The Second Day
When I woke up that morning, I'd been dreaming.
In the dream I was running down a hallway at the orphanage, running fast, but no matter how far I ran the hallway never ended. Someone behind me was calling my name, the voice far away, like it was coming through water. I wanted to look back, but my feet wouldn't stop.
Then I woke up.
The night light on the ceiling was still on — a little rabbit shape, warm and quiet, hanging there in the dark.
Boo was lying next to me. That almost-falling-off ear had flopped sideways again, like he was peeking at something. I tucked it back the way I always do, then looked at his face. His black eyes were round and still, the same as always, no matter when I looked. They never changed.
"Boo," I whispered. "Day two. Three more days."
I got out of bed and folded the blanket — corner to corner, edge to edge. I folded it twice. Then I opened my door and looked down the hallway.
Mom's door was closed.
I knew she wasn't there. But every morning I looked at that door anyway. Like if it was closed, I could pretend she just hadn't gotten up yet.
Sounds were coming from the kitchen.
Not the kind of silence from yesterday, where there was nothing at all — these were small clinks and clatters, with a soft hiss tucked in between.
I walked to the kitchen doorway and saw Dad standing at the kitchen counter.
He wasn't wearing a suit today. He had on a dark gray set of house clothes, sleeves rolled up past his elbows. Something in the pan in front of him was frying, making a steady sizzle. Beside him: three plates, three pairs of chopsticks, three glasses of milk.
He was making breakfast.
I stood in the doorway and watched for a while. The way he moved was nothing like Mom — when Mom made breakfast she'd hum, she'd flip an egg and turn around to ask me, "Sweetie, do you want it sunny-side up or scrambled?" But he didn't say anything. He just stared at the pan, focused, like he was handling something important.
He flipped what was in the pan. Fried eggs.
But one of the yolks had broken.
He looked at the broken yolk, frowned a little, then slid that egg onto a plate and cracked a new one.
This time he was careful. When he broke the egg into the pan, he held his hand low, slow, letting the egg slide in instead of drop.
The yolk didn't break.
He gave a small nod, like he was telling himself: that one's okay.
I don't think he knew I was watching. But then he spoke:
"How long have you been standing there?"
I startled. My fingers tightened around Boo's ear.
"Come sit down. It's almost ready."
He said it the same flat way he said everything, the same as yesterday morning — like me standing in the doorway watching him was the most normal thing in the world.
I walked to the table and stood in front of my chair.
He glanced at me, set down the spatula, and came over. Same as yesterday — he bent down, put both hands under my arms, and lifted me up onto the chair.
"Th… thank you."
He didn't say anything. He went back to the eggs.
I sat there and looked down at the placemat in front of me. The pink rabbit cup was in my spot, same as yesterday, same as the day before. Mom had put it there on the very first day. Even with her gone, it was still there.
Dad had put it there.
He never asked which cup I wanted. But he knew which cup went in that spot.
Gu Chen came downstairs with his hair sticking up on one side and his eyes not quite open yet.
He pulled out his chair and sat down, looked at the table: "Dad, you made breakfast again?"
"Your mom's not here. Who else is going to do it?"
"You could order delivery."
"Delivery's too greasy."
Gu Chen pressed his lips together but didn't say anything else. He picked up his chopsticks and took a bite of egg. Chewed twice. His expression went a little strange.
"…You put in too much salt."
Dad didn't answer. He just carried his own plate to the table, sat down, took a bite, paused, and kept eating.
He knew there was too much salt. He just didn't say so.
I looked down at the egg on my plate. The one with the whole yolk. I picked up a small bite and put it in my mouth.
Salty.
It really was a little salty.
But I ate the whole thing. Because that was the one he'd cracked fresh — the one he'd made again just so the yolk wouldn't break.
It was Saturday. No school.
After breakfast, Dad got a phone call and went into the study and closed the door. His voice came through the gap — low, too quiet to make out the words, but steady, the same as always.
