Package

“It’s a package from China,” his sister said from beyond the kitchen, down the hall. “There’s CHINESE words on it.”

He looked from the computer screen at her, walking towards him across the green linoleum tiles, past the sink, and to the desk where she dropped the package and walked away.

He took the package in his hand without focusing on it, white paper. Soft. Maybe clothing? He hoped they wouldn’t ask him to open it; he felt relieved when he saw his father go out into the garden and heard his sister go up the stairs to her room.

Alone in the kitchen, he sat down and began to eat, the large envelope from China on the couch, out of view. He took a bite of sandwich. He had been mindlessly tapping at his keyboard for over an hour, mind in a fog, hungry and waiting for that sandwich.. Now, his stomach felt weird. He could still eat, and did, but there was no enjoyment in the taste nor texture.

Savor his meal he did not, but he did not rush through it. The uneasiness in his stomach, which felt amorphous and mobile, as if it would spread and then keep spreading from the inside out, kept him eating slowly. He knew he’d open the package as soon as he finished eating. It kept him eating slowly.

Almost finished, he paused and took a deep breath. He let out a sigh that was meant to calm his nerves. Each of his fingers felt heavy, yes there was a definite numbness in his fingers and hands, sort of like when one wakes up and finds it hard to make a fist. Or like in the cold, the hands and feet are the first to go. What was wrong with his nerves?

He got up, threw away the wrapping the sandwich had come in, and called out a “Thanks, Dad!” to his father in the garden. He picked up the package and immediately knew what he was feeling.

Lovesick. He’d been suspicious of it, having had felt it on and off in the past several months. But…things had been going well. Very well even. And this package, it was sent in good faith. It was a birthday present. He should have felt happy. He furrowed his brow, a little worried, a little disgusted with himself. He walked up to his room with the envelope in his hands.

The first thing he did was read his name, handwritten in blue ink in the middle of the envelope: “Daniel Lim Roberts”, and he smiled a sad smile when he thought of how her voice sounded saying his full name out loud. She knew him by that name. He'd inserted the "Lim" along the way, to honor his Chinese parentage. But growing up, he was just Daniel Roberts, Roberts, Danny, Dan, he might have even been D. Rob to some, sometime in high school. But to her, he’d been Daniel Lim Roberts. Never just Dan.
“I hate the thought of Dan…sounds so American!”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“Daaaaan! What’s up, dude!” her head cocking and her hand twisting into something like a gang sign.
“You’re American accent is horrible.”
“‘American’ is a horrible accent, I didn’t invent it,” she said smiling. She always smiled like a cat.
“‘Friend of me, mother of Krissy, work of my father,’” he whined, mocking her now. “It’s ‘MY friend, KRISSY's mother, and MY dad’s job!’”
“Whateverrrr,” she had probably said. And then he’d probably tackled her. He chuckled quietly to himself at the memory. He missed their jokes, so simple and bland, devoid of any real snappy cleverness. It was easy, and it was funny. To the two of them. Everything else doesn't matter, and everything makes sense, when it's all wrapped in a world for two.

His eyes drifted down, below “United States of America.” She had written ‘美国’. The little characters, the lines curving and jumbling together like Mandarin chicken scratch. He had seen her, years ago, head down in her books, eyes almost menacing in their concentration, writing characters over and over, studying. He remembered sitting across and aways from her, and stealing glances. One night his friends had come in to the study hall and began back slapping, talking loudly, and she had looked up, frustrated. He’d shushed them, and tried to give a guilty smile to her, but she was already buried again in her books. He wondered if she wrote in Chinese a lot, nowadays.

On the package she had made a mistake writing his address, too, he noticed. He wondered if she’d said “Oh no”, or “whoops”, aloud yet softly to herself, scribbling out the error with her pen.
It had traveled a long way to get here, he thought, looking at the lumpy, handled paper. The stamps with red Chinese characters meaning flight, China Post, the little 元 symbol. The characters seemed to call to him, those symbols that spelled out history and culture and yes, even magic, strung together over cave walls and battered parchment or fine strokes on royal stationary and the fine calligraphy on giant scrolls where the characters formed their own paintings. He turned the package over to open it, and paused when he saw she’d written the return address there, where they used to live. He suddenly and concretely longed for his old life. What had she sent him? Had she included a letter? Without a doubt, no matter what gift was within, he yearned for a letter from her more than anything.

Inside was a laminated photo of the two of them, 8 x 11, from his going away party. She had her arm around him, the other hand had held her camera. He turned the photograph over. He read the sweet, hand written note on the back, with grammar mistakes and “u” instead of “you”. His eyes became watery after the second sentence, and when he read the words “Just want to tel you that I’m so happy to meet you in Shanghai and that I’m gratefull to be loved by you and have u in my life”, he was in tears.

At the end:

“Take care and don’t forget that I love u.”

He found the other laminated photo in his room, the one she had made from their Thailand trip, and compared them. She was beautiful in both, and absolutely striking in one. He looked now carefully at their eyes. Hers were the eyes commonly associated with the Oriental, single lidded, small, and nearly impossible to read. Early on they had seemed stern, cold, and even cruel, he had sometimes thought to himself. He'd learned over time how to read them. His were expressive and innocent, the kind of soft eyes that people trusted, that people associated with kindness and perhaps an inability to do harm to another. He looked at his eyes and his face in the photos. He looked for the sadness that didn't show up in pictures. The the dissatisfaction, ebbing confidence, the insecurity, the self-hate, the doubt.

His doubt, both in himself and about her, that had finally gnawed on his soul and heart until it was unbearable. He’d taken it, absorbed it, shoved it down. He'd made vows and demanded strength from himself, and even righteousness. He’d cursed himself and his weakness to the point of self-flagellation, trying to shut the uncertainty up and never wanting to look it in the eyes but at night when he lay in bed as she slept calmly his eyes were open and it stared at him from the darkness like an ashen wight. He looked at her now in the photo, and thought how she must have seen his face when she kissed him, when he told her “I love you.” How she must have trusted his eyes.

He didn’t want to open the wrapped gift anymore. It seemed to him, whatever it was that she’d sent to him…he didn’t’ deserve. And it didn’t matter. Not next to those photographs, and the secrets they'd held.

He opened it anyways. Inside were camoflauge shorts, and a brown leather bracelet with a string band; the bracelet was almost a replica of one she had brought back for him from Japan two years earlier. He put the shorts on, and the bracelet. He tried to be unceremonious about it, but he couldn’t quell the feeling of gravity as he tightened the bracelet. The items smelled like her.

Had she scented them with her perfume, intentionally?

Then was the photograph, the words, the sentiment, the “…don’t forget I love u”, did it all mean something more than her affection as a friend? His heart lifted at the thought. And then, just as swiftly, he felt ashamed, like a kid, playing dress up, imagining things.

Daniel had wronged her and lost her. He looked again at the words on the back of the Thailand photo. From almost a year ago. She had made that photo the night before his going away party, with the words, "See you in the capital!" He had broken her heart that very next night. But she still gave him the parting gift, with her words of encouragement, words similar to those she had written him now:

“I know u have your ups and downs, but I hope even though u don’t feel always happy that u’ll stay strong and believe in yourself and your loved ones.”

Believe in your loved ones, he thought, and he sat on his bed and stared, at nothing in particular, wearing his gifts.