My mother died of a broken heart, or so the letter said.

I was standing before a vegetable stall in Manhattan’s Chinatown, next to eight-for-a-dollar garlic and cabbage by the pound. The old Manchu woman who was translating spoke a broken, heavily accented English. She looked up from her lawn chair, and I stiffened under her gaze. I honestly didn’t know how to feel. Death was an abstract thing for me; I had never been to a funeral.

I choked out the words. “What else does it say?”

“Just that your mother dead.” The old woman thrust the letter back at me and circled two fingers in the air to ward off evil. She turned to a customer who was choosing peppers.

I glanced at the sun, directly overhead, the sky a painful blue unmarred by clouds, then down at the pavement at my translator’s feet, as cracked as her heels in their torn embroidered sandals. Dazed, I lifted my camera from where it hung on a strap at my hip and took a photograph of her feet and the pavement laid with scars.

I fumbled with my purse and removed my wallet, almost dropping it on the ground. I offered her a ten-dollar bill for translating the letter even though she had volunteered to do it for free—a favor because she recognized a fellow Manchu in the shape of my face.

“No!” Her hand clamped on my wrist. “I give bad news. Go away. Your money no good.”

I tried to think through the roaring in my mind. I understood her superstition, but also that she couldn’t make much money selling vegetables on the street. “I want two heads.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Chinese cabbage. Okay.”

“And that.” I pointed to the garlic. “Three dollars’ worth. And that.” I pointed again, to a bundle of spiky fuchsia fruits. All told, I bought Chinese cabbage I didn’t know how to cook, twenty-four heads of garlic, and a pound of a fruit I couldn’t name. It added up to twelve dollars and left me with two heavy bags to tote away. The white plastic stretched to translucence as I picked them up.

The absurdity of it all made me want to drop everything—the groceries, my purse, even my camera—and run through the streets.

Instead, I hobbled to the corner and hailed a cab, bent with a grief I could not process and food I could not eat.

◆

I’d been on my lunch break, and headed back to the studio on autopilot. Outside the glass walls of my office, a single cloud in the shape of my mother’s profile slipped across the sky, appearing first in one window, then the next. My eyelids felt heavy, but no tears came.

My purse had fallen open on my desk, the red lining highlighting the letter and FedEx envelope inside. I unfolded the paper along creases made by my sister’s hands and touched the beautiful Manchu calligraphy, recognizing few words and understanding even less.

I dialed my sister’s number in China, but it gave a fast busy and wouldn’t connect. I tried several more times with the same result. Finally, I thought of my husband. His line rang four times before going to voicemail. “Hello, this is David Hilton of Prometheus Solar—”

I hung up.

“Come on, we’re gonna be late.” Martha, the art director, stood in the doorway. “Get the shot or else.” She meant it as a joke, but her finger slid across her throat, lending edge to her words. My assistant, Joe, stood behind her.

I tucked the letter into my purse and closed it. I grabbed a scrunchie off my desk, braiding my hair while we walked to the studio. Martha’s heels echoed down the hallway, her perfume of lilac and lavender weaving around me.

The rest of the crew waited in Studio One, where the ambient light seemed dimmer than usual. The model for this toothpaste ad was a six-year-old girl in flowered pajamas who sat patiently as the stylist fussed with her flyaway hairs and the makeup artist, seeking perfection, drew then erased the tip of one eyebrow. Another woman, presumably the girl’s mother, hovered with a nervous smile.

I nodded, then walked to my workbench and picked a camera for the shoot. The metal weight of the Hasselblad medium format camera was reassuring, like holding my husband’s hand. I dropped my head and peered down at the waist-level viewfinder, closed my eyes, and took a moment to breathe.

I need to tell someone my mother’s dead.

Martha tapped my shoulder. “Enjoy your last time with that old thing. The digital cameras are about to arrive.” She laughed when I frowned at her. The one thing that made sense to me in this moment—my camera—was about to make way for the future. Happy 1999.

I approached the model, who stood in front of a white sink before a window. It was lit from the other side to resemble a perfect sunny day.

I crouched to the girl’s eye level. “Hello, my name is Amy. I’m going to photograph you today. What’s your name?”

