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H
enry Liu lost his voice halfway through the trip, coughing so violently that he thought he pulled a muscle on his left side.
Whenever he felt pain, he put his hand across his chest to reassure himself that his heart was still beating. He looked at
the view as his wife drove, at the broken edges of mountains covered in snow and the turquoise lake where not a single fish
lived because of its cold waters. The mountains held a stillness that silenced him. It moved him to think how many thousands
of years they had stood, worn silently away by wind and ice, and he felt regret as the lake slipped past his window. When
it disappeared from view, Henry felt as if he had been given a last glimpse of the world. He knew that he would be dead before
the trip was over.

His sixteen-year-old son, James, slouched in his seat, playing his Game Boy. Alice leaned her head against the window, reading
a Russian novel for college—it was a thousand pages at the very least—by an author whose name Henry couldn’t pronounce. His
wife kept exclaiming at the scenery—
look out-side, isn’t it beautiful?
—and when neither of their children looked, she became angry, saying what a waste it had been to bring them, until their daughter
put the novel down on her knee and gazed through the window. His wife drove the car in fits and starts, pressing down hard
on the accelerator and just as suddenly releasing it so that the car kept lurching forward and then slowing down. “Mom,” James
yelled, “you’re making me sick! Stop it!”

“What?” she said.

“Your driving! It sucks! I’m a better driver, right, Alice?”

Alice picked up her novel and flipped a page.

“Mom, stop the car and let me drive!”

“You shut up,” Henry’s wife said. “I don’t want all of us to end up dead at the bottom of the cliff.”

James gave a heavy sigh as he collapsed back into his seat. He glanced out the window. “Everything looks the same,” he complained.
He picked up his Game Boy and pushed his glasses back with the edge of a finger.

Henry rolled down his window, but his wife turned to look at him. She didn’t like the wind hitting her face because the lady
who sold her makeup said that moving air wasn’t good for her complexion. So he closed the window, and they drove like that
for another hour or so, the rented car smelling of vinyl, the way new cars smell, and lukewarm air blowing in softly through
the vents. Through the glass, Henry stared at the mountains taking up the sky, massive fissured surfaces that from a distance
became faint blue outlines. He wanted to remember them, but it seemed impossible for his mind to remember anything so beautiful
and vast. On previous vacations, he had bought a postcard or two to remind him of the places they had seen, but this attempt
at memory now seemed like wasted effort.

A tickle crept into his throat, and Henry held his breath. He didn’t want to begin coughing, but the itch blossomed until
he felt he was suffocating. His eyes watered as he hunched over in his seat, coughing. His family watched him in silence.
“How are you?” his wife finally asked.

Henry nodded, swallowing, his fingers touching his throat.

“Your father is sick.” His wife sounded surprised, as though she hardly believed it. Ever since Henry had lost his voice,
his family talked about him as if he weren’t there. What about Dad? his children would say. Poor Dad! Their regard made Henry
feel his sickness even more. He would look at the lines of his skin, its cracked translucence, and wonder if he were becoming
invisible.

His children liked to hear him croak. “He sounds like the Godfather,” James said. “Hey, Dad! Can you say ‘He sleeps with the
fishes.’ Say it, Dad.” Henry just smiled. When he wore his gray jacket and pants, James and Alice addressed him as Don. “How’s
it going, Don?” they said, and laughed together in the backseat of the car. They made their voices deep and scratchy. “You
do a favor for me, I’ll do a favor for you.”

It was odd, but when he did speak, his family stopped their chatter and listened to his every syllable. He spoke so rarely
that his words seemed to hold unusual power. Now, as they followed a winding road through the mountains, Henry lifted his
hand up. His wife glanced at him. “Stop,” he said. His voice was like dry wind, he felt his insides shaking. His wife pulled
over to the side.

“Are you okay, Dad?” Alice asked.

“Okay,” he whispered. “Water.”

Alice found a bottle underneath a jacket on the floor and poured him a cup. Henry drank quickly with everyone watching. When
he was done, he pointed to the mountains outside the window and then opened the car door to get out.

“What’s he doing?” Alice asked.

“Dad’s going crazy!” James said.

