Draft No.1

I found out about my brother’s death in the College Library.

From the second floor, the sky of October in Wisconsin was an impenetrable grey, mirrored in the still waters of Lake Mendota. I had just set up my laptop to study when a sense of foreboding hit me, sudden and inexplicable.

I knew.

I hadn’t heard from Chao Chao in weeks. During my last few phone calls home, my parents had been oddly uncommunicative and evasive, their voice strained. They stopped asking if I’d like to talk to him. And when I asked for him, they said he was asleep.

I went straight to his Weibo, a platform he used to keep in touch with his classmates. His last post was from September 30th, almost two weeks ago.

A Mid-Autumn festival without mooncakes, a Mid-Autumn festival without a family reunion. Rinsing my mouth with ice-cold mineral water during fasting feels so good! Newly gained experience! So refreshing! I want to enjoy it even more in two days! Mini fridge, I’m starting to stock you up! Chug chug chug!!!!

It was the mid-autumn festival, when the moon swelled to its fullest, brightest self of the year. Across China, families would gather beneath its creamy, dreamy glow, sharing mooncakes, round pastries resembling its full shape. But this year, my family was scattered across three places: me in Madison, Chao Chao in his hospital ward in Beijing, and our parents in their rented apartment nearby. The day his post went up, I commented, “The moon is fuller on the homeland,” a line borrowed from a famous 8th-century poem about longing for home. He replied, “I didn’t see it.” With his immune system crumbling, he had been trapped inside sterile hospital rooms, his world reduced to pasty white walls and IV drips, where even a breath of outside air could threaten his life. Later I learned my parents hadn’t lied. In his last days, his energy was so low that he was mostly bed bound, drifting in and out of morphine-laced sleep.

I wrote back: I could only look at the moon in Madison.

That was our last exchange.

That day in the library, my fingers hovered over the keyboard, my breath quickening as I scrolled. Then I saw it: an eerie number of new comments under that last post. Too many for a casual post, too many to ignore. I clicked. The screen loaded, pixel by pixel, as a flood of words unfurled. RIP, Goodbye, candle emojis flickered across my vision.

He was gone.

The table signs strewn around read “Silent Study Spaces” but all the white noise—the turning of pages, the keyboard typing—were suddenly sucked away, filled by a bottomless void. In my bewilderment, the body seemed to comprehend the news before the mind was able to catch up. Without warning, a stream of tears gushed out from my eyes, and a guttural sound, deep in my chest, rose up, threatening to get out. I felt frantic. I had to get out. I had to do something, anything, as if leaving could help me make sense of this new reality I had found myself in. I shoved everything into my backpack and rushed downstairs. I passed tables of students who were mindlessly clicking through YouTube videos or so absorbed in their reading that their brows furrowed into knots, the fact that I had been one of them just moments ago felt otherworldly.

Outside, it was raining. It never rained in Madison. It was now.

I called a Chinese acquaintance. “My brother died. Can you pick me up from the library?” It felt strange to announce my brother’s death to someone who I barely knew. The words left my mouth and lingered in the air, foreign and hollow, as if they were from someone else. But even in the aftermath, my logical mind knew it would be easier to seek help from someone who might understand the weight of my pain without needing explanation in English. The guy arrived shortly with his roommate. They looked at me with concern from the rearview mirror and said something, but the sound was distant. I sank back into the back seat, the air leaving my body. The rain was falling hard. Raindrops darted the car windows, one after the other, racing down the glass only to be swept away by the gusty wind, like thoughts I couldn’t hold onto.

###

I was in denial the entire time through Chao Chao’s illness. It was a late September morning in 2011 when my mother’s call jolted me awake in Nanjing. I had suspected something was up and texted Chao Chao earlier to ask if mom and dad had fought. To my surprise, my mother replied from his phone. It’s mom, everything is fine at home, she wrote.

Something must be up.

