A Free Life

"I'm going to do it today."

Everything seemed to have fallen in place, and the Wus began pla

The main difficulty was Nan 's books, most of which were in the boxes stored in the small shed attached to Heidi's garage. Years ago when Nan still pla

For a month afterward he felt miserable, almost ill. If only there were a way to keep those books. Try as he might, he couldn't steel himself to dump them all. Fortunately, a friend of his who was returning to China came and picked thirteen boxes from his collection. Nan helped her pack them up and even drove a van with her all the way to New Jersey to have them shipped to Tianjin City by sea. Then he persuaded Heidi to let him use a little space in her shed in which to store the remaining eleven boxes. Now, to save postage, he would have to get rid of some of them again. In America every town had a library; why should he keep hundreds of titles at home? After carefully going through them, he kept about two thirds of the books, seven boxes in all, and discarded the rest.

Everything else was easy to pack; the Wus didn't have many belongings. Pingping phoned Heidi, who was on Cape Cod with her children, to let her know of their imminent move. Heidi sounded excited and also relieved. Two days later she returned to Woodland. She gave Pingping $1,200 to buy mattresses-twelve one-hundred-dollar bills in an envelope-since the Wus couldn't take along the ones they had. She also told her to clean their attic apartment before they left. Livia had come back with her mother too, and on the way she'd bought Taotao a Rubik's Cube. Now, as the adults were talking, the girl and the boy were in the living room, Livia showing him how to work the puzzle. The girl had an appointment with her orthodontist at eleven a.m. to adjust her braces, so a few minutes later Heidi called her out, ready to go.

"Keep in touch, Taotao," said Livia as she followed her mother to the passenger van.

"Sure." The boy nodded.

"Remember, I'm your friend." She waved her thin, short-nailed hand. Her flip-flops seemed too big, pattering on the driveway. "Sure, thanks for the cube."

The Wus waved as Heidi's van drew away. The boy returned to the living room, to the unsolved puzzle.

The Atlanta apartment book arrived, a thick volume containing hundreds of listings. Pingping and Nan were impressed by the rents, which were much more affordable than in the Boston area. They folded several pages that showed housing in the eastern suburbs. But to their dismay, there was only one listing in Lilburn, and that place was too pricey, so they had to look for an apartment in an adjacent town. They noticed that housing was much cheaper in some areas near Stone Mountain, a town six miles south of Lilburn in Dekalb County. Nan phoned two of those places. Without difficulty he rented a three-bedroom apartment at Peachtree Terrace, which was within Gwi

A UPS van came to pick up their boxes. Altogether there were thirty-five. The driver was a tall woman with a squarish jaw and a ta

When everything was loaded, she assured him that the whole batch would arrive intact. With a ballpoint attached to a clipboard she scribbled an X at the bottom of a form for his signature, then handed the paperwork to him. He signed it and asked her to handle their boxes carefully, though he didn't reveal that the shipment contained a microwave, a roaster, a computer, even a TV set. He gave her a ten for tip, and she beamed, panting a little. She promised to stick fragile labels to all their belongings when she got back to the local UPS headquarters.

What a woman, so hardy and so independent! Nan watched her hop into the brown van and pull it out of the yard.

4

on the morning of July 6, a Saturday, the Wus got up at four o'clock. Pingping had put blankets and pillows in the backseat of their car the night before. As Heidi had instructed, she checked all the doors and windows, then left the key on the kitchen table and locked the front door. It was still damp and chilly outside. She couldn't stop shivering as she walked toward their loaded Ford parked in front of the garage.

There was little traffic on I-95, and a faint mist veiled the land on both sides. The hazy air seemed stirred by the shafts of light projected by their car and was rolling by like strips of smoke. The woods on the roadside were dark and looked as solid as if they were a rocky bank. Pingping was happy and excited. Despite knowing that Nan didn't completely love her, despite getting carsick easily, she felt hopeful and safe with him. Their move to Georgia showed that he was willing to live and raise Taotao together with her. Don't mind going anywhere as long as we're together, she told herself. The more you move, the stronger you'll grow, not like a tree that can be killed if you uproot it. Sick of living under Heidi's roof. At last we can have a place for ourselves.

She looked at Nan, who seemed calm. In fact, he had been better tempered these days. He was driving steadily in spite of their old car that wobbled a little and couldn't overtake any vehicles on the road. Ahead of them, the blacktop looked endless and mysterious, yet Pingping was sure it was leading them to a new life. Deep down, she knew Nan would work hard and together they would make a decent living.

When they had passed New London, Co

Because their car was fully loaded, Nan wouldn't let Pingping behind the wheel at first. From time to time she kneaded the nape of his neck to relieve his tension. She could see that he was nervous, especially whenever a semi passed them, its powerful wake shaking their car a little. This happened more frequently as they were approaching Stamford. Yet somehow she felt peaceful. As long as the three of them were together, she wasn't afraid of restarting their life anywhere.