“He wants to see the view,” his wife told them.

His wife and Alice got out and followed him to the overlook while James stayed inside the car. Henry stepped onto a large
red rock to see the view. “Let me get a picture,” Alice said to her mother. “Smile!” Her voice was buoyant in the singsong
way of people who are taking photographs. Henry noticed that his wife was smiling without really smiling. Her face seemed
to be resisting the wind. She kept blinking as she held her lips together, a colorful silk scarf surrounding her throat. Henry
was struck by how old she looked as she waited for Alice to take the photograph. “Dad, turn around,” Alice said. Henry shook
his head without looking at her, waving his hand as if brushing away a fly. His daughter took his picture anyway, a side profile
of him gesticulating on top of the rock.

“Why doesn’t he want his picture taken?” Alice asked her mother.

“Don’t worry about him,” his wife said. She and Alice paused for a moment, breathing in the view. “So beautiful!” his wife
sighed. Then they turned and headed back to the car.

Henry set one foot on top of another rock. A burned oak tree rose from the craggy earth, its limbs twisted in the air. Acorns
hung from the dried-up branches, as colorless as silver. They looked petrified, and Henry thought it remarkable that they
had not already fallen. He picked up a small piece of rock, brick red, like a misshapen diamond, and pressed it into his palm.
One side was crusted with dirt, leaving his fingers dusty and dry. It smelled like stale smoke, like ash, when he sniffed
at it.

When he looked back to where the car was parked, he noticed that his family was staring at him. He tossed the rock to the
ground and then spat along the side of the road, trying to clean his tongue of its acrid taste. When he was inside the car
again, before they had driven even a mile, he turned to his wife, speaking to her in Chinese. “Please take me to the hospital,”
he said.

Three hours passed by as they waited in the emergency room for a doctor. Henry had complained of chest pain, so the nurse
had taken his blood pressure and pulse to make sure he wasn’t having a heart attack. She also drew a sample of his blood and
sent it to the laboratory. His wife had dropped their children off at a tour company after giving them permission to sign
up for an ATV ride. Henry didn’t like the idea at all, but his wife relented after James promised he wouldn’t drive but would
share a vehicle with his sister. Henry knew, of course, that Alice would let her brother drive, but he didn’t say anything
to stop them.

There was a television in the waiting room, and he and his wife were watching the men’s finals at Wimbledon. The screen was
mounted so high, however, that it was impossible to follow the ball as it flew across the net. After squinting for an hour,
Henry finally gave up and closed his eyes, while his wife continued to watch. He was tired of the heartless drama and the
crowd, which demanded nothing less than perfection from the players.

With his eyes closed, Henry concentrated on the pain inside his throat. He wanted to drink something—hot tea with a couple
of cough drops thrown in, a few tablespoons of whiskey mixed with honey and lemon—anything to relieve the soreness. The air
had turned raw in his throat, as if he were breathing particles of dust. He had heard of people struggling with asthma being
able to breathe again after being submerged in water, and he thought once more about the lake he had seen that afternoon,
its glacial stillness with not a single thing stirring below. He imagined lying on the silt floor, his nameless body edged
in blue, drifting without words or sound along the empty bottom.

His wife shook his arm, and Henry woke. He cleared his throat and sat up straight in his chair. Several people were looking
at him. “You were snoring,” his wife told him. His body felt cold and damp, and he rose shakily to his feet. “Where are you
going?” his wife asked.

He pointed his thumb toward the window.

“Huh?”

“Outside,” he muttered.

In front of the hospital, there were a few empty benches. Henry chose the one facing the most sunlight and blinked as he sat
down. The sun felt weak against his skin, as though the light were passing through him.

“You have a smoke?”

Henry looked up at a woman standing beside him. She was in her early thirties with frizzy brown hair, and she wore the flimsy
gown issued to patients. When she stepped in front of him, Henry could see that she wore another gown underneath, reversed
to cover her back. Her right arm was attached to an IV drip, and she had dragged the metal stand along the cement walkway
with her.

“What?” Henry asked.

“Do you have a smoke?” she repeated. She made the motions of taking a cigarette in and out of her mouth.

Henry shook his head, waving his hand.

