Chapter Two: In This Room, the Dead Are Still Alive

“Not Earth,” Zhou said. “The room.” Chen did not hear him. At the end of the alley, a girl with pigtails held a red rubber ball and waved with all her strength. “Daddy!” Chen Xiaoman, age seven, killed in the old-city flood twenty years ago. Zhou had seen her photograph in the personnel file. Chen never spoke of his daughter, but every July 16 he requested leave and drank himself unconscious. Now Xiaoman ran to embrace his waist. Chen's hands hovered for a long time before he dared rest them on her hair. He sank to his knees like a man whose bones had been removed and wept without sound. “Where did you go?” she complained. “Mom says dinner starts when you get home.”