The fluorescent lights of the garage felt blindingly harsh after the dim kitchen. Shuyin's bare feet slapped against the cold concrete as she ran alongside Mr. Feng, her grandmother's labored breathing the only sound that mattered.
Mrs. Lan wrenched open the car door, and together they maneuvered the fragile body onto the leather seats with a tenderness that belied their urgency.
Shuyin's hands trembled violently as she buckled herself in, her grandmother's head resting in her lap.
Through the rear window, she glimpsed Mrs. Lan standing in the garage entrance, one hand pressed to her mouth, the other clutching her phone, already dialing, though for what purpose Shuyin couldn't fathom. There was no one left to call. No family to summon.
They were on an island, unreachable, probably sleeping peacefully while everything fell apart.
Mr. Feng sped through the night as Shuyin muttered pleas.
"Popo... Popo..."
"Please hold on...."
The city blurred past the windows, neon signs and streetlights smearing into streaks of color.
Mr. Feng navigated the late-night traffic with a precision born of decades of service, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.
Every red light felt like an eternity, every turn too sharp, every second too slow.
Shuyin kept her grandmother's hand pressed to her cheek, feeling the papery skin growing colder despite the warmth of the car.
"Stay with me, Popo."
"Please stay with me."
I can't, I can't lose you too."
The old woman's eyelids fluttered. Her lips moved, forming words that barely reached a sound. Shuyin leaned closer, her ear nearly touching her grandmother's mouth.
"Not... your fault..." The whisper was threadbare, unraveling.
"Never... your fault, little swallow..."
"Don't talk, Popo. Save your strength. We're almost there." But even as she said it, Shuyin could feel the lie burning through her throat.
The hospital suddenly seemed impossibly far away, as distant as the island where her family slept.
Her grandmother's fingers twitched in her grasp, a feeble squeeze that might have been reassurance or a farewell. The distinction terrified her even more...
"Two more minutes, Miss Lin," Mr. Feng called from the front, his voice strained. He ran a red light, the intersection empty and indifferent to their emergency.
"Hold on. Both of you, just hold on."
Shuyin pressed her forehead against her grandmother's, her tears falling onto the weathered cheeks below.
In this moment, stripped of everything, her wedding, her dignity, her family's loyalty, she realized this frail woman in her arms was all she had left of love that asked for nothing in return.
The hospital's lights came into view up ahead, bright against the dark sky.
Mr. Feng hit the horn as he turned sharply into the emergency area, the tires squealing.
The car wasn't even fully stopped when Shuyin heard people running and calling out. She looked up through the window and saw doctors and nurses rushing toward them, pushing a stretcher.
The emergency room doors slid open, pulling them into a world of blinding white light and antiseptic urgency.
Shuyin stumbled out of the car, her bare feet hitting cold pavement as orderlies materialized with a stretcher.
Voices overlapped in a rapid-fire of medical jargon she couldn't understand, oxygen levels, blood pressure, possible cardiac event, words that buzzed around her head incessantly, meaningless.
They transferred her grandmother with practiced speed, and suddenly the gurney was moving, wheels clattering across linoleum.
Shuyin tried to follow catching up to them, her ruined nightgown clinging to her, but a nurse's hand pressed gently against her shoulder.
"I'm sorry, family waits here. The doctors need space to work."
"But I..." Shuyin's protest died as she watched the stretcher disappear through heavy doors marked with red letters she could barely focus on. The doors swung shut with a pneumatic hiss, absolute and final.
She stood frozen in the middle of the waiting area, suddenly aware of the stares. A young mother clutching a feverish child... An elderly man with a bandaged hand... A security guard whose eyes lingered too long on her disheveled appearance.
She looked down at herself, expensive silk now wrinkled and stained, her hair wild, her feet bare and dirty from the garage floor.
She looked exactly like what she was: someone whose life had been shattered in the span of a single night.
Mr. Feng appeared at her elbow, his face drawn with worry. "Miss Lin, please sit. I'll handle the paperwork." And he left to deal with it.
But Shuyin couldn't move.
Beyond those closed doors, her grandmother was fighting for her life. And it was all her fault.
It was her story, her pain, her burden that she'd placed onto the one person who'd never deserved it.
A nurse appeared beside her, her touch gentle but firm on Shuyin's elbow. "Miss, you need to come with me. Let the doctors work."
Shuyin allowed herself to be guided away, her feet moving without conscious thought.