“Well, what did you expect me to do? You were in pain, going through something terrible. You thought you were alone. And your phone—have you ever not had it on you before? I was freaking out.”

“I think I left it in grandfather’s coat. He’s still at the hospital.”

She turned smoothly into the hospital parking lot. Only after she parked was it noticeable just how loud the car had been. The quiet morning enveloped us. The sun shone brightly through the windshield.

“Thank you for coming,” I said, staring straight out the window, at the hospital door, where some sort of fate awaited me—and then I stopped trying to keep the tears at bay. I let them roll freely and drop onto the ripped cushion of her passenger seat. I thought about her driving all night long, at least five hours, just for us, veering off her Ivy League path to this little side road where we had ended up, otherwise forgotten. I felt a bit less alone, and that made all the difference.

“I think this is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” I said.

Whatever anger she held against me for abandoning my phone vanished.

“Of course,” she said gently.

I unbuckled my seat belt, and we climbed out of the car. At the entrance to the hospital, she waited for me to enter first. I paused far enough away the automatic doors didn’t detect me, not yet.

“I’m here with you,” she promised.

And then the doors opened for us.

Chapter 28

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.