Old Film, New Fire

Lu Chen looked up, suddenly exhausted. "Tell you what? That my father died here, or that people have been trading lives for documents on this street?" The words were too direct, like a thin blade. Xu Zhixia was cut, but she did not step back. She knew the same evasions lived in her own body. The year she left Hawthorn Street, her mother was ill. She was busy forcing herself into the city, chasing a bigger platform, proving she had a path better than staying. She folded her memories neatly and buried them at the bottom of a drawer, pretending all those people and events would quiet down on their own. But they hadn't. "I'm sorry," she said.