Chapter 44: No Secrets

Xiao Chen wrote back with his thumbs shaking.

I'm coming home. Stay there.

The answer came before he put the phone away.

I'm home.

The taxi took forty minutes through the noon traffic.

He sat in the back with both hands flat on his knees.

The bond told him very little.

It was not the lake.

It was not the Saturday market, either.

It was a thin, cold line that ran straight and did not move.

He had never felt it before.

In the lift Xiao Chen counted the floors.

He got to twelve, and lost his place, and started again.

The front door of the flat stood a hand's width open.

He pushed it with two fingers.

The hall was bright.

The lemon tree rustled in the window.

A pot of tea sat cooling on the counter with two cups beside it, and one had been used.

Shen Yan sat at the kitchen table.

He had the grey blanket round his shoulders and his belly pressed against the edge of the wood.

He did not look up.

On the table in front of him lay a torn cream envelope, with its censor's stamp across one corner.

Beside it stood the duck thermos.

In both of Shen Yan's hands was a single page of close, fine writing.

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