When There’s Something

The red thread draws taut beside the terminal stairs.

I follow it past the place where the train stopped. The doors behind me remain shut, their dark glass showing no reflection. Ahead, a narrow opening appears in the tiled wall. Warm light falls through it, and I hear a kettle click off.

Shuyin is at the kitchen table with her phone beside her hand. Shuqiao stands by the counter, measuring tea into two cups. A damp coat hangs over the back of a chair. I recognize the apartment, though the details have the softened edges of a place remembered rather than seen through a window.

Shuyin rubs her thumb over the phone’s case. The screen is dark.

“You don’t have to decide tonight,” Shuqiao says. She sets a cup down within Shuyin’s reach. “About the recordings.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” Shuqiao takes the chair across from her. “You looked at that phone three times while I was making tea.”

Shuyin lifts the cup and tests it with her lips. “It’s hot.”

“I can see that.”

A small smile crosses Shuyin’s face. She sets the cup down carefully. The red tie around her wrist slides against the ceramic.

For a while they talk about the rain, the leaky umbrella Shuqiao brought, and the neighbor upstairs who has started dragging furniture across the floor at unreasonable hours. Shuqiao describes the scraping as if she has measured it for a report. Shuyin laughs once, unexpectedly, and covers her mouth with her hand.

The sound reaches the opening cleanly. It is the first laugh I have heard from her tonight.

Then Shuqiao asks, “When you record, are you hoping he’ll hear it?”

Shuyin doesn’t answer at once. Her eyes go to the phone. I can see the faint outline of her fingers reflected on its black screen.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Sometimes I think I’m talking to him. Sometimes I think I’m just making a place to put the day.”

Shuqiao wraps both hands around her cup. “I don’t want you waiting for an answer that can’t come.”

“I’m not.”

The reply comes quickly. Shuyin glances down, and her fingers begin turning the cup by its handle. “I don’t think I am. But I can’t tell you that I’m sure.”

Shuqiao lets that stand. She reaches for the small plate between them and pushes the last piece of toast toward her sister. “Eat this before it gets cold.”

Shuyin breaks off a corner. She eats it without looking at the phone.