Chen's dorm room smelled of instant noodles and stale laundry. The alarm went off at 6:00 a.m., like it was supposed to. He slapped it silent, rolled over and stared at the mural photo Jia had sent him the night before the oak tree's roots now cradled a tiny origami crane with his name. He pinned it above his desk, right next to his class schedule: 8:00 a.m. Chemistry, 11:00 a.m. Creative Writing, 3:00 p.m. Shift at the Campus Café.
His phone lit up with a text:
Dad: Call when you can. No rush.
Chen ignored it. His father had been sending these for weeks—short, tentative messages that felt like stones dropped into a silent pond .
The campus café was all chipped mugs and burnt espresso. Chen's boss, Marjorie, tossed him an apron.
"Table six needs a refill. And stop looking like you're at a funeral."
It's my face," Chen said. "Resting funeral aura."
Marjorie snorted. "You're a riot. Now move."
He poured coffee for a girl hunched over a biology textbook. She didn't look up, but her phone buzzed with a text: Mom: Did you take your meds?
Chen glanced away. Everyone here was fighting something.
Miguel called during Chen's break.
"Luna's teaching me to budget," he said, voice tinny over the café's clatter. "She's worse than my mom. 'Mig, stop buying energy drinks. Mig, save for rent.'"
Chen laughed. "She's right. You'll rot your teeth."
"Says the guy who eats ramen for breakfast." A pause. "Your dad came by the shop."
Chen stiffened. "Why?"
"Asked if I'd heard from you. Told him you're alive. That's it."
"Thanks."
"You gonna talk to him?"
"Dunno."
"Don't be a shy forever."
"Love you too."
Chen's creative writing professor, Dr. Patel, circled a line in his latest draft: "Grief isn't a storm. It's the tide it retreats, but it always comes back."
"This," she said after class, "is good. But it's safe. Dig deeper."
"It's personal," Chen muttered.
"All good writing is." She softened. "Your mom would've wanted you to be brave."
He rewrote it that night, the words raw and unpolished.
"She used to burn the congee. I'd pretend not to notice. Now I'd give anything to taste it again."
Miguel's new job reeked of oil and gasoline. Luna visited on her lunch break, straddling a motorcycle she'd nicknamed "Death Trap."
"You're late," Miguel said, wiping grease off his hands.
"Had to finish an exam." Luna tossed him a sandwich. "Eat. You're cranky when you're hungry."
"I'm always cranky."
"True." She leaned against the hood of a pickup. "Saw your dad at the gas station. He asked about Chen."
Miguel scowled. "Tell him to call Chen himself."
"He's trying."
"Trying's not enough."
Jia FaceTimed Chen from her dorm, her hair streaked with blue. Behind her, canvases leaned against the wall a half-finished painting of the oak tree, its branches morphing into hands.
"It's called 'Hold On, Let Go,'" she said. "Cheesy, right?"
"Nah. It's… you."
She blushed. "How's your dad?"
Chen hesitated. "Texting. Calling. I don't know what to say."
"Start with 'Hi.'"
"Easy for you. Your dad…" He trailed off.
"My dad's gone. Yours isn't." Her voice softened. "Don't waste time, Chen."
Chen's mom's birthday was cold and drizzly. The group gathered at the park, huddled under the oak tree with tamales and a store-bought cake.
"Remember when she tried to bake a cake from scratch?" Rafi said. "Looked like a meteor."
"Tasted like one too," Miguel added.
Chen chuckled; the noise rasped in his throat. His father stepped aside, gazing at the tree.
"She liked it here," his dad blurted suddenly. "Claimed it was… living."
Chen nodded. "It is."
His dad rummaged in his pocket, extracted a paper bag. "I, uh. tried the congee. Burned it. Again."
Chen accepted the container. Rice was black on the edges and the egg rubbery. He took a mouthful. "Tastes like hers."
His dad's eyes welled with tears. "Yeah?"
"Yeah.
They did not hug. But his dad stayed.
Jia: Can't sleep. Tell me something real.
Chen: I'm scared I'll forget her voice.
Jia: You won't. It's in your bones.
Chen: Poetic.
Jia: Shut up. Go to bed.
Chen: Night, Jia.
Jia: Night, Chen.
Marjorie let Chen leave early after he spilled coffee on a customer. ("It's fine," the woman lied, mopping her blouse. "I needed a new one anyway.")
He walked back to his dorm in the rain, hood pulled low. His dad was waiting outside, hunched under the awning.
"Hi," his dad said.
"Hi."
"I brought congee. Less burnt this time."
Chen stared at the thermos. "Why?"
"Because… I don't know how to fix anything. But I can try."
Chen took the thermos. "Come in."
After his father's departure, Chen sat in his dorm, sipping the last of his congee from the still-warm thermos. He opened his mother's journal to a blank page; old entries stared back at him like ghosts.
"Chen again stayed up late over books. I hope he sleeps early. But he is stubborn. Like me."
He pressed his pen onto the paper, words pouring out in jagged lines:
"Mom,
Dad tried to make congee today. He burned it, but not as badly as you used to. I almost told him that—how yours was always a little charred at the edges, how you'd laugh and say it was 'extra crispy.' But I didn't. I just ate it.
I don't know why it's so hard to talk to him. Maybe because every time I look at him, I see the years he wasn't here. The birthdays, the hospital nights, the days I pretended not to care that he forgot to call.
But today, he remembered yours. He stood under the oak tree and said it was 'alive'. I think he meant you. I think he misses you too.
I wish you were here to tell me how to fix this. How to stop being so angry. How to let him in.
I'm trying.
Love,
Chen"
He closed the journal, tears making the ink run. Rain tapped against the window; it sounded like forgiveness.
Luna was asleep on the couch in the auto shop. Chen's phone vibrated with a photo from Miguel: her with a wrench still in hand, asleep by Mike.
Miguel: She's worse than you.
Chen: Tell her to go home.
Miguel: Tried. She threatened to revoke my burrito privileges.
Chen smiled. Life wasn't perfect. But it was moving