She shook my hand. Her grip was firm, the handshake of a prodigy. “Annabelle. Pleased to meet you.”

“Okay, Annabelle, think of it as an afternoon playacting with a friend. If you need a break at any point, tell me, okay?”

She nodded.

Joe loaded the camera with Polaroid film. He measured near Annabelle’s face with a light meter, and I adjusted the angle of the studio lights. I took some Polaroids, then placed them on a table to develop.

After a minute, Joe scratched his head. “They’re fuzzy.”

“Hmm.” Martha drew out the hum until it had shape and form.

I went to stand beside them. The six Polaroids were all out of focus—no edge where the sink met the window or where Annabelle’s face met the light.

“Contrast is about right, and the lighting’s good,” Martha said. “Her cheeks have high color and her teeth look white. Check your focus.” She glanced at her watch. “Oh my god, it’s one thirty already. Just go ahead. Go with film.”

I stared into the viewfinder. I thought the camera had been in focus.

I handed it to Joe, who loaded regular negative emulsion film. Then he and Martha fell back to join the stylist and makeup artist in the shadows.

I held my breath and refocused the lens on the girl. “You look great!”

Annabelle beamed, her mouth opening wide to display her teeth. 

“Turn your head to catch the light, okay? A little more? Perfect! And again. Beautiful!”

After the first few shots, the rest of the world fell away as it always did when I was working. My past, my future, the nagging things that kept me awake at night. My mother.

Martha mimed instructions. “Okay, now open up the toothpaste, Annabelle. Do it slowly, so Amy can get the photos. Now put it on the toothbrush. You know how? You brush your own teeth at home?”

I rolled my eyes. The girl was six and already had a career. I’m sure she knew how to brush her teeth.

Two rolls of film later, Annabelle raised her hand. “Please, can I have a break? My mouth hurts from smiling.”

I nodded and Annabelle’s mother fetched her from the set, hugging her close.

Annabelle said, “Story time?”

Her mother nodded and led her to a bench in the makeup area, where they settled together. “Once upon a time, there was a goddess named Persephone,” she said, and Annabelle suddenly looked exactly like a little girl.

My mother had told me stories when I was a child too, but hers never began with “once upon a time.” Her stories took place at a specific location in a definite time. Like the story of Bo Le from the Gao kingdom, who in 650 BC recognized the quality of a horse that no one else could see.

“Was Persephone a princess?” Annabelle asked.

Annabelle’s mother smiled. “No, she was a goddess. That’s better than being a princess. The god of the Underworld kidnapped Persephone and brought her to his home beneath the earth. Her mother Demeter, who was the goddess of harvest and agriculture, searched for Persephone everywhere, forgetting to care for anything else, allowing the leaves to change color and fall off the trees, and the trees to sleep for winter.”

My eyes unfocused. I pressed the heels of my palms into my closed eyes, pushing back the pressure in my head. I refused to cry in the middle of a photo shoot.

At the end of break, Annabelle’s mother asked her, “Who’s got a beautiful smile?”

“I do!”

“That’s right, and you’re going to share it with the whole world. Who loves ya, baby?”

“You do!”

I thought about how easy it was for Annabelle’s mother to say “I love you,” and how difficult it was for mine. Chinese girls are supposed to know their parents love them. Steeped in the ways of America, I wanted to be told. My mother had only said she loved me once six years ago. On the last day we spoke.

◆

The apartment was empty. I dropped my purse onto the dining table that already held books and teapots and vases and utility bills and set my camera beside it.

A Post-it Note on the fridge read “Compressor efficiency?” in David’s neat handwriting. Inside the fridge was a pitcher of water, a half carton of eggs and many take-out sauce packets. I shoved the bags from Chinatown into it.

The light on the answering machine blinked red. I pressed play and David’s voice filled the room. “Hi, darling. Alex needs the prototype for a demo tomorrow. It’ll probably be an all-nighter. I love you.” My fingers traced the cold, smooth edge of the answering machine. David’s company was making more efficient solar panels by focusing sunlight. While we both captured light, I made art for myself and he made products to help the world.

I picked up the phone and dialed David’s office. It went to voicemail again. This time I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing emerged. I hung up.