“Is this a good time to talk?” she asked, her voice thin with restraint. She never asked if it was a good time. I got up quickly and slipped out, careful not to wake my roommates. On the balcony, the morning air gnawed at my skin, sharp against my short-sleeved pajamas. Overhead, the laundry hung heavy, sagging like overripe fruit hanging on the clothesline, the water long gone but the fabric still bearing the memory of weight. The grass outside smelt of decay, never recovered from the scorching summer sun, its leaves wilted and brittle. Summer was coming to an end.

She said he fainted at school. The doctor ran some diagnosis but didn’t find anything concerning. However, my grandma insisted on a second opinion. And the next thing we knew, he had cancer. My mom recounted the sequence of events in such a nonchalant way that for a brief moment, I thought the story belonged to some other unfortunate family. It didn’t make sense.

Mom said she and my dad had taken Chao Chao to Beijing, to the best hospitals they could find in the country. My immediate reaction was that my barely literate parents had never been to Beijing. In fact, they had never stepped outside our coastal hometown in the south. Now found themselves in the country’s capital, a colossal metropolis known for its royal history, political turmoil and the Great Wall, where are they going to stay? How do they know which hospital provides the most promising solution? Are they able to understand the northern accent?

As if reading my mind, she said, “Don’t worry, Na Na,” her voice unconvincing. “Just focus on your transfer application.”

Before she hung up, she asked me to call Chao Chao when I had time. She meant later but I called him immediately. Hearing his voice—still childlike, still my little brother’s—all the strength I used to hold back tears in the call with my mother suddenly left me. I started to cry. My words dissolved into sobs, punctuated by a single question: Why?

Why? Why him? Why us? Why didn’t you tell me earlier?

There was nothing he could say. He was only 13.

His voice broke too. “Don’t cry, jie jie” he said.

Don’t cry, big sister.

###

Chao Chao and I are 6 years apart. When my parents told me I would have a little brother soon, I didn’t know how to feel. No one my age had a sibling. China’s decades-long family planning policy had limited each married couple to one child, with rare exceptions for rural families like ours whose firstborn was a girl. But my parents never talked about a second child. Years later, I would learn that his existence hinged on chance and defiance: an unplanned pregnancy, my mother’s consideration of abortion, my aunt and grandmother’s insistence on an illegal gender screening secured through heavy bribes. A boy was worth keeping, the family decided.

I remember the day my mother gave birth. My aunt picked me up after school and drove me directly to the hospital. My mom was in labor all day and finally around 9 o’clock, my brother was born. She looked hollow on the hospital bed, her face ashen, hair plastered to her forehead with sweat. Giving life to my brother had taken something from her, as if she had carved away part of herself to make room for him. Beside her lay a tiny wrinkly creature, his skin a shade of toffee, bundled tightly in a receiving blanket. “He looks so dark,” some visiting relatives disapproved of his skin color. That’s not a nice thing to say, I protested silently, jumping to defend him.

My parents wanted a single-character name, just like they did for me. They picked out a few options and let me make the final call. I selected “Chao.” Superb. I call him Chao Chao, and I am his jie jie, big sister.

When he was old enough, he joined me in Fuzhou to stay with my aunt, whose home was a revolving door for children—her own daughter, me and my brother, and the children of my two immigrant uncles in the U.S. who were born across the ocean, brought back to the homeland, and cared for by my grandma until they would be ready for school. Their parents returned to restaurant work, relieved, at least, of the cost and burden of childcare, so they could save what they earned for their children’s futures. All parents hope for a brighter future for their children, even if that means sending them away; mine bet on education, knowing perfectly well that Chao Chao and I had no special claim to privilege. The only inconvenience was that we weren’t adorable in the way adults preferred. Neither did we learn how to perform cuteness. While other kids in the family managed to court favor through kinship or their American passport, we shared the same neglect and jabs at our long faces, darker complexion, and single eyelids. But I took quiet pride in having someone who mirrored my features. Whenever people asked what he looked like, I’d answer with satisfaction: “Just imagine my face on a boy.”

