“What about when you become an ancestor? What if one of Xian-rong’s children gets sick?”
“You can—”
I don’t let her finish. “I can deliver a baby and help a girl with a pimple. Beyond that? You’re the last woman in our line with your skills. And we don’t know why Xian-rong got better when many others don’t.” I give A-ma time to absorb what I’m saying. Then, “And there’s one more thing.”
I’ll never stop respecting my a-ma. She’s farmed, harvested vegetables and threshed rice, raised and slaughtered animals, cooked for an entire household, spun thread, woven cloth, made clothes, and embroidered them. She’s walked every trail on our mountain. She’s attended births and cared for the weak, ill, and dying. I love her, and having to explain the idea of satellites and GPS to her hurts me deeply. They are as far-fetched to her as electricity, telephones, and television once were to me, and she looks horrified as I come to my frightening conclusion.
“People are looking for this place. Mr. Huang already knows where it is.”
“But no man can see it,” A-ma says, her insistence carrying the weight of generations. “I’ll never let that stranger—”
“Don’t you see? It might not be him.” A choke of understanding grabs my throat as I finally accept what he told me that night at the party. “It won’t be him. He warned us. Consider what that means. The inevitability of what’s coming . . . As uncontrollable as the wind—”
“No man can come here.” It’s agonizing for me to hear her fear and sadness. “They’ll die as your grandfather died.”
This is brutally tragic and terrifying for me too, but I come back at her with the type of reasoning I know she’ll understand. “What happened to Grandfather was fate. It could have happened anywhere.”
“But we must keep this place a secret.”
I raise my palms so she can’t avoid seeing them. “Isn’t it time we learn what this is? Where it came from originally and if there’s more out there? How, and if, it works? If it can be re-created? If it can help—”
“But the women in our line—”
“Yes, the women in our line, including you and me, are linked by these yellow threads. You and the generations before you protected the mother and sister trees from wars, caravans, and nomads that passed across Nannuo Mountain over many centuries. But now people—maybe callous men, maybe evil women, maybe deceitful dealers, maybe ruthless scientists—are going to come here with their GPS whether we want them to or not. Maybe our line has been protecting the mother tree for this moment.”
“I’ll always help the boy,” A-ma says, despairing.
“If you can treat him, then why not those on the next mountain? Would you turn away someone who came to you from Yiwu or Laobanzhang sick himself, with an ailing wife, or a feverish child in his arms? Of course you wouldn’t. If you say yes to someone from the next mountain, then what about people from other parts of China?”
A-ma begins to weep. I’ve cornered her with undeniable facts. Suddenly she looks like a broken, frail, old woman. I’ve done that to her.
“Who can we trust to take it out?” she mumbles, her voice trembling. “What’s going to happen to the trees once others know about them?”
I take her in my arms and hold her tight. I don’t know the answers.
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE PLACE OF ORIGIN
We linger at the entrance to the TSA security line. Mom looks elegant in a pair of cream-colored trousers and a peach cashmere sweater. Dad’s wearing shorts and a Lakers T-shirt. I’m in skinny jeans and a hoodie. My hair’s pulled back in a ponytail. In my carry-on, I’ve got my tea cake, laptop, books, and other necessities for the flight.
“I want to meet him,” Dad says for about the fiftieth time.
How many variations of a response can I come up with? He’ll get here. Maybe he’s inside already. Even if he doesn’t show up—which he will—I’ll be fine. This time I try out “I’m sure he’s coming.”
Dad gives me a look, and Mom says, “Now, Dan, stop worrying. Think of the places I’ve gone for research—”
“I don’t like that either, and you aren’t my little girl—”
“She’ll be twenty-one—”
“In the fall. I know. But—”
“Look, you two, I’d better get through security,” I say. “I don’t want to miss my flight.”
Dad sighs. “Are you really going to fly off to China with some random Chinese man none of us have met?”
“Oh, Dad, you’re such a dad! And I love you for it.”
He gives me a weak smile, but truly, why didn’t I introduce everyone when I had the chance? Because I wanted to do this on my own. Prove I was capable. Impress Mom and Dad with my independence. Et cetera.
Mom hugs me and whispers in my ear. “I love you. Be careful. We’d prefer if you’d call, but if you can’t, promise to send an e-mail or text every day so we know you’re safe.” When I start to pull away, she draws me even closer. “I’ve known worry before—those terrible nights when you nearly died and your bad spell in high school—but this is a whole new level. So don’t make me wrong. Your dad would never forgive me, and I’d never forgive myself.”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” I whisper back. “I’ll be fine.” Which is about as far from the truth as I can get, because, despite my brave words, I’m scared half out of my pants. Where is he? How am I supposed to do this trip by myself?
I go through more or less the same routine with my dad. I join the line and pull out my passport, but Mom and Dad don’t leave. Even after I pass through security and start up the elevator to the gates, I see them standing where I left them. One last round of waves and smiles, and then I’m on my own.
When I get to the gate, the first-and business-class passengers have already boarded through a special door. The cattle—of which I’m a part—are funneled down a separate Jetway, so I don’t get to see if Sean’s already seated. My parents’ volunteering—if that’s the right word—to buy me a coach ticket for the flight from L.A. to Guangzhou was just one of the many ways they tried to dissuade me from this trip. They have enough miles to have gotten me a seat in business, and it wouldn’t have cost them a dime. By the time they accepted the fact that I was going no matter what, and they offered to pay to boot me up to business—“It’s the least we can do”—I had to act above it all, as in “Oh, Mom, Dad, thank you so much for offering, but I want to seem like everyone else.” And now I’m squished in with a bunch of strangers, going on an adventure to the “middle of nowhere,” as Sean and the people on the Tufts team have repeatedly described it.
At least I’m on the aisle.