I dialed my sister in China. Between the country code, province code, city code and number, it was sixteen digits long. A ring right away, and then silence. I hung up and tried again. Perhaps I’d misdialed one of the numbers.

After an eternity of ringing, my father answered. “Hello?”

Disuse caused me to overemphasize the Mandarin Chinese words. “Hello, Father. It’s me. Amy. I mean, Aimee . . .”

A thoughtful pause. And then a click.

I dialed again. Faint, distant clicks, as of insects crawling up the walls at night. Then the phone rang once, twice, three times; then four, five, six. It rang and rang, but no one picked up.

I hung up. He’d heard me. He must have. He hung up on purpose and didn’t pick up again. He didn’t want to talk to me.

I gripped the phone so tightly the seams on the plastic receiver incised my palm. Why had I said I was Amy? Aimee was the name my mother gave me.

I dialed once more and when no one picked up, I set the telephone receiver back in its cradle. Such a simple, complicated thing, this plastic device that could connect me to my family across the world. That should have connected me. After a moment, I picked up the phone and threw it against the wall. The receiver flew off and collided with a stack of books, the cradle clattering to the hardwood floor.

My mother was dead and I wasn’t there. I wouldn’t have the chance to set right everything that had gone wrong.

I kicked off my shoes, then gripped the lapels of my jacket and blouse and ripped, buttons ricocheting off books and chair legs and speakers and floor. I slid out of my pants and underwear and lay naked on the floor, my knees hugged to my heart.

◆

Hours passed as the light outside my window changed. From the blue of late evening to the purple of night, overlaid by the weary orange of streetlights. I tried to conjure up memories of my mother. Of all the images and sounds, tastes and feelings that floated before me, the only thing I grasped was an idea—I had not known her well enough, did not love her enough, and now I never would.

I had never taken a photo of my mother.

In our living room there were paperbacks stacked two rows deep on bookshelves, newspapers piled on the coffee table, decorative cushions thrown on the couch and chairs and floor, artwork leaning against the bookshelves—so much stuff. So much everything.

When I was a child, I owned two sets of clothes for the summer and two for the winter. Success used to mean having enough food to eat, not a dozen hats that matched a dozen purses.

I usually found my stuff comforting, but not now.

My mother was dead and I had not been with her. I had been accumulating all these things.

I came to New York for art and stayed for love. Along the way, taking photos of girls and toothpaste, soup cans and candy bars, I lost track of the art.

On good days, I consoled myself that I was still working as a photographer, unlike friends from college who studied English literature but went into investment banking. On bad days, I wondered if I should have done something else for a living, something that would never compromise my photography. Doing the thing you love, but doing it wrong, ruins it.

This was also true of people. My imperfect love for my mother had ruined us.

I felt pinned to the ground by my books and clothes and furniture. Chilled and shivering, I eventually struggled to sit up and wrapped myself in a throw off the couch.

I groped through the stacks on the coffee table and found the photograph—not the one of New York that brought me to this country, but the one of David. In the photo, he is six years old, standing next to a swing set in his backyard in a Chicago suburb. His hands are cupped and lifted as he releases an adolescent pigeon, its wings blurred by motion. He’d nursed it back to health after finding it wounded. The kindness in his face always brought me comfort.

I hugged the photo to my chest. It was flat and offered no consolation. I stroked its edges with my fingertips, tried to lose myself in the image. The paper remained solid and sharp.

My limbs ached. I felt as if a new cavern of air had grown in the space between my heart and lungs.

◆

On the day of my eighth birthday, my mother took me for a portrait. A traveling photographer had come to our village of Eternal Spring and set up in the main square where farmers gathered with their donkey carts to sell fresh produce.

As she prepared me to meet the photographer, my mother told me a story. “The Nishan shaman lived in the Ming dynasty—”

“From 1368 to 1644, before the Manchus defeated the Han and established the Qing dynasty,” I interrupted, seated on a wooden bench, tapping the earthen floor of our living room with my birthday shoes.

My mother continued to braid my hair into two long plaits, one on either side of my head. “In her fiftieth year of life, a son was born to her.” She winked, and I giggled. “She named him Sergudai—”

“What was her name? The Nishan shaman is a title, not a name.”

