A SKETCH OF SIX FAMILIES, PART FIVE

05.

The fifth family visited me on the morning of my final day in Jinhua, accompanied by the regular TV crew and a couple of other reporters. From what I understood, the man and woman standing in the living room were sister and brother. They were in their late forties, perhaps, and she was wearing brown, a patterned shirt and light pants, her black hair drawn back. I don’t remember what he was wearing—she was more eager to talk, to reach out to me; she was the one crying, when she spoke. They were part of a large family, she explained, looking at me. Some seven sisters, and one younger sister, who had been adopted as a child. They hoped she was me. I looked like the other sisters, she said, gently grasping my shoulders to hold me in place. I had the same hair, the same skin, the same smile. They had brought me mooncakes as a gift. For Mid-Autumn Festival, because we might be family. Next to her, her brother murmured assent.

I held my smile steady, and when they began to talk to the TV crew again, I slipped away.

I will be honest: I was distracted, meeting them. I was writing a Thank You note to my hosts, the family that had so graciously let me stay in their home as their life was temporarily upended. I was anxious to finish it before the TV crew, and my translator, left; I wanted her to proofread the letter, so I could edit it. I had to focus to draft the letter, and then focus to write the characters. (“Cute,” commented one of the reporters, looking over my shoulder at my handwriting.) And I was tired. It had been a long week. I was upset that the TV crew had intruded into the home of my hosts without asking. I was overwhelmed by everyone I had met, by the tears and the emotions and the contact, and by everything I had done—the DNA test, the orphanage visit, the interviews. It had been a lot for someone who came to China only wanting to explore.

I regret my rudeness, now. I missed the details of their story, missed a chance to connect with them—also hopeful, also desperate—even if, by this time, I was worn from meeting hopeful desperate families. They came prepared to love, and now, I can only cross my fingers that I was not too rude, that they did not think too badly of this person who could be their sister, that they did not think I valued them or their story any less. Instead, I hope they understood. Even if they were taken aback at first, I hope they understood why I did not—could not—give them more of my time.

In the end, only three things truly stand out from my encounter with this fifth family.

The sister’s tears, because they made her eyes bright.

The sister saying, as she looked me over, that I was the right height for her family—not too tall and not too short, just average, and how thrilled I was to hear that, because it wasn’t something I ever heard, being 5’2” in America.

And, finally, the way they kept looking at me over the back of the couch, voices a murmur as they talked to the TV crew, glances involuntary like they could not stop themselves, as I wrote my letter and tried to focus—and the uncomfortable prickling heat of those looks, hoping and disappointed as the minutes passed and I did not make myself more available, and the way those looks stayed with me, both the feel and the peripheral sight of them, lingering, lasting, and even now filled with the same kind of quietness in which they eventually left.