A Place for One More

The red thread reaches the door before I do.

It runs from the stairwell, across the pale platform, and beneath a door that has no handle on my side. I have learned not to pull. When I try, the thread tightens against my fingers and the ache comes back through my arm, small but exact. So I follow it instead.

Beyond the door is Shuyin’s apartment.

I recognize the entryway: the shallow dish, the shoes she leaves by the wall, the lamp she turns on when she needs the rooms to feel less empty. The view has the stillness of a place remembered, but there are small things in it that do not belong to any moment I can name. A grocery bag hangs from her wrist. Her coat is damp at the shoulders. She has set her phone on the table, screen down.

I can see her. I can hear nothing yet.

The door opens again, and Shuqiao steps inside carrying a paper bag. Shuyin moves aside to let her pass. Her sister sets the bag on the counter and begins taking things out: two containers, a bunch of greens, a small carton of milk. A practical visit, made to look like an errand.

Shuyin takes off her coat and hangs it over a chair. She watches Shuqiao put the milk away. Then she looks at the phone on the table.

Her hand hovers over it.

I know the shape of that hesitation. She is deciding how much of herself to put where another person can see it. Even now, I want to tell her she does not have to make the choice neatly. I have no voice to offer her, and no right to make the choice for her.

Shuqiao closes the refrigerator. “I can walk you home after we eat,” she says. “Or stay awhile, if you want.”

Shuyin turns the phone over, then turns it back again. “You said that yesterday.”

“I did.”

“And I said maybe tomorrow.”

“You did.” Shuqiao picks up one of the containers. “Do you want rice with this?”

Shuyin doesn’t answer. She takes a glass from the cupboard, fills it at the sink, and drinks half of it standing there. Her shoulders have drawn up beneath her blouse. When she puts the glass down, it lands too hard against the counter.

“Can you stay tonight?” she asks.

It is not the sentence she prepared. I see it in the way she looks at the glass afterward, as if there might be a second version of the request waiting at the bottom.

Shuqiao stops with one hand on the container lid. For a moment, the practical answer does not come. Then she sets the food down.

“Yes,” she says. “I’ll stay.”