My mother smiled and tapped the tip of my nose with her finger. “The Nishan shaman’s name was Aimee.” Like mine: Ai like the English pronoun “I,” mee like the English “me.” I laughed, delighted. “When Sergudai was fifteen, he wanted to go on a hunting trip to Ice Dragon Mountain. His mother said that it would be dangerous, but Sergudai asked: ‘Must a man remain in his home and never see the world?’”

“Can I go hunting to Ice Dragon Mountain when I’m fifteen?”

“No, you cannot, and don’t ask me again. Aimee let Sergudai go, but he fell ill during the trip. When he got home, he died.” My mother turned me on the bench and checked my braids. “The Nishan shaman was sad about her son’s death.”

“Of course she was!”

My mother retied the bows on my dress. I had tied them earlier, but I couldn’t create the perfect bows my mother could.

“Aimee decided that she would solve the problem of her son’s illness.”

I tugged on my mother’s elbow. “But her son was dead.”

“He is dead.”

“If he is dead, how can she fix his illness?”

“How are you normally?”

I giggled. “Cheeky?”

“No, physically.”

“Healthy!”

“Right. If you were dead, would you still be healthy?”

I was sure something was being pulled over my eyes, but I didn’t know what. “No?”

“Death is a kind of illness. As a cold robs you of the ability to breathe perfectly, and a flu robs you of the ability to breathe passably, death robs you of the ability to breathe at all.”

I thought hard. “So if death is an illness, then . . . it can be cured?”

“Do you want to hear the story or not?”

“I do!”

She buffed the tops of my shoes with a cloth. “The Nishan shaman had her assistant prepare a hundred slips of paper as offerings. She put the crown of nine birds on her head.”

“I thought only an empress wears a crown.”

“Shamans do too. The nine birds perch on top.”

“Why nine? What do they mean?”

“I don’t know.”

I blinked. There wasn’t anything my mother didn’t know. That’s why she’d won the Teacher of the Year award two years running. There were things she didn’t care about, yes, but not things she didn’t know. “Really?”

“Eight is good, so nine is better.”

“Eight is only good in Chinese because the word for eight, ba, sounds like the word fa for fortune. This is a Manchu story. Eight is not good or bad in Manchu.”

My mother paused to consider my point. “Well then, I really don’t know,” she said and continued telling the story. “The Nishan shaman trembled like a weeping willow. She invoked, and the spirit entered her. She became dazed and fell down as her assistant sat next to her and beat a drum, chanting to guide her.”

I listened with all my being. When my mother told magical stories, she also became magical.

My mother mimed, her unseen drumstick meeting her unseen drum. “Aimee walked through the Underworld, clutching the hundred slips of paper. Horse spirits galloped, crow spirits flew, and snake spirits slithered alongside her.”

My mother checked my nails for signs of dirt.

“The Nishan shaman arrived at the banks of a river and saw a ferryman with half an oar and half a boat. One of the ferryman’s eyes was blind.” My mother went to poke my eye to demonstrate. I giggled and batted her hand away. “His nose was crooked”—my mother grasped my nose with her thumb and forefinger and twisted gently to one side—“and his ears torn.” She reached out and tickled the tops of my ears. “His head bald, his legs lame and his hands twisted.” I dodged as she tried to mess with my fresh braids.

“Aimee wrote her name on one of her hundred slips of paper and offered it to the ferryman. And because a name is a story, the ferryman accepted the paper and carried her across the river. And he was the one who told her the Lord of the Dead had decided to keep her son as his own.

“Aimee went to the City of the Dead. The gate was closed. The walls were high and solid. She summoned the hawk and the eagle and the vulture to fetch Sergudai and bring him to her in their talons.

“Sergudai was out playing when three giant birds seized him and flew over the walls of the city, setting him down in front of his mother. Aimee took his hand and they began their journey back to the Land of the Living.”

My mother clasped my hand, and we left the house. The River of Stories, which ran by our yard, glimmered gold in the early morning light. We walked toward the village square. As we walked, my mother finished the story.

“The Lord of the Dead came out of the gates of his city and shouted, ‘Shaman, wait! You cannot just take my son.’

