Her finger hovered above the workbook. The pencil tip tapped where the final stroke of 飞 (fly) was missing.
“You forgot a dot,” she said, surprised by the rasp in her voice. Only then did she realize—since dashing out of the office at five, braving the subway crowds to pick up her daughter, then stir-frying that plate of spicy cabbage—she hadn’t even had a sip of water.
She wrote the correct character. The pencil carved deep lines into the page, like the claw marks an albatross might leave skidding across Antarctic ice.
She thought of the documentary they’d watched last week. “Look, Mama!” her daughter had cried, pointing at the screen. A white albatross soared across the wind, graceful as a ballerina. The narrator said they could fly for months without eating, crossing the entire Pacific.
She looked at the torn paper and thought: even the most elegant fliers crash hard when they land.
The door slammed open.
“Babe!” Her husband staggered in and collapsed on the couch. “I’m home!” he called, mumbling more words she didn’t catch. “Babe!”
She sighed. “Mama’s going to check on Daddy,” she told her daughter. “Keep writing.”
In the living room, he beamed at her. “Old Wang got promoted today…” he slurred, his voice sticky with drink. He smelled like grilled meat and someone else’s perfume.
She straightened his shoes. “I’m tired,” she said, setting an overturned cup upright. “Hope always lets you down.”
He reached for her. She stepped back, pressing against the damp balcony door.
“You feel so far away,” he murmured.
On TV, couples kissed in staged rain. Outside, real rain lashed the balcony. Wind-whipped drops burst on the tiles, pooling into dark stains.
“TV lies,” she said.
“What’s real, then?” His eyelids drooped.
She returned to her daughter’s room and glanced at the deep grooves on the page. Was she now like an albatross too—wings heavy, but still forced to take off?
“Mama, I finished 飞 (fly). Is it right?”
She paused, then stroked her daughter’s hair. “Mama’s just about to take off.”
Huina Zheng, a Distinction M.A. in English Studies holder, works as a college essay coach. Her stories have been published in Baltimore Review, Variant Literature, Midway Journal, and others. Her work has received nominations three times for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She resides in Guangzhou, China with her family.
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