A work-worn American struggled through her fourth day in China, visiting manufacturers with her work associate. On top of the jet lag, they’d been working long days in the cold March weather, rain noiselessly moistening the foreign world surrounding them, muffling smells, sounds, thoughts. The pollution sunk deep through the lungs and the skin, deploring the body of any energy remaining, albeit the supply already depleted. During a mostly silent dinner, her tired associate suggested the two of them get massages to help revive their bodies and spirits. The American agreed that that would be nice, and after paying their check, they set off, found a place, and were shown to their separate rooms.
The American lay comfortably on the massage table and fell into a deep reverie almost at the moment she felt the masseuse's first touch. In a warm, comforting instant, she was back in the States, the Los Angeles sun filtering through the large windows of the rooms open to the familiar hospital hallway she glided through, walking towards the room she intermittently saw more often than she did her own home. Her mother’s nurse, leaving that room, stopped and asked her a few questions that he routinely asked her.
Whether the questions were good news or bad, the American could never decide. That they remained the same always meant there was no change in her mother’s condition, which could be interpreted either way. In spite of this, following the short and habitual conversation, she moved on to the room to find her mother awake and sitting up in her bed wearing her own clothing and not a hospital gown. This was the first time she’d looked her mother in the eyes since the late November stroke. The fact that her mother was awake was an absolute miracle, an answer to many prayers, but her mother appeared genuinely furious.
“Why,” her mother shouted, “Would you allow me to stay here for so long in those rags? How could you?”
The American, unable to process or talk about the miracle of her mother’s sudden improvement in health, began instinctively appeasing her. She apologized, offered to make her new clothes to wear that were more comfortable, with better fabric. The mother consented but could not be consoled. She was upset about the lack of comfort she received and continued berating her daughter regarding it.
The American struggled, could feel herself being pushed awake from within the dream while psychically not wanting to leave it. She could recognize the weight and feel of her body again, as well as the tapping of the masseuse, waking her. She sat up, realizing she’d been likely moaning in the internal sleep struggle. She looked at the tiny, anxious, wide-eyed Shanghai masseuse and burst into tears. She could detect the awkward fear seeping from the small Chinese girl in a confused panic like a shark with blood in the water but she hardly cared, allowing herself to push the sorrow from her through every sob.
The masseuse shrieked something incomprehensible and ran from the room. The American wiped her tears as assumed the massage was now cut short. There would be no more comfort today for her work-weary soul.
