Chapter Three: The Deleted Man

A wedding portrait hung on the wall. The space where the best man should have stood was empty, tilting the composition unnaturally left. The hollow in Shen Zhou's chest ached. The lock turned. Shen Lan entered carrying groceries and smiled. “Working past midnight again? Jiming has been waiting.” The name entered him like a key in a rusted lock. Zhou Jiming. Memory crashed back: a pillow thrown across a dorm room, an arm around his shoulders at graduation, the untouched Americano on tonight's desk. Shen Zhou doubled over under the pain of recovery. “Where is he?” His mother pointed to the dining table. A boy of five or six sat there drawing three people with crayons. Above the child he had written, in crooked characters, “Zhou Jiming.”