"Dude waited outside the bathroom while I peed. It was so bananas. Wait, are Communists really not into servants? Someone must have driven Mao around."

"You're the one who's in college-you should know."

"Oh, yeah, well, I just wear a Che Guevara T-shirt. It doesn't mean that I know anything about actual Communists."

Someone dinged on a glass, and a man at the table next to theirs rose as waiters came in with yet another course.

Andrew leaned over. "Let's bet. Do you think he's going to lead with how hardworking and decent the farmers or fishermen or whatever are, or do you think he's going to go with how he's pioneering an untapped commodities market?"

"Neither. I think it's going to be more of a, like, 'I'm so flattered you're all here to taste the humble foods of my region,'" said Grace. Could she find something beautiful about these men who seemed so obsessed with the things they could grow or kill? She would try.

"I don't know, that guy doesn't look too humble to me."

It had gradually dawned on Andrew and Grace that this wasn't some sort of family reunion after all-in fact, it seemed to be a banquet for the local agricultural bureau, which was headed up by some distant relative of theirs who had caught wind of their father's arrival and insisted that his children represent him at this dinner. At least that meant their Chinese family wasn't made up entirely of middle-aged guys in business suits with big shoulder pads, and it made a little more sense that their father had called out as they'd left his hospital room: "You take Daddy's place, you are the Papa Wang!"

Across the hall, Grace laughed as Andrew whispered something to her. It looked to Saina like they'd both stopped eating somewhere around the seventh course, which turned out to be a platter full of stewed chicken testicles. Their plates were piled with tidbits from all the subsequent dishes, which their tablemates insisted on serving them-the overflow was ignored, somehow, by the servers who whisked in with a score of new plates between every course, picking up the old ones and depositing them on a waiting tray. By the time the meal reached its halfway point, the tablecloth beneath Saina was smeared with the remains of a dozen courses that she'd dutifully consumed, but the plate in front of her was once again brand-new.

The unrelenting backslapping and good cheer in the room made it hard to concentrate on the man next to her as he bragged about his daughter, who was a brilliant pianist and wanted to go to Juilliard, and maybe Saina, whom he'd heard was an artist of some renown, might be able to make the necessary introductions? She should come to his house and listen to his daughter play for herself! And when she was there, maybe she could make them a painting, ha ha ha, that they would hang in their offices? She could paint all the beautiful things that this land produced! And maybe she knew people in America, she must know so many people in America since she was such an accomplished and respected young woman, maybe she knew someone in America who would want to open up a new market for sea urchin or small turtles, such delicacies, if only they were aware! Or did she instead have things that she could sell? Real estate in America was so cheap now, they'd all heard, and maybe she knew a reputable real estate agent, someone who wouldn't cheat him-Not a Jew, ha ha ha, or maybe a Jew was better! Ha ha ha-who would point him towards a good investment property because he knew somebody who had tripled his cash on a condo in Las Vegas in just nine months!

These men wanted to consume everything. By the time they'd reached the fourteenth course, turtle soup, Saina wouldn't have been shocked if they'd seasoned her with a dash of white pepper and eaten her. These men didn't pluck politely from the small dishes set out before them-they picked up those dishes and shoveled the contents into their mouths, never able to get enough in a single bite. They gulped up each other's talk in the same way, loud and eager, quick to rage and quicker to laugh. They wanted to dig into the ground and pull out all the roots, trawl the seas and scoop up anything formed of flesh, search the forests and the fields, and snatch creatures out of their burrows and knock birds down from their perches so that they could be plucked and skinned and seasoned and diced and trussed and steamed and broiled and roasted and stir-fried and served up at banquets designed to demonstrate the abundance of the land and their dominance over it.

Bizz-buzz. Bizz-buzz. Bizz-buzz. It took several rings before Saina realized that the odd noise breaking through the hum of Communist bonhomie was her own phone, which had somehow acquired a foreign accent. Heart slamming against her chest, she pulled it out, looked at the caller ID, and without letting herself think, stabbed at the green button.

