All the Words She Could Not Speak

[01]

Adelina Hartzler was never one to find herself in odd places. Every move she made, each action she took, was always carefully planned out to the T. Each life choice, from the shoes she wore, to the exact order of the classes she took in undergrad, was meretriciously picked to function in harmony with her last. There was always a reason. And she most definitely would never-ever-ever allow herself to make reckless mistakes. So then why was it so hard for her to believe that she was, in fact, standing there, in the middle of a country she didn't know, surrounded by a language she never fully learned, looking at the tombstone of her dead sister? She was dumbfounded.

It would be a lie if she returned home from her trip to Wuhu, China and told her family that everything went to shit. Really, her trip went perfectly to schedule. The dead body was a surprise, but everything else was perfectly explainable—at least she whole-heartedly believed it had to be so.

Her fingers ran over the moss covered stone slab. Adelina didn't know what each big character engraved in the middle of the tombstone meant individually, but that didn't stop her from understanding what the symbols meant put together. She could recognize them, matching them with the characters that would pop up in her messaging inbox every Wednesday at 12:37 am for the past year and half. Wáng Lìhuá. August 19th, 1996 - June 2nd, 2018.

Adelina had been staring at the buried remains of her dead sister for a the better half of an hour now. She stepped to the side to let the short stubby woman slip past her. The poor woman must have been patiently waiting for Adelina to move for at least 30 minutes. She held a bundle of willow bark in her wiry brittle hands. The woman smiled and walked towards Adelina. She placed a slim willow branch atop the neighboring grave site and bowed her head in silence for a long moment. Silent.

"Nǐ rènshí tā ma?" the woman asked. She didn't quite grasp the fact that Adelina couldn't understand her when she spoke so fast. Besides, the heavily shaded sunglasses that sat upon Adelina's bewildered eyes didn't make reading her dazed and obstructed facial queues any easier. The sounds just spat out like they were trying to escape. Adelina shook her head. The woman spoke again, this time a bit slower. "Nǐ." She pointed to Adelina. "Rènshí tā ma?" She pointed to the grave.

Adelina continued to shake her head. "Bù," she replied. To be honest, bù was one of the seven Chinese phrases she could accurately pronounce, tone and all. Bù—No. That's what it meant. She felt comfortable saying no to all things throughout her entire trip the past week. That way the conversation would end there and she wouldn't embarrass herself. When the guy at the airport asked if she wanted to buy an extra pair of sunglasses; bù! When the hotel asked if she wanted to switch her room to one with a better view; bù! When the waitress asked if she could speak Chinese; bù. She was lucky it was an appropriate answer to most questions she came across. Even now with the woman standing solemnly in front of her sister's grave, her answer was still bù, and for the first time on this entire trip, it was the most honest "bù" to come out of her mouth.

She didn't know the sister buried under the hard dry ground she stood on. She didn't even know that her sister existed up until a year and a half ago. And yet, here she was, honoring the final resting place of her dead sister. It felt like some twisted dream or messed up reality. She wasn't just looking at her sisters grave. Her own brown almond eyes reflected back at her in the glimmer of the black polished stone, mesmerized.

Despite not knowing anything about Wáng Lìhuá, a part of that person was strangely attached to Adalina's being. An invisible red string, that spanned across an ocean of illusion and a continent of mystery, bounded them together. Even thought that string was closer together now than it ever was, it was cut. That same string became more and more severed into tiny threaded pieces with each moment Adelina gazed at the name.

The woman handed her a piece of tree bark. "Ná." Her smile, though small, gave a genuine warm comfort. "Zhè shì gěi tā," she said. She motioned to the top of the grave. "Nǐ bǎ zhège zhè biān."

Adelina nodded. She couldn't understand what the woman was saying, but from the woman's not-so-subtle actions she understood enough to put the willow bark on top of the grave. "Thank you—Xièxiè," Adelina said. Xièxiè—number two of seven phrases she knew. She smiled at the woman before taking her leave.