Shirley Wright looked a little tired, and her tone was so indifferent it was almost cold—completely different from the girl William Williams was familiar with. He had the illusion that the girl before him was in the process of leaving this world, as if separated from him by mountains and rivers, about to disappear at any moment.

“I want to ask you for a favor,” Shirley Wright said.

William Williams agreed with great force, both in his actions and his voice.

“All these years, I’ve been using your address to correspond with my pen pal. Thank you. The reason I originally gave you for borrowing your address wasn’t true. I was actually writing letters to my younger sister, Susan Wright, so I couldn’t use our home address. My sister, she actually keeps a lot bottled up inside, she’s very repressed. I always wanted to use pen pal letters to make her a little happier. I can feel that her feelings for this pen pal might be even stronger than for me or for Dad.”

William Williams couldn’t help but show a look of astonishment. Shirley Wright smiled and said, “It seems I can’t keep playing the role of this pen pal anymore, but I don’t want my sister to lose this good friend. So, I’d like to ask you to take my place and keep writing to my sister. Is that okay? I’ve thought about it—even if the handwriting is different, it doesn’t matter. You can just say you hurt your hand, can’t hold the pen well, so your writing looks worse than before. If you transition slowly, letter by letter, she probably won’t suspect anything.”

Shirley Wright wrote down the names they used for each other for William Williams, told him roughly what the handwriting looked like, and asked him to practice a bit. She was weak and couldn’t write much more. After this conversation, she was even more exhausted.

“I have a new letter here,” William Williams took out a letter from Daphne Morgan. He looked at Shirley Wright’s complexion and said, “How about I read it?”

Shirley Wright hesitated for a moment, then said, never mind, you take it home and open it yourself. Anyway, this task is yours from now on—let it start with this letter.

Before leaving, William Williams finally hesitantly asked about Shirley Wright’s illness.

“There’s something growing in my brain. The doctors don’t really have a good solution.”

William Williams said some words encouraging her to get well soon. Shirley Wright thanked him.

Not long after, Shirley Wright was discharged and went home. Since she wasn’t going to have brain surgery, there was no point staying in the hospital; it was more comfortable at home and saved money. If anything changed, she’d go back to the hospital. Both Shirley Wright and Adrian Wright knew what this meant. Susan Wright let out a long sigh of relief. She’d been in the hospital all along, getting regular blood tests, always afraid the doctor would suddenly have a flash of inspiration and order another parasite test.

Of course, at home, they still had to do conservative treatment. There are often stories of illnesses that Western medicine can’t cure being treated successfully with Chinese medicine. For Shirley Wright, Chinese medicine was almost the last hope. Adrian Wright found a Dr. Qiu, whose family had practiced medicine for generations and was said to be very skilled. Susan Wright was there when they went. The doctor took her pulse, looked at her tongue, and asked if she’d been to any unclean places. Susan Wright was startled. The old doctor said they’d come a bit late, and now the illness was too entrenched to use strong medicine—only slow, gradual treatment was possible. He didn’t say it was hopeless, leaving them with some hope.

Susan Wright was in charge of preparing the herbal medicine. She didn’t slack off at all and did her best. She also took excellent care of her sister in daily life. She did everything she should and shouldn’t do; from here on, it was up to fate. If Chinese medicine could really help Shirley Wright get better, then maybe she wasn’t meant to die. The medicine was bitter, but Shirley Wright drank it in big gulps. Every time she drank it, she seemed a little more spirited, and there was light in her eyes. By the second week, she could only sip it slowly, her strength to drink the medicine gradually fading.

One evening, Shirley Wright woke from a nap and asked her sister to turn on the light. It wasn’t completely dark yet, but Susan Wright turned on the light anyway. Still, Shirley Wright couldn’t see. At the hospital, the doctor said the disease had affected her visual cortex, so even though her eyes functioned, she was blind.

In her last days, Shirley Wright often kept her eyes open, even though she couldn’t see. She spoke softly. Once, she said to Susan Wright, “Sister, even though I can’t see now, it feels like I see more clearly than before. I can see clearly, sister.” In that moment, Susan Wright didn’t dare say a word. She could only wait for her sister to continue, but Shirley Wright drifted off to sleep.

