It was after the fourth day of school that Anna met the woman at the bus stop. It was late in the afternoon, just before the sun sunk below the cover of the tall buildings.

She sat next to the woman. Anna looked to her left, hoping that she would see a bus in the distance. Nothing. She looked at the face of the woman sitting next to her, but only for a brief moment. Sad, terribly sad.

"Are you ok?" Anna asked.

The woman unfroze and her expression warmed itself into a smile, "Oh, yes dear. It's nothing. I'm fine."

"You looked very sad. Are you sure you're ok?" Anna repeated.

The woman turned her head away and looked to her left, nothing. She turned back to Anna and said, "Yes, I'm fine. I'm a bit tired, and I've been waiting here a long time."

"I know how you feel! Every day after school’s out, I have to wait here for the bus. Then I have to wait 30 minutes for the bus to take me home. Waiting stinks," Anna whined.

"I'd say it depends on what you're waiting for. I’ve seen people wait for all kinds of things. Sometimes they are wonderful things,” the woman replied. “In Brazil, I’ve seen three generations of a family walking together towards one of the largest and most beautiful churches you can imagine. The grandparents, using canes to brace themselves step by step. Their children holding them up, helping them make the long walk to the giant wooden doors of the building. But even in this wonderful moment someone was waiting; the grandchildren, playfully hitting each other on the shoulders, impatiently waiting by the church entrance,” the woman said with a smile on her face.

The smile remained for a moment, then slowly dropped. Anna thought the woman looked terribly sad again, just like when they first met.

The woman continued, looking straight ahead, “But I’ve seen people waiting for one terrible thing. The one you should remember.”

“Waiting for what? What could be more terrible than this?” Anna interrupted.

“I have seen people waiting for nothing. Waiting for nothing because they believed there was no bus coming. They believed there was nothing to wait for, that nothing in life would reach them, and so, they were in no rush be there.”

I had forgotten about that cold Christmas morning. I suppose it was in order to reassert my hope for my own future. I remember walking out of that frigid concrete hallway into the family room. I remember walking hand in hand with my mother, wearing thick socks and holding tight to Bumpy, my stuffed bear. I remember Marvin, her boyfriend, walking behind us, lumbering from foot to foot.

That early morning was sheltered by my excitement. It was the first year we had bought a Christmas tree, and it was the first year that our family room was lit up by all those little multicolored bulbs. Looking back at the one surviving picture of that morning, the tree looks less majestic. It’s barely taller than I was, had a few gaping empty spots, and underneath it, lay only a handful of presents wrapped in old newspaper. No, it wasn’t pretty but it was ours. If there is one thing I can say for my mother, it’s that she tried to give me a normal and happy childhood.

Much later, after we had each opened our presents my mother slowly walked up to me with a big but apologetic smile.

“Now Anna, it’s time for me to go to work,” my mother told me; her smile dropped as she saw my disappointment.

I squeezed harder onto Bumpy’s chest, stretching the seams of her arms, ripping away the threads that had been three times repaired. I didn’t say a word, that was a product of my mother’s teaching, never talk back to an elder. I tried to send the message with my facial expression.

“You’ll be here with Marvin, it’ll be fun! Marvin you’ll keep her entertained right?” my mother quickly asked. Looking back, I think she must have been looking to transfer the blame or at least some moral support.

He shot back a look at her that I’ll never forget, one that I’ve seen in men since then. It’s a look of confusion, disinterest, annoyance, and worst of all, a hint of avoidance.

“Yeah well... There’s always TV right?” he stuttered out, unsure of the few syllables that buffoon was capable of producing.

I don’t remember the exact details after that. My mother left, I’m sure working to pay off humble but meaningful Christmas she had just given me. Marvin and I feigned some sense of togetherness and watched Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer up until Rudolf meets the Abominable Snowman, then I went to my room. It was imagination and hope that saved me through all those days alone. It seems like a hundred lifetimes ago, heck 300 lifetimes ago.

