I.                 

Thin. Reedy. Willow shoots raised their heads to the sky as hands patted down the dirt base. Spaced two hand-widths apart, the tube-like yellows and greens of newly planted cuttings stood proudly, too short to catch the sultry currents.

"There," Mother sighed, unbending at the waist. Her palms, powered with rich soil, fed the roots of his hair.

His brows wrinkled. "Mother."

"Ah, sorry, sorry, A-Liu," she chuckled, and ignoring his attempts at ducking away, sprinkled more soil onto his head. "Mother forgot to plant you too! So that you can grow as tall as these willows will."

"Mother!"

"One day, they'll make a great fence in this boring courtyard," she continued. "Here, water them generously. We'll need to feed them enough the first year, or they'll wither and die." Firm hands grabbed his smaller ones and moved them towards the water-darkened beds. "Push your finger into the soil, yes, just like that. See how far you go? That's how much water it needs right now."

Two inches. Mn. One inch here. More water.

"Mother, water me too," A-Liu said solemnly. His gaze lingered on the straight, slender profiles. "Just soil is no good."

Mother's laughter was warmer than the sun on their backs. "Well then, time for a bath!"

Without warning, her hands swooped under his arms to lift him into the air. There was nothing dignified about the way his legs were dangling, and he grumbled exactly that.

"Aiyah, A-Liu, how did I give birth to a fifty-year-old in an eight-year-old's body?"

"Mother, please."

But his grumbles were brushed away, and soon, so was the soil in his hair. "A-Liu," Mother said as she combed out his wet hair. The bathwater was warm, and he was drowsy. "Grow like a willow, okay? Be strong. Be soft. Bend with the wind.”

II.               

Words were difficult. A-Liu liked them in print, where every stroke came in order, and every character had to traverse millions of particles to reach his brain. Speaking however, required reciprocity.

“Do you want to play with us?”

It wasn’t the first time A-Liu had been asked this question, but once again, he sat frozen with a straight back and tightly clenched fists.

He stared at the sunny smile before him, wide enough to crack the corners of a rather audacious mouth. The face it sat on was grubby. The body it was attached to was dressed in the patchiest clothes he had ever seen.

Father would dismiss this child. Mother would love it.

“Hello? Do you want to play?”

Silence stretched. With every breath, his tongue weighed heavier.

“Just leave him to his corner,” someone yelled across the field. A-Liu made out just enough of that craggy haircut to recognize one of the boys on his street. “He never says yes – I don’t think he likes fun.”

But I do, A-Liu screamed in the depths of his mind. Ask me again.

As always, the crush of his thoughts filtered the world into vague outlines before feeding it back to him in pieces. The distant blurs of the neighbourhood children. The chittering of cicadas. The rustle underfoot as the owner of that smile shifted their feet. The more the world took shape, the more A-Liu’s voice shrank, washed far, far from shore.

“Maybe you’re too boring!” the boy in front of him shouted. His snaggletooth looked even more pronounced in profile. He turned back to A-Liu with the same guileless ease that caught him off-guard the first time, repeating, “Do you want to play with me?”

Oh.

The words rushed back like high tide, welling into yes. Yes. Yes, yes –

“YES!”

Desperate. Unrestrained. Revealing. His voice seemed to ricochet off every bramble and sun-bleached bush. The other boy’s welcoming smile reshaped into a circle of surprise. A-Liu squeezed his eyes shut.

You’re so embarrassing, he thought furiously. Why can’t you just say yes like a normal person?

Braying laughter forced his eyes open again. Mirth inhabited every pore of the strange creature before him; the boy was slapping his knees, howling. Bewildered, A-Liu unfurled from his seat.

“Hah, you’re hilarious!” A strong hook had his face buried into a sweaty armpit. Sounds spilled past the protective curl of his ear, surging into the crooks of his brain until every syllable reached the deep lake in its center. “Those guys don’t know what they’re talking about.” Another tug. A muffled yelp. A-Liu could barely stay on his feet. “Hey guys, he’s joining us! No, what? You never gave him enough time to respond— shut up! You’re clearly the problem.”

They left behind a scuffed patch of dirt, in the cooling shade of a weeping willow.

III.             

There was a scroll hanging in Father’s study, un-yellowed despite its age. The calligraphy was crisp without any flair. It penned:

Pruning Trees

Trees growing–right in front of my window;

The trees are high and the leaves thick.

Sad alas! the distant mountain view

Obscured by this, dimly shows through.

One morning I took knife and axe;

With my own hand I lopped the branches off.

Ten thousand leaves fall about my head;

A thousand hills come before my eyes.

Suddenly, as when clouds or mists break

And straight through, the blue sky appears;

Again, like the face of a friend one has loved

Seen at last after an age of parting.

First there came a gentle wind blowing;

One by one the birds flew back to the tree.

To ease my mind I gazed to the South East;

As my eyes wandered, my thoughts went far away.

Of men there is none that has not some preference;

Of things there is none but mixes good with ill.

It was not that I did not love the tender branches;

But better still, –to see the green hills!