"Hold on," she said into the receiver, as she rose and walked double-time along the perimeter of the room, thankful that enough rounds of toasts had been drunk that her hosts were more focused on each other than on the Wangs. Dodging a waiter carrying yet another bottle of gao liang, she slipped out the door and leaned against a wall papered in a pink moire.

"Hi."

On the other side, Leo was silent.

"Um, hello?"

"Saina. Saina! I can't believe you picked up. I rehearsed a message, but I didn't really think about what to say if you actually picked up."

"Well, you'd better say something."

"Hi."

"Hi."

"Tell me about your dad first. Is he okay? Did he tell you what was going on?"

"Yeah-it's too long to get into right now. He seems a little wrecked, but physically, at least, I think he's okay. Or he'll be okay."

"Oh, that's a relief. I'm glad. I'm really glad. Saina . . . "

"Yes?"

"I want to make this right with you."

"I . . . how?"

For a long minute, Leo was silent.

"You know, that first day we met, at Graham's place, initially I thought you were just some pretty girl."

She laughed. "This is a weird way to apologize to someone."

"Listen, okay, and then we hung out there that whole afternoon, and after a while, you just, you started to feel so familiar to me. So often you meet people and they're just cartoons. They might be entertaining or attractive, they might even be brilliant, but they don't feel fully human. And that's the only way I can explain it. From the very beginning, you just felt familiar. Like home."

Waiters in colored vests whizzed past, balancing trays crowded with heavy white platters. A lobster, shell cracked open, meat chopped and sauteed, then reassembled so that it waved two crimson claws in the air; a mound of some fowl shingled with carrot slices carved like feathers; a parade of beasts she'd never dreamed of consuming. The whole menagerie of them now swam uneasily in her stomach.

She felt a soft, damp spot in her heart begin to open up. "Oh Leo. I know."

"Like we were both people trying to figure out how to really be in the world."

"Yeah. Yeah. We are that. We are people like that."

"We're the same kind of animal."

They were quiet for a moment, and then Leo asked, "Do you think you're going to come back to Helios?"

"Well, I kind of live there now."

"Do you . . . well . . . what if we lived together?"

"Oh. What? No. I don't know if that's a very good idea." Was Leo actually crazy?

"Look, I know what I did was a real betrayal, and I am really, deeply sorry. And I, Saina, I'm not just sorry to you, I'm also sorry to Kaya, you know. She deserves so much more than that. It was wrong of me not to hold her out as the most important thing. Look, I'm a beginner soul still. I get a lot of stuff wrong, but I care about getting it right. With you."

Saina closed her eyes and knocked her head back against the wall. She could hear the sizzle and clang of the kitchen, the cooks shouting at each other as they sped through the dinner service, could smell the garlic and oil coming together.

A heat traveled through her hand from the back of her phone, probably irradiating her bones.

She sensed the desperation in his voice, and it scared her.

"Leo, I feel like I should break up with you, but I don't want to."

"Then don't! Baby, that's crazy. Don't. Just come back, and I'll show you how much I mean it, okay? I can . . . oh, I want to. I'll show you." They were quiet for a moment. "Is it . . . are you offended that I said that we should live together instead of asking you to marry me?"

"No! No. No, no, no. That's not what I want right now. Everything's crazy with my family, I have to figure out if I even have a career anymore. I just don't know if I want to be that for anybody. I don't want to have the kind of insane relationship where you would not see your daughter because of me."

"Saina! Is that what you think?"

"That's what I'm scared of."

"No. I can't stress that enough. It is amazing how much I would do for you, considering how briefly we've known each other, but you are not the reason why I haven't seen her. I would never do that. You're the reason I haven't talked about her, at least to you, but I haven't seen her because Leah really is a difficult person."

"Leah and Leo?"

"I know."

"I don't understand why you didn't just tell me."

"Honestly, Saina, I don't get it either. It's all I've been thinking about and I don't have any answers yet. Fear, probably. I didn't want to lose either of you. I still don't."

"I didn't realize that I came across as some horrible person who would refuse to date a man with a child."

