The Soy Milk

Monday. I woke at the usual hour. I half-listened for the boy. Nothing came.

I got up, made coffee, stood at the window with it. The street below was quiet. Monday quiet. I drank.

I went out in the morning, the long way — the bridge, the school, the corner. The bakery was open. It smelled of bread. The crossing was empty. The air was cold. I walked the same route as Sunday, saying the date to myself.

The convenience store was open on the corner. I went in for rice. The rice was on the second shelf. I reached for it. My hand passed it and went on.

My hand took the soy milk.

It was not the plain carton. It was not a size I would have chosen. The name on it was a name I had never seen. I read it twice. It stayed a name I did not know. I stood with the carton and did not put it back. I carried it to the counter. There was a queue. I stood in it with the carton in my hand. It was light. I paid, and I did not decide any of it. The man at the counter took my money without looking at me. The rice stayed on the second shelf.

I walked home with the carton in the bag. I told myself I would drink it. That was the whole of the plan. The bag sat on the counter until noon.

At noon I opened it. The fridge held the carton from the first week. I had never drunk it. I set the new one on the counter. The top came off. The smell came first, then the pour. I poured a glass. Drank.

The first sip was soy milk. The second sip opened it.

the kitchen. small. warm. the window over the sink. a table. a boy’s legs swinging, not reaching the floor. the floor is far. the table is high —

I put the glass down. The kitchen was my kitchen. The table was the counter. Nothing in it was small. The image was not mine. The taste was familiar in a way that was not mine.

Grief arrived. The tears came with the taste. They had been waiting for it. I was not sad but I was crying. I stood at the sink and cried, and I did not know what for. I looked at the wall calendar. October 14 was still circled. This was not that. The grief had no date.

I wiped my face with the flat of my hand. The glass was on the counter. The carton was half full.

I poured the rest down the sink. The water ran. I stood there with it running. Rinsed the glass, dried it, put it away. The carton went in the recycling.

I made rice and ate it standing at the counter. Rinsed the bowl, stood it to dry. The phone rang. It was my mother.

‘Did you eat?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘What did you eat?’

‘Rice,’ I said. It was true.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘I made tea a while ago. It’s cold now.’

‘That’s all right,’ I said.

‘Are you sleeping?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your aunt says I spoil you,’ she said. ‘She’s not wrong.’

We talked about the wedding. The cousin’s suit was at the tailor’s, the flowers chosen. She said it would be a good day.

‘The soup is on,’ she said. ‘There’s a pot. It’ll keep till you’re here.’

‘Good,’ I said.

‘How is work?’

‘Fine,’ I said. It was true.

‘I bought soy milk today,’ I said.

It was a small safe thing. The kind of thing you say so she knows you eat.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘You used to love that.’

The line held.

‘Every morning, that autumn,’ she said. ‘A small glass, before school. You would not leave without it.’

She stopped. She left the sentence where it was and gave me room. I heard her waiting.

I looked at the window.

‘Is the radiator still knocking?’ I said.

‘At night,’ she said. ‘I put the kettle on and it stops. The kettle. Can you believe it.’

‘Good,’ I said.

‘Take care of yourself, Hao.’

‘I will,’ I said.

‘Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight.’

I put the phone down. Used to love that. Every morning, that autumn. She had said it warmly. A fact. A fact I did not have. The only picture I had was the one from noon, and it was not mine.

The carton was in the recycling. I took it out and read the name. It meant nothing to me. I looked it up on the phone.

It was regional. The stockists were all in the province: the town, and two towns around it. Three hundred kilometres from my street. The city had none. The brand my hand had taken was the one she meant. The kitchen at noon had been her kitchen. The window over the sink. The small table. It was hers. It was not mine.

The website was plain. A province. A list of towns. The brand had never left them.

I put the phone down. I put the carton back in the fridge. I had stood in that store this morning and my hand had taken it. That was all. My hand knew it.

In the evening I opened the drawer and took out the earbuds. The old ones. The frayed wire. The left one dead for months. I put them in, opened the music, braced. I waited for the pressure first. There was no pressure. The static did not come.

The music played. Ordinary music. I sat at the window and listened to it. The fridge held both cartons. I left them. The date stayed on the wall.

I made tea. Drank half. The rest went cold.

The grief stayed. All evening it stayed, patient, without a source. It did not ask anything of me.

The soy milk is the brand my mother’s kitchen used. It is sold in the provincial town, not here. My hand bought it. My hand remembers what I do not.