“Aimee wrote words on three slips of paper and offered them to him, but he asked for more. She prepared another nine slips of paper, but again he asked for more. ‘Write words on all the papers you have brought,’ he said, ‘and give them to me. In exchange, I will let Sergudai go.’

“‘I will consider it,’ the Nishan shaman said, ‘if you will give Sergudai more years in the Land of the Living. It’s not such a hardship for you, because after he dies, he will return here for eternity.’

“The Lord of the Dead nodded. ‘I will give Sergudai twenty more years in the Land of the Living.’

“Aimee laughed. ‘Why would I take him back if he will die before he can wipe his own nose?’

“‘All right, I will make it thirty more years.’

“‘Why take him at a time when his mind and heart are still undecided?’

“‘I will add forty more years.’

“And so they negotiated until the Lord of the Dead had guaranteed her son ninety years of life. The Nishan shaman wrote words on all the remaining slips of paper and handed them over. Together, the words told the story of Aimee’s rescue of Sergudai.

“On their way home, she had no slips of paper left to give the ferryman. So instead, she restored sight to his blind eye, and he carried them across the river.

“They passed the Ice Dragon Mountain, where Sergudai had fallen ill. They passed the banks of the River of Stories, where he had played as a child. And finally, they arrived home.

“The Nishan shaman’s assistant helped her back into her body with his drumming, then awoke her with incense. She stood over Sergudai and fanned his soul back into his body. Sergudai sat up and said, ‘I’ve had such fantastic dreams!’

“So, you see, the relationship between a mother and a child can bridge any distance.”

I clapped for the end of the story, then said, “I had a year-long dream last night.”

“What did you dream about?”

“I went to a world with Ainara and Yen where rabbits fly and dragons guard candy dishes. I had monkey friends and many adventures.” My sister, Ainara, and our best friend, Yen, were often in my dreams, and I always believed they dreamed the same adventures I did—that this was how the world worked.

“How do you know your dream lasted a year?”

“I have memories from all four seasons. People made friends and got angry and had time to forgive and become friends again. In the dream, Grandfather Feng told me to draw a picture to prove to you where I’d been once I woke up, the way Father draws everything. But when I woke up, the drawing had disappeared.” I swung my mother’s hand and laughed. “Maybe if I took a photo in my dream, I could bring it with me when I wake up.”

“Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know, but there’s something special about photography.”

At the traveling photographer’s studio, we climbed the steps of the covered wooden wagon. As my mother pulled open the door, a waft of air that smelled of vinegar and faded chrysanthemums escaped.

The studio was all one room and felt larger on the inside. A camera the size of a shoebox sat on its tripod in the center of the space. Its lens faced a fabric wall that rippled in the air currents created by our entrance. Scattered throughout the studio were fabric screens on wheels and metal lights on poles, a round table, a classic Chinese horseshoe chair, a pile of toys and a bicycle. A tall, slim woman stood in the middle of the space. Her hair was white, but her face had no wrinkles, so it was impossible to tell if she was young or old.

“This is Miss Zhang, the photographer who’s going to take your picture,” my mother said.

I stepped forward. “Hello. My name is Wu Aimee. The Ai is the ai of beautiful and the mee is the mee of potential.”

“I’m so pleased to have you as my subject today.”

I pointed to the black box. “Miss Photographer, how does the camera work?”

Miss Zhang placed a hand on the case. “I stand behind the body and point the lens at you, then cover myself with the cloth. When I pull the trigger, it takes your photo. What story do you want to tell, Aimee?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Every photo tells a story. Some people even say that a photo is worth a thousand words.”

“That’s silly. How can they know one photograph isn’t worth five hundred, while another, one thousand and twenty-one?”

Miss Zhang laughed. “A story begins with a character.” She pointed at me. “Then it adds a background, something for the character to interact with.” She gestured to the rippling wall strung with painted backgrounds on rods. “You’re going to be the character, so now you need to choose a background.”

I stood back while she unrolled options in front of me: a desert, a forest, a traditional sitting room with rosewood furniture, a zoo. My mother preferred the sitting room but said I could choose. I chose the lake bordered by a weeping willow. Perhaps there was such a lake in the town that was an hour away by horse-drawn cart. If not there, then certainly in the city of Harbin, where my aunt lived. That was the setting I wanted.