Except that he didn’t get the skinny genes from my mother. When he was around six or seven, he started to develop an insatiable appetite, mostly for KFC fried chickens. His cheeks puffed up and limbs thickened. In a family of bird-boned wrists and ankles, his diet became another point for attack. But he soon developed a strategy to satisfy his hunger—find a partner in crime, his own sister. On days when the growing appetite felt untamable, he would go out of his way to offer to cook for me, hoping that if the adults ever raised objections, I could help deflect their disapproval.

“Your Majesty, do you fancy a fried egg?” He’d always start with a coaxing and theatrical voice. Then he’d bow slightly at the waist, a court jester seeking favor.

“Wasn’t dinner enough?” I’d respond, arching an eyebrow and feigning judgment.

“The yolk will still be runny and the edge crispy, just how you like it,” he’d bargain, ignoring my rhetorical question, already knowing I’d give in.

A few minutes later, he’d emerge from the kitchen with a plate of two fried eggs with a side of sausage. “Your royal feast is served.”

On the second floor of the apartment, we shared the bathroom with a sliding door difficult to lock. Every night before bed, hearing me in the bathroom, he would come out from his room, slide the door open, squeeze himself between me and the bathtub, without a word. He grabbed his brush, squeezed on toothpaste, right on cue, perfectly positioned himself to fight me for the faucet. We’d brush our teeth in silence, except for the sound of bristles against enamel, maybe a muffled insult through a mouth full of foam. Then, inevitably, he’d turn, unzip, and piss, like I was just another part of the room. “You could at least wait,” I’d say. He never did.

We created a whole repertoire of games to play in that tight space, our barefoot tapping on the cold blue tiles while the ceiling heater scorched our scalps. We took selfies, splashed water on each other, competed to see who can open their eyes the widest. The goal was to stretch the night as long as possible until the adults came and shut it down.

The spring before he got sick, I went home for Qingming, the Tomb-Sweeping Day. The first night, I stood at the sink, toothbrush in hand, when he strutted into the bathroom. In the mirror, I caught a glimpse of a stranger wearing my brother’s face. “Holy,” I mumbled. “Since when?” He looked at me, face lighting up with the satisfaction of someone who had planned this revelation. “Taller than you now,” he said, his voice an octave deeper than the one in my memory.

The round-cheeked boy I remembered had vanished. In his place stood someone with shoulders that nearly filled the doorframe, Adam’s apple prominent, jaw defined. His limbs stretched out like a young tree reaching for light, still awkward in their newfound length. I wondered if I had missed the gradual transformation, or if growing up simply doesn’t announce itself. Cell by cell, day by day, until one day you look up and realize that childhood has quietly slipped away while you weren’t watching.

I never thought he would die.

###

The acceptance letter from UW-Madison arrived in November, 2011. On December 20, I traveled to Shanghai for my visa. On the 23rd, I received my passport. On the 28th, I left for the U.S.

I saw him once in Beijing before I left. He sat listlessly in his hospital bed. He had grown older. My parents had been taking him from hospital to hospital, seeking the best treatments possible, the most hopeful doctors. They managed to put a name to his malady: lymphoma, a word so foreign that our tongues struggled to trace its shape. His moods had taken a swing as the realization set in that he wasn’t going back to school soon. That the rhythms of his old life—morning announcements, math quizzes, summer evenings playing pickup basketball with other kids in the neighborhood—had slipped beyond his reach. I told him about my upcoming trip. He listened but said little. The U.S. seemed too far to comprehend.

I called him everyday at first, like how I promised my mother I would keep his spirits up. But never a good conversationalist, I eventually ran out of things to say. “Hang in there.” I’d tell him before hanging up, the same phrase each time, worn down to nothing.

