Three minutes later.
Yaffe peers at the little one on her lap and for the time being cannot recall how she and Rowie ended up in Quinn’s fancy Maserati. The kiddo seems attached to her, not leaving for a single moment. Yaffe takes notice of Rowie’s suspecting expression overtaking her face, obviously not wanting to gossip at this time.
The group soon reached Rowie’s home and Yaffe places the child gently by her side in preparation to get off with her. Rowie closes the door before Yaffe can get out and says, “I do not have a free bedroom in my house, so I’m not sure what your motive is in getting off with me.” Yaffe suddenly feels the urge to grab this nitwit by the shoulders and shake her. Has she burned all her brain cells doing who knows what? What low IQ and EQ.
Yaffe subconsciously looks in the direction of Quinn who was staring at her intently with a perceivable trace of contempt in her gaze. “Do I make you nervous?” Quinn says sardonically. “Yeah right,” Yaffe retorts. “Where do you live?” Quinn quickly responds.
Yaffe, too lazy to digress, just quickly states her address and turns her head to look out the window. The child’s head resting on her lap breathing at perfect tempo.
…
Yaffe returns home and that contemptuous gaze from Quinn keeps looping in her brain over and over like a broken record. Yaffe’s heartbeat speeds up with frustration and anger. Running into both Quinn and Rowie tonight could be no more than a coincidence, right? The facts prove otherwise, though.
It’s the weekend and Yaffe has the rare opportunity to sleep in. The grating sound of knocking at the door awakens her from her snuggly and comfortable slumber. She hesitantly gets up to answer the door after quickly fixing her hair to find Auntie Wang from across the hall.
Auntie Wang immediately explodes into a whirlwind of scolding, “You call yourself a decent mother? No matter what your child does, you shouldn’t under any circumstances just leave them out in the cold like that. You are just waiting until something happens, and by that point it will be too late!”
Yaffe draws a blank, “Auntie Wang, there is virtue in pacing yourself. What child are you referring to? Where is it?” Auntie Wang glances at Yaffe with sheer disgust and takes two steps to the side, revealing that little boy from the car standing behind her. He is dressed in modest faded clothes and a pair of indoor slippers. His cheeks and little nose red and puffed with cold. He looks undeniably adorable but also quite pitiful.
Seeing that Auntie Wang is about to scold her again, Yaffe scurries to bring the boy into the house with her and hurriedly tells her “Thank you for looking after him for me,” before shutting the door abruptly. Yaffe, facing the closed door, takes a few deep breaths to calm her nerves, and only when she can finally muster up a smile, does she turn around to face the boy and softly ask, “Honey, did you come here alone?”
The boy rubs his hands together timidly and lowers his head without responding. Yaffe continues to look at him, and reminisces of herself as a child. She proceeds to bend over and pick him up, placing him on the sofa and then gently wrapping him up in a small blanket.
The boy, staring at Yaffe, looks almost like a porcelain doll, with glistening black eyes like two big grapes, a button nose and a tiny rosy mouth. Just one look at this boy could melt anyone’s heart. Yaffe thinks about asking him how he found her and how he even got here, but after touching his frigid cheeks, she suddenly let’s go of that intention.
After wrapping the boy up so none of his limbs are exposed, she asks with a sunny smile, “Are you hungry, hon? I’ll make you breakfast! How does that sound?” The boy nods in response. “What do you want to eat?” Yaffe continues to ask. The boy’s hands start fiddling around under the blanket. Yaffe knows precisely what he wants. She gets a small memo pad and pen from a drawer and places them in the boy’s hand.
The boy begins to carefully write down several characters, handing Yaffe the memo pad once done. Yaffe looks down to see several simple but well written characters that read: “scrambled eggs and tomato, sweet and sour pork in garlic sauce”, and although the small handwriting immediately revealed elementary penmanship, the characters were neat, uniform in size, and well-distributed on all sides.
From this handwriting it can be ascertained that this boy is intelligent and precocious, achieving intellect far above his peers. A five year old child usually would not know how to write these characters correctly, and would certainly be unable to write them so neatly. However, if this is the case, why does he not speak? Does he not want to speak? Is he unable to speak?
Yaffe curbs her running imagination by smiling and telling the boy, “I am not positive whether I have these ingredients in the fridge, but I will check and let you know, okay?” To which the boy nodded. Yaffe goes upstairs to wash up and change her clothes, then heads to the kitchen.
Two dishes and a soup are briskly finished and placed on the dining table. Yaffe warms a cup of milk specifically for the boy, who had just come to the table without Yaffe even needing to call him over. The boy, marveling at the table of food with glowing eyes, sits obediently watching Yaffe busying away in the kitchen. Yaffe scoops a bowl of rice and pours a small bowl of soup for the boy who of his own volition takes a spoon and silently digs in.
Yaffe watches him, the boy so focused on eating, and begins to feel conflicted feelings. He is so cute but his situation seems so dismal. She speaks up, “Honey, could you give me the phone number of your father or guardian, please?” The boy’s originally relaxed face suddenly sinks and becomes dark as tears begin to accumulate in his glistening eyes.
…
Standing on the balcony, Yaffe anxiously watches the Maserati down near her building’s entrance zoom into the distance. Merely thinking of that dark sulky expression the boy just made was making her feel like she had committed some heinous crime, guilt itching at her heart. Contemplating her behavior, though, she could not find anything wrong.
This was all too complex, Yaffe prefers a simpler “doctor-patient relationship”. For example, when a patient comes to the hospital, Yaffe will be professional and competent, exerting everything she should to serve the patient well. When the patient eventually leaves, that doctor-patient relationship instantly comes to an end. She never wants to be friends with the patients, because she never finds that to be necessary.
Those tears that dropped down the boy’s face, though, somehow made her feel a pang of culpability. When the little one heard Yaffe ask for Quinn’s number, he threw her a piece of paper with the inquired information and ran off. She didn’t follow him until she finished her call with Quinn, at which point she went downstairs. Hiding behind a corner, Yaffe notices the boy waiting at the entrance of her building, back facing her, slouching and doleful.
This has happened several times already, and many a time Yaffe feels the urge to run over and hug the boy in an effort to make him feel better, but ultimately does nothing. She doesn’t want the boy to keep reappearing in her life at such a constant rate. She lacks the patience, warmth, and necessary affection after an overloaded day at work.
Especially for children like this little munchkin who undoubtedly require more than the usual amount of energy to care for. Yaffe shakes her head in disbelief and returns to her home, picking up a book titled “Pathology” to peruse. After a good twenty minutes, Yaffe’s cellphone rings, she picks it up to find that someone named “Zeow Zhou” added her on wechat.
She tilts her head in confusion and puts the phone upside down on the sofa, ignoring the friend request. Yaffe tries to focus on her book but can’t help wondering who this Zeow Zhou is, and why they would add her. Could it be a past classmate wanting to see how terribly she’s adulting?
Inside the Maserati,
Two individuals, a man and a boy of incommensurate size, sit in the vehicle, one in the front and one in the back. The already thin air in the car was compressed and felt pressurized by the passengers, the air tight as if about to explode at any second.