After that, Shirley Wright began to flail her arms and legs, tremble, stop breathing, and her heart stopped. The last two were fatal. The doctor said Shirley Wright’s medulla oblongata had been affected, and since the medulla controls unconscious actions like breathing and heartbeat, once it’s damaged, there’s no saving the person.

Several critical condition notices were issued. Susan Wright stayed by her bedside the whole time. Around four in the morning, Shirley Wright started singing. A few days earlier, other patients in the ward had complained, but once they learned the little girl only had a few days left, they stopped. This time, Shirley Wright’s singing wasn’t like the murmurs of the previous days. Susan Wright thought, this must be a final burst of energy.

The singing was intermittent.

So many memories, already hard to recall.

……

Perhaps we’ll meet again, in heaven or on earth.

……

Better to go home, better to go home.

……

After a while, Shirley Wright asked, “Who was singing just now? It was so beautiful.” Susan Wright said, “No one, sister, it was you singing.” Shirley Wright made a sound of acknowledgment, paused for a while, then suddenly said, “Can I hear you play the xiao?”

Susan Wright rushed home to get the xiao. Adrian Wright heard the commotion and asked what was going on. Susan Wright said, “Sister might not make it.” The two of them returned to the hospital together, but by the time they reached the ward, Shirley Wright was no longer breathing.

Susan Wright knelt by the bed and wept bitterly. She felt completely drained, realizing she had lost her closest loved one. “Sister, sister,” she called. “Sister, sister.”

There were so many other things she wanted to say, like “Wake up,” or “Have a safe journey.” But Susan Wright felt she had no right to say those things. In the end, all she could repeat were those two words.

6

Sorry I haven’t written to you in so long. I had a pretty terrible summer. I’d originally planned to travel, but everything fell through. I was in a car accident—pretty serious, but luckily I survived. I’ve almost fully recovered now, but since my right hand is still healing from a fracture, I’m writing this letter to you with my left hand. You’ll probably notice the handwriting looks a bit different.

In your last letter, you mentioned some things that seem really difficult for you. Everyone faces tough times, just like I have recently. As for right and wrong, everyone—you, me—makes mistakes. Let me share my thoughts on making mistakes: since everyone makes them, the key is really how many things we can get right, isn’t it? Dwelling on past or present mistakes—does that help us do more things right? I always feel we should give ourselves more chances, and give others more chances too.

Winter solstice. This winter is especially cold, and the summer before was scorching. It’s been a hard year. For the three surviving members of the The Wright Family family: one lost his eldest daughter, the family member he trusted and pinned his hopes on most, so the family’s future now inevitably rests on the clever and capable younger daughter; for another, she made the second major decision of her life, then lost her sister—there were moments when she wavered or even regretted it, but she knew that if she could do it all over again, nothing would change; as for the last one, she had long since lost herself. Adrian Wright always insisted she was still conscious, just in a shallow, dreamlike state, as if trapped in a long nightmare. If that was true, then maybe what she experienced this year would help her wake up.

At seven in the morning, father and daughter went to the Xibaoxing Road crematorium to collect Shirley Wright’s urn. The box was wrapped in layer after layer of cloth, held by Susan Wright as she sat in the back seat of Adrian Wright’s taxi, heading to the cemetery.

Under a black umbrella, they escorted the urn to the grave, and placed it inside. A small space, then sealed with cement, plunged into eternal darkness. Susan Wright witnessed her sister’s final resting place, and wept with Adrian Wright.

In the photo on the gravestone, Shirley Wright was smiling radiantly, frozen in that moment, but over time, wind and rain would wear it away. After making offerings and burning incense, Adrian Wright said to Susan Wright, “You have to live for your sister too, and live well. She’s watching over you from heaven.”

Susan Wright nodded.

“Dad, you go ahead. I want to stay with my sister a little longer. I know the way, I’ll go home myself,” she said.

Susan Wright stood alone before the gravestone. She looked at the familiar name, the familiar face. She thought she would recall many memories, but strangely, she didn’t. It was as if someone had been stripped away forever, along with all traces of the past.

She took out the xiao from her bag. Shirley Wright’s last wish was to hear her play a tune. Now, she could only play it for her at the grave.

She held the xiao in her hands, but couldn’t bring herself to play.

“No, sister, you wouldn’t want to hear it,” Susan Wright whispered, putting the xiao away.

“Sister, now that you’re in heaven, you must know how you really died. How could you still want to hear me play the xiao?”

“I’ll live well, for both of us.”