It wasn’t much later that I heard that man’s abrasive laugh. Deep and mocking of the world around him. He was on the phone with what must have been one of his fellow fools. I remember him laughing haughtily at his presumed mastery of his morally empty world and I remember what he said into that phone ruining what sense I had that my mother was doing things right.

“I’ll be over later and we’ll do it up right man. I’m over here at Gina’s house now,” he paused for the man on the other end, “Oh, she’s just another one of the many. I’m telling you, I’ve got girls all over the city. You want me to call one up for you? They all come running to me, all I have to do is call. I’ll prove it to you later tonight, you know I’m the man.”

It was in her later years, lying in the hospital bed, that Anna began to recall these memories. She lay there without respite, her head braced firm, waiting to hear something, anything more than the agonizingly noncommittal, “We’re looking into it, but nothing is definite right now. Try to get some rest.”

Her recurring vision.

In her dreams she gently awoke in the familiar surroundings of her room. She was home, and she clung to youth in her small hands. Her myopic eyes limited by the time of night that seemed to claim darkness as permanent rather than a passing phase. Out of habit she would turn her head towards the outside facing window, hoping to let the clouded moonlight bring outline and shape to her room.

First, definition was given to the larger objects in her room. Lamp by her bedside, dresser across the room, and her toy chest where her stuffed penguin Puffy sat. Next was the definition of the trees outside, layered conspiratorially, jutting out their dying rotting branches which hung low in a disfigured pattern.

Through those trees and branches one is able to make out a number of figures. In her dreams she would prepare herself to see the worst. Her body would begin to shiver, frantic thoughts would search for a hidden escape, and her breaths, scattered and strained, became a luxury. She would create such a panic for herself, peering out into the woods and waiting, waiting for a figure that would never come. Often her mind and body would break down into an even greater darkness.

Was it so much better to prepare oneself for anything only to be petrified by nothing at all?  She would wonder why should couldn't simply let go and recede into ignorance.

But then there were those times, when peering out into the twisted shapes framed by withered bark, that a figure did become clear. First distant, as if an illusion from a double mirrored image. Defined and at the same time cloaked in a darkness that seemed to collapse the shadows and blackness around it. She would close her eyes and wait. Open. Search the layers of trees again. Wait, that endless waiting she knew too well. Pull the covers ever tighter around her face, try to conceal her own figure. Search again, fixating on a single point in space, a howling shiver running down her spine as she saw the figure again, without any movement unto itself the figure able to cross layers of great distance.

In her dreams she would wait. She would wait, open her eyes once more, and once more see the figure ever closer, threatening to engulf her story in its gloom. An unfair game, conducted by a master of patience, that seemed to be able to repeat itself until the end of time. All she could do was wait.

There Are Mangoes in Those Meadows

I asked mom how far we would have to go when we got off the train.

She told me that we would get on one more train and be there very soon.

I looked back at her and asked if she new how many stops?

My mom laughed and told me Anna, I don’t know how many stops. Someone told me that it was almost 300.

300 stops! I couldn’t wait that long. I’d waited so long for today. My mother told me that once school was finished we could go to the city. Today was the day that I got to see the penguins at the zoo. I’d waited so long and now she was telling me that I might have to wait 300 stops.

300 stops as the train bumped along into the city. The cows, then cars, then houses and I became more and more anxious to see the tall buildings. The tall buildings meant that I would finally get to the monkeys, giraffes, and my favorite, the penguins.

I started thinking about the penguins. I thought about their funny little feet and how they look so cute when they shuffle from side to side. I thought about them sliding on their bellies across the ice. I thought about how funny they look in suits. I thought how nice it might be to go see them in their home. But then I thought about how cold it must be where they live. My mother might not like that, she said every winter she thinks about home in Hong Kong. She says Hong Kong is always warm. No winter coats, no runny nose, and no snow.

I asked her what she thought the first time she saw snow. I was happy to see something new. Was she also happy to see snow? Did she make a snowman? Did she go sledding?

She smiled at me, and she told me that the first time she saw snow she felt cold.