I stood in front of the background and posed, one hand on my hip.

My mother stood assessing me, her right foot turned out, one hip higher than the other. “Wait a moment.” She turned me by my shoulders and smoothed the already glassy surface of my hair. She tugged at my dress to make sure that the hem was perfectly straight, then rubbed away an imagined spot of dirt on my chin with her thumb.

I posed again, this time with both hands on my hips.

“Sorry, wait a moment,” my mother said. “She doesn’t look natural, does she? You’re posing stiffly, Aimee, like you’re having your photo taken.”

“But I am having my photo taken.”

The photographer smiled. “A lot of children pose that way.”

My mother pursed her lips and walked in a slow arc around me. She accidentally kicked the bicycle and reached out to steady it. Then she lifted it and brought it to me. “Ride the bicycle. That looks like something you might do every day.”

“But I’ve never been on a bicycle.”

“Come on, it’s easy.”

The photographer steadied the bicycle as my mother helped me on. I gripped the handlebars, clenched my teeth and smiled, my bottom an inch above the seat, both feet planted on the ground.

My mother beamed. “Good. You look perfect.”

Through gritted teeth, I said, “I’m riding a bicycle in a lake!”

“Good?” The photographer smiled at my mother, and when she nodded, ducked under the black cloth at the back of her camera. “Don’t blink.”

Poof!

For a moment, the room was ablaze with light, and all I could think of was blinking.

Miss Zhang reappeared, smiling. “I will have the photo printed by tomorrow. You can get off the bike now.”

While my mother spoke with her about the number of prints she wanted, I wandered to a round table. Light fell on one half, rendering it a gibbous moon. In the center of the table was a black photo album, the size of an adult hand.

I opened its cover.

◆

The photo I stared at was unlike any I’d ever seen: a grainy black and white cityscape from the vantage point of a roof. Light fell on both sides of the buildings. The sky that should have been clear or cloudy was instead riddled with dotted lines resembling Morse code. The buildings were too tall, reminding me of the unbuilt wonders in my father’s sketchbook. He was an architect, but our village was home to only 900 people and his designs were too grand.

My heart beat so fast I grew dizzy. The photograph focused and then unfocused before me, and I gripped the edges of the table for balance.

A spotlight illuminated me in a perfect circle.

Snow fell from a ceiling that stretched higher and higher. I opened my mouth and laughed as snowflakes gathered on my tongue. They tasted of that flavor that is particular to the first snow of winter.

I looked around and the photographer was gone, as were the backgrounds, props and my mother. Snowflakes landed on my open palm—no, not snow but round dandelion heads, one of which exploded with a pop, releasing fluff into the air.

I look down at the photograph again.

I fall in.

I emerge standing on the pavement of a street limned with light, gazing up at buildings taller than any I have ever seen. The air smells metallic: the iron of humanity, not the dirt of earth. Car horns blare and people talk in a language filled with harsh consonants. In the back of my mouth, I taste the sweet, herby flavor of dandelion pollen.

Since I don’t know where I am, I don’t know who I am, and the thought thrills me.

Tenderly, I touch the closest wall. The gray concrete surface feels stronger than any mud brick wall in Eternal Spring.

“Come on, Aimee,” I hear my mother say.

I fall out.

I still stood in a shaft of light, but the edges where light met darkness softened. The smell of iron faded into vinegar and chrysanthemums. My mother pulled my hand to leave.

“Wait! That photo, where is it?”

The photographer said, “Niu Yue.” New York. Niu was the Chinese for twisted, and yue sounded like the Chinese for moon. Twisted Moon.

I imagined the perfect circle of a full moon, rotating and flipping over on itself. I imagined a moon that could light a place eternally.

I didn’t know if New York was a street or a city or a country, only that I wanted to be there. I wanted to be where everything was bright and tall and three-dimensional, where light shone on both sides of the buildings and there were no shadows. And I wanted to become a photographer so that I could capture the light.

I thought of Sergudai’s words when he turned fifteen: “Must a man remain home forever and never see the world?” I decided that I wanted to go to Niu Yue, even if the cost was death. At eight, I didn’t understand that it might not be my death.