The living room was just me and Gu Chen.
He sat on the couch with the remote, flipping through channels. The screen jumped around — news, cartoons, a cooking show, then back to cartoons.
I sat at the other end of the couch. About two people's worth of space between us.
Boo sat in my lap.
The TV was showing an animal cartoon — a group of little rabbits having an adventure in the forest. I watched for a while. One rabbit tripped and fell, and the others ran over and helped it up, and then everyone laughed.
I wanted to keep watching. But the remote was in his hand.
He changed the channel.
The cartoon disappeared. A grown-up talking about something boring.
I looked at the screen, then looked back down at Boo.
Then he changed it back.
The little rabbit cartoon again.
I looked up at him. He wasn't looking at me. His eyes were on the TV, his expression bored, like he hadn't done anything at all.
But he'd changed it back.
I didn't say thank you, because he didn't look like he wanted to be thanked. I just watched quietly as the rabbits kept running through the forest.
Around noon, Dad came out of the study with his phone still wedged between his ear and his shoulder, talking as he walked to the kitchen. He opened the fridge, looked inside, frowned a little, then hung up.
"What do you want for lunch?" he asked.
He was asking both of us, but he was looking in my direction.
I shook my head.
"Anything," Gu Chen said.
Dad glanced at me, then picked up his phone, scrolled for a moment, tapped a few times.
"Ordered pasta. Your mom said you like the cream sauce."
He said it naturally, like your mom said was just where he got his information, and his job was to carry it out.
Half an hour later, the delivery arrived.
Dad set three boxes of pasta on the table. Mine had a small sticker on it: Bacon cream — no black pepper.
No black pepper.
Mom had told him I didn't eat spicy things. He'd put it in the order notes.
I opened the box and twirled a forkful. The cream sauce was smooth and rich, the bacon was crispy, and there was nothing spicy anywhere.
It was so good.
I ate slowly, one bite at a time.
Halfway through, Dad's phone rang. He looked at the screen, then held it out to me.
"Your mom."
The screen showed a video call. Mom's face appeared — she was in a large room, a floor-to-ceiling window behind her, and outside the window were buildings that looked nothing like anything back home.
"Sweetie!" When she saw me, her whole face lit up. "Sweetie, how are you? Have you been missing Mom?"
I nodded.
Hard.
"Mom misses you so much, so so much. Did you eat? Is Dad taking good care of you?"
I nodded again, then tilted the phone so she could see the pasta on the table.
"Oh, Dad ordered pasta for you! Is it the cream kind?"
I nodded.
She smiled. "Good. Did he remember no black pepper?"
I nodded again.
Her smile got bigger, but I could see her eyes were a little red.
"Good girl. Mom will be back in three days. When I get home, I'll take you to that waffle place you like, okay?"
I nodded. This time I opened my mouth. I wanted to say something.
But nothing came out. I just held the phone up a little higher so she could see my face.
She looked at me, and her expression went very soft — like she could see what I was trying to say.
"Sweetie, I know," she said gently. "Mom is definitely coming back."
After the call ended, I handed the phone back to Dad.
When he took it, his fingers touched mine. He paused for a moment, then said very quietly:
"She means what she says."
In the afternoon, Gu Chen did homework in the living room.
He was sprawled over the coffee table, textbooks and worksheets spread out in front of him, one hand propping up his face, the other holding a pencil — writing a few words, then stopping to stare at nothing.
I sat on the rug nearby, a picture book Mom had bought me open in my lap. I turned the pages one by one, but I wasn't really reading. I was sneaking glances at him doing his homework.
His handwriting was really nice.
Much nicer than mine. My letters were all crooked and uneven. At the orphanage, the lady who taught me to write didn't have much patience. She showed me a few times and then said practice on your own and walked away.
He seemed to hit a problem he couldn't figure out. His pencil tapped against the paper a few times, and he muttered, "Ugh, this is so annoying."
