Thursday.
Busy at the shop. The kind of busy that arrives for no reason anyone can name.
Parcels for Shanghai, a long list for Chengdu, a lady who changed her mind about the lutein three times and then bought it anyway. Mai taping boxes at one end of the bench, me at the other. Lunch was a rice box eaten standing up at ten past three.
Home before six. Rice on, a pan of greens, eggs steamed in the little white bowl. Dinner in twenty minutes, and in the lamplight under her door, my daughter was already at it again.
Business went well. She still says so. This morning it was I think I did fine, a notch quieter than yesterday's I really believe. Then, over toast, in her flat voice: Economics is next week. Economics is the one that humbles people.
So no relaxing. Not yet. She knows it, and I know it, and neither of us said it twice.
After dinner, laptop at the kitchen table. A WeChat to Ninuo.
Weeks since I'd written. Not since the order — since her, properly. Exam weeks swallow everything, and I'd let them.
Typed: Ordered a few more things. Sorry for the silence — it's been all papers and toast around here.
Sent it. Went to rinse the cups.
The phone buzzed before the tap was off.
Silly. Exams come first! I'll come over next week and see you.
And then, a minute later: Want to take your daughter for a physio and a massage? Right away — a good way to loosen up.
Kind of her. Entirely kind, no angle in it. I read it standing at the sink with wet hands.
Didn't think. The answer was typed before I'd dried my fingers.
After the last paper. Not before. For now I'll just do a mask with her every night.
A laughing face came back. Then a thumbs up. Then nothing, and the kitchen went quiet again.
Funny. I'd braced for an apology to be needed. For the silence, for the weeks. None was. Ninuo had simply picked the thread up where it was left, the way you pick up a coat from the back of a chair.
And the other thing. I knew my answer without having to look for it. A new place, new hands, a booking squeezed into a week that was already full — no. What she needed was the same couch, the same lamp, the same Spa Day mask, and fifteen minutes in which nobody asks her anything.
Knocked on her door at half past eight.
Mask?
A pause. A page turning.
Fifteen minutes, she said. Then I'm back on the graphs.
Fair. Two cold faces on the couch, one phone face down on the cushion.
Later, rinsing off, I thought about Ninuo coming over next week. Her world has events and rooms full of people and a calendar that never sits still. Mine has a hallway cupboard and a Sunday bag of bottles.
Wondered what she'd make of the cupboard.
Wondered, too, whether she'd ask.