The cheapest flight required two changes and arrived at a time that made every further arrangement harder. Yanchuan selected it, then spent half an hour pretending the price was his only reason.
An looked at the itinerary on his screen.
“What will you do when you arrive?”
“Meet the company’s representative. Go to the hotel. Speak to the people who worked with him.”
“Have they agreed?”
One had. One had not answered. For the third, he did not yet have a name.
She pushed the laptop back. “Then you have a ticket to a place, not a plan.”
He heard himself say that he could not stay here doing nothing. She was still wearing her office blouse, with a small stain on the sleeve from their nephew’s breakfast.
“Neither can I,” she said.
He closed the booking page.
They spent the morning arranging what could be arranged before travel: contact with the local case handler, a meeting with the employer’s representative, accommodation that could be canceled, the entry paperwork for his circumstances, insurance, and someone to meet him after the final leg. Each item took money or waiting. Some took both.
At work, Chen approved the remaining paid leave and explained the limit of what he could promise after that. There were projects with named engineers on them. Other people had parents in hospital, children in examinations, plans of their own.
“I can cover next week,” Chen said. “After that we need another conversation.”
“I understand.”
“I’m not sure you do. Don’t make a permanent decision because you’re afraid a temporary one looks small.”
Yanchuan nodded, although the advice felt like a chair offered to a man who needed a door.
His father called while he was buying a power adapter. Jianming had transferred money: far more than the ticket cost, nearly all the balance he usually kept for repairs and emergencies.
“Use it,” his father said.
“You need that.”
“For what?”
Yanchuan looked at the adapter turning in its plastic case. His father’s wrist still ached in cold weather. The building lift in Wuhan stopped working often enough that Qiao worried about the stairs. There were many answers. None would sound adequate beside Yansheng’s name.
“Keep enough for yourself,” he said.
“Don’t tell me how to be his father.”
They ended the call badly. In the shop window, Yanchuan saw a man holding a cheap piece of plastic as if he had forgotten what hands were for.
Qiao called an hour later. Of course his father had told her. She was walking home from the hospital, and he could hear the crossing signal beside her.
“Return part of it with an explanation he can accept,” she said. “Tell him what the first trip costs. Tell him what you’ll need later. Let him help without emptying himself.”
“You could tell him.”
“You’re the one he thinks is going to bring Yansheng back.”
The signal stopped. For a moment there was only her breathing.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was unfair.”
“It’s what I think too.”
Neither of them had an answer for that.
That evening he made a budget with a return date, a reserve, and a line for the possibility of accomplishing very little. He hated that line. He left it in. An checked the costs and removed an unnecessary equipment purchase. A local engineer had agreed to speak with him; she would know what tools were actually needed.
Her name was Amina Yusuf. In her first email she had written, I can meet you, but not during my shift. He had read the sentence three times before noticing the ordinary life inside it.
He sent his father the budget and returned most of the transfer. Kept enough for the journey, he wrote. We may need more later. Please keep it available.
Jianming replied with a photograph of the old suitcase Yanchuan had left in Wuhan. Its handle had been repaired with black tape. Still good, the message said. You should have taken it.
Yanchuan answered that he had bought another. Then he added, Thank you, Baba.
He booked a less exhausting route within the budget. The confirmation arrived immediately. Permission to enter, confirmation of meetings, and a credible reason to stand in each doorway would take longer.
He put the travel dates into the family document. Beside the return date he typed a question mark, considered it, and removed it.