A kite string stretched from northern Sichuan to the Bund. At times it was pulled taut, at times it slackened, and at times it grew damp in someone’s grip. The letter he had written but never sent lay in a drawer beside the candy. The candy sweetened her life three times; she read the letter once. He never asked whether she had read it, and she never asked when he had written it. They both knew the letter was there, but the kite still flew in the sky, because when someone else spoke for him, the words were “come back,” not “stay.”