[Written by Po Chü-I, translated by Arthur Waley]

It was unfortunate that the sheer delight the poet had found in nature became constrained in the stoic hand of A-Liu’s great-great-great-something-grand-something-uncle.

Likewise, A-Liu was a rigid canvas under Father’s gaze as he recited each line with perfect intonation. Mother, seated next to Father behind a polished walnut desk, rolled her eyes whenever Father hummed consideringly.

After, Father dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Just like how he took axe to tree to reveal the mountains, you mustn’t let present whimsies distract you from your future.”

Father never quite approved of their gardening work, though he left the willows as they were. Some have grown thick enough that a knife wouldn’t be able to cut them down. Or perhaps he was referring to A-Liu’s many hours playing in the field.

He didn’t approve of that either.

The moment Father disappeared – ostensibly for business – Mother shook him lightly. “Don’t listen to that stodgy old man. The poem speaks of no such thing.”

“It was not that I did not love the tender branches,” A-Liu quoted, glancing out at the willow grove. “But better still, to see the green hills.”

“Are the trees themselves not beautiful?” Mother countered. “Why lope off the branches when your feet can move you beyond them, when you can walk yourself to the mountains?”

What she meant was: why not have both?

---

One of A-Liu’s favourite things to do was to sit beneath the willow trees.

He loved the drape of the branches in full bloom.

In their courtyard where willows grew thick and thin, the trailing leaves rasped against each other – an almost conversation.

Sometimes, it was loud enough to drown out Father’s stringent demands and Mother’s passionate rebukes.

IV.             

The rain drummed on.

A-Liu pushed against the window; hands cupped around his face so he could better focus on the scene outside. Behind him, the candles fluttered.

It felt as if the sky was splitting right above their heads.

A soft “Gege?” came through the door. Its usual creak was masked by the storm overhead, and branching flashes of lightning revealed a crumpled lump of blankets. Qing-er’s eyes were thankfully dry.

He patted the space beside him on the wide windowsill, hiding his smile at the way she scrambled towards him. Clumsy, eager.

The thought what would Father say strayed across his mind before the ever-growing weight of his younger sister burrowed into his side, bony elbows knocking painfully against his hip.

“Gege, it’s so loud,” she whispered, though any sound would have struggled to reach their parents’ room.

“Mn.”

She leaned forward and smeared her nose against the glass. “What are you looking at? It’s so dark.”

“The willows.”

“Oh.” They waited out a dramatic rattle, then, “I can’t see anything.”

He showed her how to block out the sides of her face, to enclose herself in shadow. He knew the moment her eyes focused on the lean saplings because she asked, “Do you think they’ll be okay?”

Probably. Willows were resilient. Still, the newer cuttings were planted just weeks ago; fragile things that swayed and dove within the storm. His heart hammered with every beat of the rain.

Qing-er gasped, “Oh no, Ge!”

One of the thinner branches had snapped. Vulnerable in its spot along the border, it now jutted out like a dowsing rod.

“Oh no, oh no,” Qing-er chanted. “I’m sorry one of your willows died.” Her arms wriggled around his waist, head drilling into his stomach to comfort. Trembling fingers secreted away into the tangles of her hair.

When we prune willows, we’re helping them grow thicker and denser, Mother’s voice echoed. He pictured the quick snip of her shears. Oh! I guess we shouldn’t do this for all of them though! We'd run out of space.

Eventually, Qing-er’s muttering gave way to drowsiness. “Don’t be sad, Ge,” she slurred.

She slumped over, sleep-warmed and lovely.

“It’s not dead,” he told her, “It’s giving us new shoots to plant.”

He stayed awake until the deluge became a drizzle, then a fine dusting of dew. His heart calmed with it.

Willows sought water after all.

V.               

A-Liu was a shy child.

A-Liu was a strong boy.

A-Liu shot up when fed sun and water, set his roots to the ground, and learnt how to bend only when he wanted to.

---

Beyond the lacquered slats of the study windows, brushes of green caught his gaze. There was wind in the willows.

He took a deep breath. “No.”

“No?”

“No.”

Father had always worn the eyes of a hawk. Even now, meeting them at an even line of sight made him want to shy away. A-Liu forced his head to stay up, to deliver the words he had painstakingly collected over the years.

“I will study what you’ve planned for me,” he said, “I’ll even do the internships that you’ve lined up. But I won’t take over the family business.” He would always prefer words in ink, but as he shaped every sound of his thoughts, he realized that maybe there was room for conversation after all. “Let your successes by yours, and let my successes be mine.”

Father was silent. Something about him felt a little smaller. Softer. Finally, his gaze turned down to the papers on his desk. “Applications close on Friday. Finish the papers and turn them in to me tomorrow.”

When no further words seemed imminent, A-Liu nodded in farewell. “Father.”

To no surprise, Mother was pacing outside the study. She had just enough patience for him to lead them out into the courtyard before stepping close and hissing, “What did you tell him?”

A-Liu had long outpaced her height, but he suspected that he would be bending to her whims until even his roots grew white. “I said no.”

The wrinkles around her eyes deepened.

“That’s good,” she said, taking his hands and squeezing them. “That's good. You've learnt to bend with the wind.”