First Death

“Your aunt is sick,” Ting-ting’s mother said in her most peaceful voice.

 Ting-ting stopped goofing around. Her mind went blank for a second. “Yeah, pneumonia, you told me—”

“Advanced lung cancer,” her mother said calmly.

Even years later, Ting-ting could easily remember that night. It was one of the steamy summer nights in Shanghai. As if the air conditioner had finally worked, suddenly, all of the humidity was sapped out of the air.

Ting-ting looked at her mother. There was a second that she secretly wished it was just another horrible joke that her mother invented to scare her and trick her into studying for the upcoming high school entrance exam.

Ting-ting watched her mother, whose solemn eyes focused on the printer—lying on the desk and creaking breathlessly as if it is broken inside. Her stomach dropped.

“Is it … uh … is it …” Ting-ting found it frustrating to pick the right word out of hundreds of thousands of Chinese characters she had learnt, memorized, and even used in essays to please her Chinese teacher. After all, she was so good at this.  

 “…Is it…curable?”

 “No, it is not curable.”

The noise of the printer was getting more and more unbearable.

“Oh,” Ting-ting did not know what to say, “Then how long? How long does she have left?”

“Six months to two years … it varies … no one knows for sure.”

As if someone had thrown a basketball at her head, Ting-ting wasn’t sure if it was an accident or a terrible joke.

 “Can’t you think of something to help her? Give her a couple more years, at least … after all, you are a doctor and you have many doctor friends…”

“Right,” her mother sighed, “But there are cases even doctors can’t do anything about it.”

The printer suddenly began to vibrate. It became so loud that Ting-ting had to try hard to hear what her mother was saying.

“My friends have already found her the best possible doctor at the best hospital in Shenyang, and I am going back tomorrow to check on her.”

“Your grandpa and grandma don’t know about this yet, so you’d better behave yourself. Remember, don’t trouble them with anything you can handle yourself. There’s a lot to worry about already.”

Ting-ting nodded although she wasn’t sure she had heard all the words.

 “Don’t goof around like a fool. You are the one who is going to take the entrance exam, so, from now on, you’re on your own. I won’t pick up on you like this, come in every single time and catch you doing nothing. I won’t have the mood. You understand?”

 “I will be good,” Ting-ting mumbled, “But, are you planning to tell them? They are going to know, aren’t they?”

 “As soon as the time is right, I will.”

Ting-ting leaned forward to her desk and grabbed a pen, “I’m gonna study.”

Her mother took the newly printed documents and walked to the door. “Don’t you worry too much. She is my sister. I’ll do the best I can. And you do the best you can, which is study. You understand?” She left the room without looking back.

Ting-ting could not remember how many times she had later played these words in her mind. Every time just when she thought she had noticed something else in her mother’s voice, she heard nothing but the usual calmness.

Ting-ting dropped the pen because she couldn’t read any chemical elements on the practice exams at the moment. Unlike Chinese, English or even Math, chemistry always made her dizzy as if there was some kind of chemical reaction there, between her and the chemical markings on the page. She had to lie down.

Ting-ting dropped herself on her big soft bed. Her eyes wide open. She remembered one time, her best boy friend at school showed her a video in which a man was pressing on a woman, and together they were rocking in a strange way. It wasn’t until later that Ting-ting understood what was happening there. He must had thought he was sharing an intimate moment with her. But back then, she was disgusted. For a long time after that, she hated him for thinking she would understand something that she actually didn’t. She was forced to know something that she didn’t even want to. Ting-ting had her eyes closed. It was so quiet outside, even Grandpa was not watching the television news that night.

The following day, Ting-ting’s mother left. Ting-ting returned to her daily routine—school, home, dinner with her grandparents, and occasionally with her father when he came back from work early. As her mother had wanted, Ting-ting did not really think much about her aunt. In fact, she didn’t have the time. At school, all of her teachers tried to stuff one more thing in her mind before it got exploded. There was no time for her to rest. Every time she sneaked out of the classroom to fill up her water bottle, she imagined many more math problems were being solved by her deskmate, and even the thought of falling behind made her hurry up.

“Mom is right. Study comes first. There isn’t anything she could do to help anyway,” Ting-ting told herself every time she wondered if she had become someone like her mother, who was calm as always, sometimes too calm that it almost felt cold.

At home, Ting-ting stayed as quiet as possible and ate as fast as she could at the dinner table as if she was avoiding something. But avoiding what? Ting-ting didn’t know. The faster she tried to finish her meal, the harder she found it. No matter how much rice she managed to stuff in her mouth, there was something that prevented her from swallowing. Something subtle but hard and sharp, clinching to her throat like a fish bone. She remembered, one time, she actually had to go to the doctor to get it out because she couldn’t eat with something stuck in her throat. But this time, no one was going to take it out.

 A late afternoon a few days later, Ting-ting came back from school. She opened the door and immediately sensed that there was something wrong. There were no lights on and there was no dinner on the table.

In the living room, Ting-ting saw her mother and her grandparents sitting in the quiet dark. She couldn’t really see their faces. But vaguely, she saw her grandmother sitting on the chair with green beans to be trimmed in her hands. Hearing her come in, Ting-ting’s mother glanced at her and said nothing.

Ting-ting dropped her school bag on the floor and sat next to her mother. No one attempted to explain anything to her, or had the slightest intention to break the bleak air. She did not know how long before her grandfather finally got up, slowly and heavily. He seemed to look at something, far from him, or nothing in particular. Ting-ting couldn’t tell as his eyes remained hidden behind the glasses.

Ting-ting watched him trudge back to the bedroom. As if he had suddenly shrunk, Grandpa was no longer the same person Ting-ting had known before. Even just by watching him from the back, Ting-ting knew that for sure. Suddenly, Ting-ting realized, it had been a while since the last time she heard him watch the news. He had stopped for a reason. He might have had also been escaping.

Later that night, Ting-ting went back to her room. Before she went to bed, she remembered the last time she saw her aunt. She was still so lively and vibrant, telling everyone the joke of baby Ting-ting accidentally pooping on the patent leather shoes she had just bought for work. It was the first time that Ting-ting thought of her aunt after knowing her illness. Before realizing, Ting-ting found herself crying silently. It had all changed. From now on, she wouldn’t have another aunt telling the same joke. And that seemed like a bigger joke.

It was only years after that Ting-ting’s mother, for the first time, started to tell Ting-ting stories about her aunt. How she was born and survived during the three years of the Great Chinese Famine, how she was forced to go to a junior college, how she was introduced to her husband … and later how she died. Ting-ting couldn’t remember how their conversation ended up there, but it seemed her mother could go on telling those stories forever. It must have had been hard for her mother to have kept them all to herself for that long, Ting-ting thought. There were no tears on her mother’s face. She was calm as usual. But Ting-ting knew, just like her tears streaming down silently that night, there was much to be said underneath the calm surface.