Remembrance

Five years ago, a fight neither of us would back down from smashed four years with Shen Yan to pieces. Out of spite I flew to New York; he stayed behind. Five years later, at a gallery opening in Manhattan, I turned and walked straight into his eyes, and into an explanation five years overdue.

My marriage to Lu Ting was a deal our parents struck over one dinner: he needed a wife to hold off his family, I needed a reason to stay in Tokyo. We wrote non-interference into the contract. But when the cherry blossoms opened in Meguro, the one who wanted to tear that contract up was him.

At twenty-six I flew to New York alone and rented the garden floor of an old Upper East Side brownstone. The landlords were two brothers: Julian, cold as a Wall Street winter, and Leo, warm as a Brooklyn afternoon. All winter long, the two of them took turns undoing my heartbeat.