When the new year rolled around and school started in the U.S., our conversation became sparse. He was allowed to go home for the Chinese New Year. I Skyped my parents on New Year’s Eve. They had checked out of their hotel and moved into a rented apartment. The apartment looked warm but not theirs. No red banners to ring in the new year. No rows of special dishes to celebrate health and prosperity. Just the three of them in an unfamiliar room in an unfamiliar city that they couldn’t call home. When my mother pointed the webcam at Chao Chao, he flinched, ducking out of frame. Eventually, I realized the chemotherapy had claimed all his hair. But for once, I had something to say. They had just seen their first snowfall. Just like I had in Madison. Knowing that, even though we were separated by an ocean, our cities hovered around the 40-degree parallel, the coldness and dryness offered me some solace.

In May, Chao Chao had surgery to remove the tumor. For a time, there was light. But in June, my aunt called. The cancer was back. The doctor suggested a bone marrow transplant and I would be the best possible match.

I had just sublet a new place for the summer break but hearing I could be of help, I packed up everything and booked the first flight to Beijing. The day I left, the sun was high, burning away the last traces of winter. People had shed their winter coats and stretched out on the terrace by the lake. A few daredevils curled their bodies into a ball before plunging into the water that had just thawed a few weeks ago.

My aunt picked me up from the airport. On the way to our parents’ rented apartment, she asked me whether I was prepared for the worst scenario. I found the question ridiculous and irritating. The worst scenario? What did she mean by that? Aren’t we in Beijing receiving the best medical services? As long as we keep trying, he will be cured, right? Right?

The next morning, still jet lagged, I visited the hospital. I had never seen so many sick children in one place, most of them hairless, their scalps shiny under the harsh fluorescent lights, some with a faint fuzz just beginning to return like spring’s first tentative growth. Their diminished bodies were swallowed by billowy hospital gowns, the institutional green fabric making their skin even more pallid by contrast. Among them was my brother, too tall to fit in. Despite the brutal chemo that had ravaged his body, he seemed to keep growing, stretching toward adulthood even as illness tried to claim him. Through the plexiglass, I called out.

“Chao Chao!”

My voice was raspy. He looked up, expressionless, and then turned away and went back to whatever he had been doing.

I know my return could only mean bad news for him.

A consultation with his doctor quickly revealed that a bone marrow transplant wasn’t the best option. I was enraged by the false hope. In chasing a cure, we had wandered into a maze of medical jargon, old wives’ tales, and wishful thinking, each offering brief shelter before crumbling under the weight of reality. For the whole summer, my family and I had flung ourselves into motion: hospital to hospital, doctor to doctor, chasing leads like travelers stumbling through fog. At one point, my mom and I found ourselves in a conference room of specialists debating his case. No one could offer us a solution with absolute confidence, so eventually they turned to us and said the decision was ours. At the age of twenty-one, I couldn’t read the undertone in their strained voices, having not yet learned that there was a limit to how much modern medical intervention could achieve. I hung onto the illusion that effort meant progress, that if we just kept trying, the tumors in his body would vanish. By science or will.

I refused to believe he could die.

###

The day I left Beijing, I walked with Chao Chao and my mother back to the hospital. It was August again. A whole year had passed since he first felt ill, and the world churned on. Outside the hospital, taxis idled, their meters running. Parents clutched paperwork, ushering children through sliding glass doors. For them, for us, illness was longer an event. It had become the shape of life itself.

I waved down a taxi. Before stepping in, I turned around, waved at him and shouted something. Not “hang in there” anymore. Those words had long stopped meaning anything. He stood still, watching the street, his face unreadable. I searched for something else to say, something meaningful, but nothing came. He frowned, looking almost impatient, as if I were making a fuss over nothing.

I ducked into the taxi, the door slamming shut behind me. The car eased forward, slipping into traffic. Through the rear window, I saw them walking into the gate. Then, just as the car rounded the corner, they disappeared from my view.

I never saw him again.