Between Two Words
Episode 11 - Emily is Lost
Between Two Words
Episode 11 - Emily is lost
The crossing took eighteen hours. Eighteen hours of darkness and damp. Eighteen hours of the boat’s engine throbbing through her bones, of waves slamming against the hull like fists. She did not sleep. She sat with her back to the metal wall, her coat pulled tight, her bag between her feet, and she thought about the life she had left behind and the life she was sailing toward.
What will he say when I show up on his front doorstep?
Will he be angry? No, most certainly not angry, but very surprised.
I hope he still wants me. I should never have left. I know that now. I know that now, but all I can do is go and hope my teacup is still in his cupboard.
She could survive anything now that she had survived almost three years without him. Her bravery returned as she envisioned his face. His sweet, crooked smile. The way he said, “Bloody Hell!” anytime anything was amiss.
The look in his eyes when she said she was leaving to return to Hong Kong. He didn’t plead, he didn’t beg her, he only nodded and said, “You have to do what’s right.” She smiled a small smile, remembering him. His face, his smell, his laugh. She should have known how much she loved him. She should have known she could never forget.
She wiped a tear from her eye angrily. Well, you know now!
The woman with the children did not speak to her. The children did not cry. They were past crying or had been scolded not to. They sat in the circle of their mother’s arms, their eyes wide and dark, and they watched Emily with the same blank curiosity they might have watched any stranger.
At midday, the woman noticed Emily didn’t have any food. She offered her a piece of dried fish and a handful of rice from her basket. Emily accepted graciously, ate slowly, and tried to smile. The woman did not smile back. After a moment, making up her mind, she nodded once, as if she understood something Emily had not said. She poured some of the liquid in her thermos into the lid. Handing the lid to Emily, she said,
“平安“ (Safely) Emily took the lid gratefully and drank the tepid tea. She handed it back to the woman.
“谢谢您.” (Thank you) Emily whispered. The woman nodded once more, then turned away.
The sea was rough. The boat rolled and pitched, and more than once Emily had to clutch at a crate to keep from sliding across the floor. She was sick, once, then twice, into a bucket she found in the corner, and the woman’s youngest child watched her with solemn eyes and said nothing.
As the afternoon wore on, the light filtering through the hatch changed from grey to gold to a deep, bruised purple. Emily felt something build inside her. The knot that had been tight for two years began to loosen. She was leaving. She had done it. She had chosen. She had chosen love.
She thought of her mother, waking to an empty house, finding the letter on the kitchen table. She thought of her father’s face, the disappointment that would settle into his features like a stone statue unable to smile. She thought of Ah Fong, finding the envelope on the desk, understanding. She thought of Mei-Ling, opening the red envelope, seeing the money, reading the note.
We must show we are not broken.
Tears stung her eyes. She mustn’t cry. She was not broken. She was, for the first time in her life, whole.
They docked at Keelung a little before midnight. The harbor was a confusion of lights and noise, the air thick with the smell of fish and diesel and something else, something green and growing that reminded her of the mountains behind her childhood home. Emily climbed up from the hold, her legs unsteady, her bag heavy in her hand, and stepped onto the dock.
The captain was already gone and had disappeared into the crowd. The woman with the children had vanished as well, melted into the darkness with her silent little ones. Emily stood alone on the dock, looking at the city spread out before her, and felt the first flutter of something that might have been excitement.
She had made it. She was in Taiwan. She was on her way.
But she was not there yet. There was still the plane ticket to purchase, the flights to London. And there was something else, something she had not anticipated, being a woman alone, travelling was dangerous. She took notice of a man in a grey coat, watching her from the end of the dock, his face half-hidden in shadow, his hands in his pockets. He was not moving. He was simply standing, waiting, as if he had known she would be on this boat and had been expecting her.
Emily’s heart clenched. She looked around for an escape. A street, a shop, a crowd to lose herself in, but the dock was emptying, the sailors and passengers dispersing into the night, and she was alone with her bag and her new fear and the man who was watching her.
She turned and walked quickly toward the street, her head down, her pace steady. She did not run. Running would draw attention. Running would be an admission. She walked, and she listened, and she did not look back.
Behind her, she heard footsteps. Not running. Just walking. Keeping pace.
She reached the end of the dock and turned into a narrow street, the buildings closing in around her, the lights growing dimmer. The footsteps followed. She walked faster. The footsteps matched her speed.
She was not safe. She had escaped Hong Kong, but she was not yet free. Fear gripped her hard. The world was full of bad things, and she was alone with no support.
别害怕美丽！ 别害怕！ （Don't be afraid, Emily! Don’t be afraid!)
Somewhere in the darkness ahead, the city of Keelung was waiting, its streets winding, its secrets deep, its dangers unknown. Emily gripped her bag tighter and kept walking.
She walked until her legs trembled and the streets were brighter, lamps guiding the way. Only then did she dare to slow down, to look back. The street behind her was empty. The man in the grey coat was gone, swallowed by the shadows she had left behind, or could have never been there at all.
Emily leaned against a wall, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She pressed her hand to her chest to still her heart. She had been running for nearly an hour, weaving through the narrow streets of Keelung, turning corners at random, ducking into doorways, until she no longer knew where she was or how to get back to the harbor.
She was lost. For the first time since she had slipped out of her parents’ house, she was alone.
Bloody hell!
The street she stood on was quiet, the shops shuttered, the windows dark. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked, a sharp sound that echoed off the concrete walls and faded into nothing. Emily straightened her hat, adjusted her grip on her valise, and began to walk.
To be continued...
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I’m embarrassingly... attached... to her teacup maybe still being in his cupboard, like love had a little shelf and she was just hoping nobody cleared it.
Love this! such a great story... can't wait the next one... let see where is Harold ...