"Not everyone wants to be a stepmother. But, listen, it wasn't just that. Okay, this . . . god, I'm embarrassed to even say this."

"What?"

"I think part of me didn't want to come across as that guy, you know?"

"What guy?"

"Saina."

"What?"

"You know, that guy. The black guy who's a deadbeat dad. With a baby mama in every town."

"Are you serious? Why would I even think that? You're an organic farmer!"

"Okay, that's not the only thing. I think I was also afraid, and to be honest, I still am, afraid-"

"Of what?"

"That you'll convince me to sue for visitation or something and I'll lose her forever. Leah's family is in Quebec. If I piss her off, she could take Kaya up there and hide out from me."

"You could have explained that to me!"

"I know."

"Leo, you are so good, and so generous, and so caring, but I think that sometimes you don't want to let anyone else be those things." She waited. She listened to him breath and think. She willed herself not to speak in the long silence that followed, but in the end, she broke down. "Hey, so is your daughter the reason why you shut down when we were in the car before the Bard graduation thing?"

"You noticed that? Of course you did. Yeah. It didn't seem like the best time to bring it up."

"But you wanted to."

"I did."

"I thought you were just freaked-out that I talked about babies."

"Oh no, no. I wasn't. I wasn't even thinking about that."

"Do you know what I was thinking about?"

"Hmm?"

"How you lost your birth mom's picture. How you didn't know what your family looked like. And that if you had a baby, maybe you would."

"Oh, Saina. Come home, will you?"

"Is Helios home?"

"No, but I am."

"Leo."

"I am. And you are."

She was quiet until it felt like she'd been quiet for too long, and then, "Okay."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

After Saina hung up the phone, she stood in the hallway for a moment with her eyes closed. It was comforting being in the midst of such a din, becoming invisible in a way she realized she never had in America.

Had she just un-broken-up with Leo? She had. She had. It meant that she would meet Kaya and accept that someone else had already done the good work of anchoring him in the world. Was that okay? It would have to be, at least for now.

Without even realizing it, Saina was smiling to herself. If she walked back into the banquet room now, Andrew and Grace would definitely know that something had happened. Stalling, she scanned her emails. There was a new message from Xio, the curator who had written to her months before, asking her to propose a project for the new Beijing Biennial.

Dear,Saina, How are you?I know we already try,to inquire if you are interested?Although I do not hear you back,now I try for second time,because,we have a confirmed artist from Israel who have many visa problems,so he cannot participate any more.Perhaps I askasecond time and have a better reply?I hope so!We think this is a verygood opportunity.This is not nonsense just to promote friendship,to give opportunity for banquet.It isofficial Biennial.We work with top museum in many country: Dubai,Russia,Portugal,Uruguay,and more.

Addendum:Please excuse my poor English!My assistant is not here today so I write for myself!

Hope stabbed at her. She hit reply and wrote: Xio- So lovely to hear from you again, and big apologies for not getting back to you much sooner! Believe it or not, I am actually in China right now, not far from Beijing, and would love to set up a time to meet and discuss possibilities! Are you free this week?

Send.

And then, without letting herself think about it, she pulled up Grayson's email and hit reply. Typing quickly, she wrote: I can't love you anymore.

Send.

Saina was still standing in the hallway, knowing that she had stayed away long enough to be noticed, when Bing Bing grabbed her hand.

"It. Is. Time to. Go. The hos. Pital. Call. They. Say to. Come. Now."

THEY WERE running blind through the long hospital corridors, past the ward of wounded, past the newborn babes, Bing Bing bringing up the rear carrying, of all things, a thermos printed with an image of Barney the dinosaur. It was nighttime again. In each of their three hearts was pure panic. Pulses stampeding, they approached the door to their father's room just as a doctor was walking out. He looked up at them, weary.

"You're Mr. Wang's children?" he asked, in Mandarin.

They nodded. "What's happening?" asked Saina.

"He had another small stroke. We've stabilized him and we're monitoring his vitals. We've given him some medication so he may be-"