(Based on characters in The Lightning in the Collied Night and The Loss of What Is Past)
April 25, 2044
Lai dashed up the stairs to her second-floor flat on Forest Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She stopped at her door, placed her palm on the scanner by the doorknob, heard the click as the door unlocked, then hurried through it into her small apartment.
Shit, I’ve gotta hurry! she thought anxiously as she went quickly from the living room into the galley kitchen and started cleaning it up. Her parents were due to arrive at seven p.m., and she saw by the clock on the old stove that it was 6:57. And if I know my dad, they’ll be right on time. Her last meeting that afternoon with the wormhole research team at the Harvard Center for Astrophysics had run long, and she was far behind her intended schedule.
She rushed back into the living room, scooped up from the floor and sofa her clothes that hadn’t made it to the bedroom the previous night, and tossed them into her bedroom closet and shut its door. Then she made a quick survey of the tiny bathroom. She picked up a foil wrapper from the floor and threw it into the wastebasket, straightened the towels on their rack, then went into the bedroom and looked fretfully at her unmade bed. No time for that, she realized.
She’d gotten a late start that morning because it took longer than she expected to get rid of her visitor from the previous night. He was reluctant to leave; he told her he’d had a great time and would like to see her again. No way in hell THAT will happen, she thought disdainfully. She’d already blocked his phone number, as was her standard procedure.
As she pulled the duvet up to cover the messy bed, she heard a knock on the front door. It’ll have to do, she sighed. She went into the living room, unlocked the front door, and opened it.
“Happy Birthday, sweetheart!” Lai’s mother Jun exclaimed with a bright smile. Her father Ru, standing behind Jun, was beaming also.
“Hi, Mom and Dad!” Lai hugged her mother. Her father, who was holding a vase of flowers in one hand, wrapped his other arm around his daughter.
“It’s wonderful to see you, bǎobèi,” Ru said happily, using a Chinese term for treasure.
As Jun and Ru stepped into the living room, Ru held out the vase filled with lotus flowers to Lai. “Happy Birthday, Lai,” he smiled affectionately as Lai took the vase from his hands.
“Oh, Dad, these are gorgeous!” she exclaimed in delight. Lai knew that lotus flowers were very hard to find in Cambridge and extremely expensive when they could be found. They bloom only twice each year, including earlier in April on Buddha’s birthday. Her father had taught her when she was a little girl that the lotus symbolizes the purity of an enlightened mind that can arise even amidst the suffering of samsara (the world). She knew he gave them to her with that meaning in mind, and probably also because they’re a symbol of a woman’s noble and pure personality. Yeah, right! Lai thought. She set the vase on her coffee table as her mother’s eyes swept the living room; it was the first time Jun and Ru had visited Lai in Cambridge.
“You have a charming home, Lai,” Jun said appreciatively. “I love the bay window, the natural light, the wood floors …. It has a lot of positive energy.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Lai decided to not tell her mother that whatever positive energy her apartment had was accidental, as she didn’t deliberately follow the principles of feng shui as her mother did. “I can give you the Grand Tour, if you’d like—such as it is,” she said with a slight smile. “Or maybe that could wait until after dinner?” They were going to celebrate Lai’s birthday at the Shōjō Restaurant in Cambridge.
“I’d love to see the rest of it, but it can wait,” Jun agreed. “But, before we leave for dinner, I’d like to give you my birthday gift.” She smiled as she handed Lai a box wrapped in traditional Chinese paper with Double Happiness symbols.
“Thanks, Mom.” Lai accepted the gift from her mother, carefully unwrapped the box, and opened it. “Oh my gosh!” She looked down wide-eyed at a sepia rose silk robe with a Chinese floral pattern. “It’s so beautiful! Thank you, Mom!” she said as she hugged her mother.
“I’m glad you like it, sweetheart,” Jun replied. “I didn’t think you had a robe like this. It was handmade in China Silk Village in San Francisco.” Lai slipped on the long, kimono-style robe. “It looks very nice on you. I thought the color would be perfect with your green eyes.”
“It is perfect, Mom. I love it. Thank you so much—both of you—for the thoughtful gifts, and for being here for my 25th birthday. It means so much to me that you came here all the way from northern Minnesota to share this day with me.”
“We wouldn’t have missed it, honey,” Ru said as he smiled tenderly and proudly at his only daughter, who’d recently overcome huge obstacles to follow in his footsteps and earn a PhD in physics. He and Jun had missed Lai’s previous birthday because she was in Cambridge, England then, finishing her graduate studies in quantum physics. “Not being here with you today would have been like a sky without stars.”
As Lai removed the robe, carefully returned it to its box, and went out the front door with her parents, she couldn’t have known it would be the last time they’d celebrate her birthday with her … and the lotus flowers and exquisite silk robe would be the last gifts she’d ever receive from them.