Then he looked at me.
"What are you staring at?"
I quickly looked back down at my book.
He didn't say anything else and went back to his work. But after a moment, he held his pencil out toward me.
"You should be doing homework too. Don't you have some?"
I did. My teacher had sent home a phonics worksheet. It was in my backpack. But I hadn't planned to take it out, because I wrote slowly and there were a lot of characters I wasn't sure about.
I shook my head.
"Get it out," he said. "Otherwise you'll be scrambling tomorrow and it'll be annoying."
His voice didn't sound like he was worried about me — more like he was stating a fact. But after he said it, he slid his things to one side of the coffee table, clearing a small space.
Just big enough for one worksheet.
I hesitated, then got the paper out of my backpack and sat down at the coffee table.
I started on the first phonics symbol. ㄅ. I wrote it slowly. The strokes came out a little crooked.
He glanced over. Didn't say anything.
By the third row, I hit a character I didn't know. I stopped, pencil hovering over the paper, not sure what to do.
He wasn't looking at me, but he seemed to sense that I'd stopped.
"Which one?"
I pointed at it with my pencil.
He looked. "ㄌ一ˇ. Like in gift."
Then he went back to his own work.
I wrote the character in. Crooked, but there.
Two more times I got stuck, and both times it was the same — he didn't look at me, but when he heard my pencil go still, he'd ask which one, say it once, and go back to writing.
We sat at the same coffee table like that, each doing our own work, for the whole afternoon.
At some point he got up and came back with two glasses of water. He set one by himself and one by me.
He didn't say this one's for you.
But the glass was there.
Dad made dinner that evening.
Made might be generous — he cooked rice, then reheated the dishes Mom had prepared before she left. Red-braised pork, stir-fried greens, corn and spare rib soup.
"Your mom made these before she left," he said, and there was something in his voice — maybe pride, maybe missing her. "She was worried I couldn't cook."
Gu Chen picked up a piece of braised pork. "Mom's tastes better."
"Tell her that. She'll make more next time."
"You tell her."
"You tell her yourself."
The two of them always talked like this — short, back and forth like a ping-pong match, never saying anything deep, but easy to listen to.
I ate quietly. Tonight I didn't wait for anyone else to start. I picked up my chopsticks first.
Not because I wasn't scared anymore. It was more that — yesterday, when Gu Chen put a piece of meat in my bowl, something shifted. Like maybe it was okay.
After dinner, I helped carry the bowls to the sink. I wasn't tall enough — I had to stand on my toes just to reach the edge. When I set a bowl down it almost slipped —
A hand came from beside me and steadied it.
Gu Chen.
He set the bowl down properly, then said, "You're too short. Don't carry stuff."
Then he started washing the dishes himself.
Dad stood nearby and looked at him. The corner of his mouth moved, just a little.
Before bed, I sat on my mattress with Boo in my lap.
"Boo," I said. "Day two. Three more days."
I pulled his ear so his face was pointing at mine.
"Dad made me a fried egg this morning. He broke one, but he made a new one just for me. It was too salty, but I ate all of it."
"Mom called. She's really far away, but she said she's definitely coming back. Dad said she means what she says."
"Gu Chen taught me three characters I didn't know. He didn't look at me, but he could hear when my pencil stopped."
I set Boo down on the pillow and tucked the corner of the blanket around him.
"Boo… do you think they're really not going to send me back?"
Boo didn't answer. But his eyes were round and black and they stayed on me.
When I closed my eyes, I heard footsteps in the hallway, passing my door.
They stopped.
A little longer than yesterday.
Then the footsteps moved away.
The door to the next room clicked shut.
I turned over and pulled the blanket up to my chin.
Tonight I was sleeping in the middle of the bed, a little to the left. A little closer to the center than yesterday.
Boo was beside me. The night light was on.
Three more days.