghai by then.

I feared the ghost of our home, tensing at the passing footsteps of soldiers, the shadows of neighbors slipping away after spying on us.

The memories of family meals and Ah-shin’s cooking and when I teased you in school were gone.

It was the late fifties.

The American news reported that China had become a country of famine and poverty under Communist rule.

I did not want to see what my home had become, to witness what I was lucky enough to escape, what you were unlucky enough to have to live through.

Did not want to see how famine changed you, as I wandered through luxurious supermarkets, carefully selecting the freshest bok choy and the choicest cut of beef.

Did not want you to see this blessed life I had somehow built on top of all the lives whose words I had betrayed.

Even if we could have made our way there, even if all of the officials in China overlooked my flight to Taiwan, my father

the Nationalist, and if I somehow made it back to America afterward, somebody would have accused us of being Communists, enemies

of America, enemies of Taiwan.

Footsteps around the house, neighbors spying, again, even in America.

If it wasn’t famine in

China, it was the Red Scare or the Cold War here.

Torou would never have been able to keep his job.

We could not lose our

home, I told myself, not now, not after Edward’s birth, not when he could have a life free from occupation after occupation.

Excuses piled on excuses.

Convenient reasons to leave my past behind, to leave you behind.

“I don’t think it was unfair of you,” Monica said.

Always so careful with her words.

“And of course, you already know about the pencils I betrayed in California,” I said.

She gave the smallest of nods.

“I wish you hadn’t found out that way,” I said.

“But even if I could explain it myself, I don’t think I could do so in a way

that would make it forgivable.”

“It was a different time,” she said.

“And I should have waited for you to tell me. If and when you wanted to.”

“That’s why I wanted you to Reforge Meng’s pencil. She did not make the same mistakes I did.”

She shook her head.

“I don’t know Meng. And I don’t know exactly what it is you did, what it was like living through those wars. All I can say

is what I know of you now, and that for all my life, I have never had a reason to doubt you. I would forgive you for anything.”

I wanted to hold her close, wished she was once again small enough where I could place her on my lap and squeeze.

I wanted

nothing to touch her belief in me.

“But I could have written back,” I said.

“You could have written back,” she agreed eventually.

I always believed it was too late.

Until Monica taught me how to use the computer, until she told me about what it could do,

until she said maybe she would be able to find you.

Your girl came into the room then, led by a nurse.

She gave me all of the proper greetings and well wishes.

Either her parents

rammed this etiquette into her, or she could not bear to be seen as out of touch with a culture that elevated elders above

all.

She looked different this time—hair unkempt, glasses smudged.

My heart softened for her, driving all the way here, shepherding

my little family back and forth to see me.

And if that hadn’t softened me to her, the way Monica straightened, brightened,

even, as soon as she came in, would have made me partial to anyone.

“There’s no point staying,” I said.

“Go home. I think I may have left the stove on.”

“We can keep you company,” your girl offered.

“I’d like to be alone.” I was itching to get back to my writing, the urgency pressing ever since my fall.

“Alright,” Monica said.

She stood and reached for my hand.

I gave it a short squeeze, my promise not to scare her in such

a way again, a promise I would not be able to keep forever.

“I’m going to use the bathroom first.” She glanced between me

and your girl, gave a small smile, then hurried out.

“Thank you for driving all this way,” I said at the same time as she said, “I’m glad to see you’re feeling well.”

A light laugh to brush off the collision of our words.

“Were you scared?” she asked, her eyes finding mine.

Thick glasses—no wonder she normally wore contacts.

“Not really,” I admitted.

“When you get to be my age...” Once I had recovered from the shock of landing at the bottom of the stairs, I had even felt a bit of relief.

That I would be finally free of my guilt over my choices and over you.

“Monica was scared,” your girl said softly.

“She called me in the middle of the night, and I could barely get through to her.”

“Thank you for driving all this way,” I said again.

“I—” She glanced at the door, then back to me.

“It wasn’t only for Monica that I came.” Her words came out very fast.

“I was

worried for you. And for your story.”

You swirled above her, your chin on her head, gazing down at me with lazy eyes.

“My story?” I repeated.

“Yes.” Another glance at the door.

“I know we disagreed about this the last time we spoke. But I thought maybe now, after

your close call, after you saw how much Monica was shaken, you would be more willing to share your story.”

“Stop—”

“What are you going to leave Monica with once you’re gone?” Her voice was strained.

You tilted your head.

“You can leave her

all the money in the world, but it won’t be what she needs. She will always want to know more about you and the life you led,

and if you don’t share it now, it may be too late—”

“Stop.” It hurt to raise my voice.

I thought only Edward could make me do so.

“What right do you have to my story?” By then

I was looking above her, right at you, when you were twenty.

“Why should I relive all of that just to share it with you? It

was not a kind time. I don’t—I can’t—”

“You are writing it all down anyway, aren’t you?” She gestured at my pencil, at the paper.

“You are reliving it, so please,

please let me archive it—”

“Did you come here,” I said suddenly, the thought constricting itself around my heart, which had so recently softened for her.

“Did you drive all this way for Monica or for me?”

“For you,” she said without hesitation.

You vanished as soon as I tore my eyes away from her.

I looked to my worn-out hands,

wishing they could be strong and capable again instead of wrinkled and frail, to give myself something, anything, to make

me feel like I could still protect Monica.

“Please leave,” I whispered.

“I just mean—of course I came here for Monica too. But she would have been fine whether I came or not. She’s stronger than

she thinks. But your story—”

“Leave.”

“Please. I’m begging you not to just give it up.”

“I think we should leave Grandmother now.”

Even I had not noticed her, though I was facing the door and used to her quiet ways.

Her face gave away nothing as to how

long she had been there.

It was calm, just as it had been when each of her parents left.

“This—” your girl stammered.

She looked between me and Monica.

“This wasn’t how I wanted this to go.”

“Monica,” I began, even though I did not know how I would finish the sentence.

“You should rest now,” Monica said.

“I’ll come see you again tomorrow.”

She nodded at the door.

Your girl looked at me.

You were back to floating alongside her, eyes accusing me.

The two of you

turned slowly toward the door and walked out, Monica following behind.

I stared at the closed door.

I think a fog must have hit me at some point after they left, because the next time I felt like

myself again, it was dark and the pencil Torou left me was gripped tightly in my hand.

Another truth: one of the only reasons I told Monica to start looking for you again was to clear my conscience.

I thought there was nothing you could do to me that would hurt me anymore, not at my age.

But clearly there was, and I see I am now facing the punishment I deserve, a vengeance for what I did to you, the severity of which could only be matched by hurting Monica.

I let her leave the hospital with someone who could hurt her worse than any of the scenarios I had ever imagined—car accidents, thieves, bullies.

What damage could they do compared to a broken heart, and one I helped facilitate?

I’m afraid there is a world where you and I never understand each other again, where even all the words in the world cannot

right what the decades have wrought on us.