Page 5 - My FlipBook

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I can’t believe I heard right. Bao‑bao dead? How can that be?
I punch in Nainai’s number three more times, but I can’t get
her back.
I dial up Mama, but the call goes to her voicemail. Same
with Baba. I try texting them. I wait and wait, sitting against
the wall in the corridor with my knees drawn up, restlessly
unbraiding and rebraiding my hair.
My roommates and the girls all up and down the hall laugh
and shriek and sing as they stuff their bags and fill the trash
cans. There’s no response and I’m left frantically wondering,
Why don’t they answer? Why don’t they call me? What could have
possibly happened? Bao-bao can’t be dead.
Finally, a couple hours later, my phone dings. It’s a text
from Mama telling me to get on a bus and come to Taiyuan.
That’s all she says. Nothing else. I consider messaging back,
hammering her with questions, but I know she won’t answer
them, because she’s paid no attention to me so far.
My roommates help me cram the rest of my clothes and
books into my bags, and I drag them to the Linfen bus station
in a foggy state of mind. I text Gilbert, my childhood friend,
to tell him I won’t be traveling home with him to our village,
that I have to go to my parents in the city instead. He messages
back to ask what’s going on. I only say something’s happened
to Bao-bao, the same vague information I gave the girls. I can’t
say he died.
I can’t, because I wished for it so many times.

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