Cape Cod

David’s favorite color is blue. He wants blue popsicles, blue cups, blue markers, and blue flowers. I tell him: “Baby, there are no blue flowers.” Our trip to Cape Cod proved me wrong. Blue hydrangeas were in full bloom almost everywhere. We stayed in a town called Falmouth. Just like its flowers, this place took me by surprise with its beauty and tranquility. Unlike a tropical beach town, in Falmouth, large, dense trees shade the roads and obscure what lays beyond.  You only pop out of the cover to see a beach, an ice-cream shop, or the main street downtown. You almost forget there are also auto shops, furniture stores, and hospitals in this world. Everyone is in vacation mode, fully relaxed and joyful. This might be why people tolerate an hour-long wait for croissants from the best bakery in town (don’t ask me how I know).

This is our third vacation together. I mean the four high school friends and our families. We have known each other since we were 12 years old and went our own ways for college. Since then, our paths crossed and then parted. It was 8 years ago on Olivia’s wedding when we all met as a group and decided to keep it that way. It is so special to chat way past midnight in Wuhanese, just like old days on our bunk beds. Except that our topics switched from boys and dreams to summer camps and vacuum cleaners. It is an odd feeling to see the same teenage girls in them, yet a fresh layer of maturity and richness reminds me that 20 years have gone by.

The husbands get along just fine. They bond in different ways than women. After all the kids are put to bed, the wives run to the common space and get straight to business, drinking (mostly tea, we are Chinese remember?) and chatting.  The men play Texas poker, Catan, and occasionally just sit next to each other and catch up on work. One night, in an attempt to include men in our favorite activity, the women dimmed the lights, lit some candles and brought wine glasses. The normally accommodating husbands joined force in a group protest and refused this disruption to their game.

The children, 7 of them, play well together. Our hope for them to practice Chinese with each other vanished early on. English is the dominant language among the little ones. For a long time, Kate believed she is half Chinese and half English. So I did my part. Still, to tell her about her roots is different from letting her live it. Traveling with a group of Chinese friends, eating Chinese meals on most days, and watching the dynamics in other Chinese families hopefully will be treasured memories some day.

In Cape Cod, the things that possess comparable beauty with those hydrangeas are the water and the sky above it. The whole crew rented bikes one day and lined up on a shady trail along the coast. Kate pedaled in front of me and her hair was dancing cheerfully in the wind. With joy, she said: “Mom, I just love this. Don’t you?” “Yes, Kate! It is lovely.” I truly felt that way. There is no better vacation than this. Childhood friends, happy family, beautiful weather, and don’t forget the croissants. Just when I thought this is a fairy tale, the trip took a sharp turn.

Maybe we were meant to have a full experience of this resort town. Chris’ heart went into Afib (irregular heartbeats) after racing the men in the garden of The Breakers.  The incident led to a trip to the ER and a cardioversion on his heart. It was less scary than the first time it happened (4 years ago), but still, I couldn’t help feeling a big knot tightening in my chest the whole time. Prayers were said aloud and in quiet. While waiting for some medication to work, I read him a chapter of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It brought me some well-needed peace. In that moment, I was willing to trade anything for him to be well. My trench coat, our savings, sleeping in every day, or even my sabbatical.

Our friends back in the house fed our kids and put them to bed. A group of them brought me dinner. Emily made rice, stir fried asparagus and mushroom that night. In the same bag with the food, there was a light jacket, a roll of toilet paper, two slices of bread and a juice box. The cardioversion took place around 11 and all the men came to pick us up a little after midnight. After my briefing with the girls, we said goodnight early.

The rest of the trip was less light-hearted, but still enjoyable. You know we are not sick of one another when we pinned down the next vacation destination and started looking into rental properties the night before departure. For me, this is likely to be a very memorable trip as it is infused with deep and mixed emotions, joy and worry, love and fear. As our family slowly resets into our routine back at home, I hope to hold on to that piece of blueness a little longer.