Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 12 | Page 392

It was a black-and-white photograph of her grandparents when they were young. Squinting, she studied the
grainy image, and saw the way they beamed at each other while holding hands. They were on a bridge over a
pond, near a bed of giant rocks. It looked familiar. She clapped her hand over her chest as her heart thumped faster.
“No way,” she muttered.
“What’s wrong, Maddie?” Her father’s voice made her yelp. “Dad, look!” She held up the photo. Her father drew
a finger to his lips, gesturing to keep her voice down. He bobbed his head. “Oh, that. Ma always keeps it with her.
It was taken the day Yéyé asked her to marry him.”
“This is the garden in my dreams. See the rock with a lot of holes? Pour water on top and it will pass through each
hole. Or burn an incense stick below it and the smoke will flow through the holes too. Cool to watch.”
“How did you know that?” her father asked.
“I told you, I kept dreaming about it. Sometimes I’m on the bridge, sometimes I’m swimming in the pond,
sometimes I’m the one burning a joss stick under it.”
Her father smiled. “You remembered. There’s a reason you know all those things about that rock -- because N
ǎinai used to tell you stories about the Exquisite Jade Rock of Yuyuan Garden when you were little.”
“Huh?”
“The Exquisite Jade Rock– it’s one of the most famous rocks in all of South China. It’s in Yu Garden in Shanghai.
It’s Nǎinai and Yéyé’s favourite place.”
“I remember now. She told me that rock had sunk in the bottom of the river when it was being transferred. Then
people had to break down a part of Shanghai’s old city wall when they transported it into the Yu Garden.”
Her father touched the pale, wrinkly hand of his mother. “The rock was simply magnificent, one of China’s true
gems. Pan Yunduan built the garden for his parents, where they could live peacefully together. Yéyé promised N
ǎinai he’d bring her back there. ‘Next year,’ he’d always tell her. But then he got sick and…” His voice trailed
off.
Yéyé ran out of ‘next years.’ And now Nǎinai seemed like she was about to.
A year later.
Madison stepped through one of the half-circle moon doors in the crowded garden.
“Over here Maddie!” her mother yelled.
“Coming!” she hollered.
She could see it now -- that hole-riddled rock in the middle of two giant stones, like guards watching over the
exquisite creation atop the artificial mountain in the middle of the man-made pond.
“Nǎinai, Yéyé, we’re here,” she whispered.