Nine days back where she grew up, with new eyes.
The California pack. Jan flies home — SFO, rental car, four days, the usual circuit: Dad in San Jose, Daniel and Sarah and Henry in Oakland, an obligatory afternoon at the bay. She has done this trip twice a year for six years. This time is different. Not in a dramatic way. Just — slightly. The bed is smaller. Henry is bigger. Dad asks one less question. She drives the same freeway and feels, in her body, like a different car.
4:18 PM Pacific.
California air off the jet bridge — dry, warm, the specific quality I'd forgotten I missed. Daniel at the curb where Daniel is always at the curb. Waved. Didn't get out of the car. Never does. He said hey, I said hey, and we drove the 280 north. Hills the dry yellow that the hills are. Been gone eight months. Had also, somehow, never left. California is dry the way I remember. I am wetter than I used to be.
Dad bought a new espresso machine.
The kind I'd buy if I had his salary. He memorized the steam-wand instructions from YouTube. Demonstrated them. The espresso was, in fact, good. Drank two each, standing at the counter. Talked about the machine. The weather. The new neighbors. Didn't talk about anything important. Never have. Dad and I are good at the surface. This trip, I've decided to be okay with the surface. Espresso was a thing he made for me. The making was the love.
Dad's to Daniel's: fifty-two minutes.
280 to the 92 to the 880, the way I've driven since seventeen. Knew the exit before the sign told me. Knew the lane that empties weirdly at the bridge. The radio station that comes in clearly between Hayward and San Leandro. Hadn't driven in eight months. The car remembered me. Was, on the road, both seventeen and twenty-nine at once. The lanes can hold both, it turns out. Windows down for the last six minutes.
Henry walked up, held out a small stuffed stegosaurus, and said "YAN." Deliberate.
Two syllables. Daniel started laughing. Sarah said "oh good, he picked it." Henry then said "YAN, big." I am, to a three-year-old, big. He has decided. I am Yan. We played for forty minutes. He renamed the stegosaurus four times. Fourth name was Friend. I think that's the keeper.
Sarah made dumplings.
Sarah, who is from Minnesota and has worked on her Mandarin for eleven years, learned Mom's dumplings. Made them the way Mom taught her three Christmases ago. Pleats neat. Neater than mine. Ate one — good, and not the same. Wrapper a little thicker. Filling a little less salty. Theirs now. Dumplings migrate. Changed slightly by being loved by new people. I had three. Sarah and I didn't talk about any of this. We were the people the dumplings were for.
Dad asked what's next with the job.
Three years ago this would have sent me to the bathroom to cry. Two years ago I would have invented an answer. Tonight I said "I'm figuring something out. I'll tell you when there's something to tell." Didn't over-explain. Didn't apologize. Daniel raised an eyebrow — good, that. Dad nodded. Said "okay." Passed the potatoes. The not-explaining was the work. The work this trip was holding.
Twin bed at Dad's.
Always too short — I am five-six, the bed is five-eight, generously. Slept curled. Ceiling has the water stain it's had since I was seventeen. The bookshelf still has To the Lighthouse from senior year, which I didn't finish then and have, since, finished twice. The room hadn't changed. I was, somehow, the size I am now — both inside the room and bigger than it. Slept okay. Slightly cramped.
Bench near the Berkeley Marina.
Sat here since I was nineteen. The water the same water. Fog the same fog. The man with the metal detector — somehow — the same man. He nodded. I nodded back. Wind picked up. I'd been to a different river since the last time I sat here. The bay doesn't require updates. Sat for forty minutes. The bench is what benches are for. I had been to a different one. I came back anyway.
Small cry at the gate.
Hadn't expected it. Four days of Henry and Sarah's dumplings and Daniel-with-two-beers and Dad's espresso and the bay and the old room and the freeway. The right kind of full, right kind of tired. Boarding announcement. Picked up the tote. Wiped my face on the back of my hand. Mim at Priya's. Greg on the windowsill. Cardigan on the chair. Two homes. I live in one. I grew up in the other.