A nurse wearing blue scrubs walked through the sliding doors and approached him. “Henry Liu?” she asked.

Henry nodded, getting up out of his seat.

“Actually, Mr. Liu, you can stay where you are. I just wanted to check on how you’re doing.”

“Okay.”

“We’re almost ready to see you. We’re still waiting for the results from the lab. It won’t be more than an hour or so.”

“Nurse,” the woman said, “got a smoke?”

“I’m afraid not,” the nurse said, turning away.

“God, what does it take to get a cigarette around here?” the woman demanded. She paced up and down the walkway with the IV
stand. She stopped by his bench and rubbed her shoe along the cement curb. “This feels nice. Henry, right?”

Henry looked over at her in surprise.

“Henry,” the woman said again, “won’t you talk to me?”

Henry tapped the base of his throat and shook his head.

“I know my body better than any doctor,” the woman said, “but they won’t let me smoke. I can’t even drink my glasses of water.
You know what they call my condition? Psychogenic polydipsia. ‘Psycho-fucking-what?’ I said. Who would think water could be
bad for you?”

Henry raised his eyebrows and looked at her.

“My ions are off,” she said. “Missing electrolytes. The doctor said I was drowning.”

The woman’s eyes had a green fluorescence. When she spoke, the skin around her mouth moved tightly, as if she’d received a
face-lift. Yet she couldn’t have been older than thirty-five or so.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” the woman said. “You probably think I need a new liver or something.”

Henry cleared his throat. “How much water ... ? “ He curled his fingers and made the gesture of drinking from an imaginary
cup.

“A lot, Henry. I am addicted to water. The pills I take make my mouth so dry.” A couple walked toward them from the parking
lot. “Hey, excuse me, got a smoke?” the woman yelled.

“Sorry,” the man said, and the couple passed by.

The woman pulled her IV stand closer to the bench and sat down beside Henry. “Guess how much water I drink.”

Henry shrugged.

“Come on, guess.”

In his lap, Henry stuck out his thumb and forefinger. “Two gallons,” he whispered.

“No,” the woman said. “I drink four hundred and forty-eight fluid ounces each day. Three and a half gallons of water.” The
woman leaned her head back, tapping her fingers along the bench, paying no mind to the tube that came out of her hand. She
crossed her legs, bobbing one foot up and down, the laces of her tennis shoe dangling. Henry could see short brown hairs sprouting
from her legs. His wife didn’t ever need to shave; her legs were so dry that they had a sheen to them, like cracked porcelain.

“Nothing more delicious,” the woman said. “Everything has a taste except water. You know how hard it is to find something
without a taste, Henry?” She began fiddling with the intravenous tube on the back of her hand. “The other night I dreamed
I was sitting in a restaurant with my ex-husband, Ronny, and it was like we were married all over again. The only thing he
said to me was ‘I’ve flushed out my ears.’ Then he proceeded to cut his bread into small pieces. To be honest, I was more
interested in looking at the menu. There were fancy things, a lot of French words I didn’t know. But I remember one dish in
particular. Encrusted Squab Stuffed with Goat Cheese. Can you imagine? All I wanted was meat loaf, but I couldn’t find it
on the menu. The more I looked, the more convinced I was it was my last meal.” The woman caressed her IV with the tips of
her fingers. It made Henry nervous, worried that she might yank the tube out at any moment. “I never wanted to have a taste
for things.”

“
Lou
Liu,” a voice said from behind. Henry jerked his head up, saw that his wife was standing behind the bench. Old man, she had
called him. Old Liu. His wife stared at the woman sitting beside him.

“Your wife, Henry?” the woman said.

Henry got up awkwardly out of his seat. He would have introduced them, but he didn’t know the woman’s name.

“It’s time for me to pick up the kids,” his wife said to him in Chinese.

“Oh, I know,” the woman said. “That’s Japanese, isn’t it?”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be here waiting.”

“What are you talking about, Henry?” the woman asked.

“Who is that?” his wife said, digging through her purse. Henry shrugged. His wife put on her sunglasses. “Don’t forget about
insurance,” she said as she turned away. She walked to the parking lot, clutching her purse. Henry watched her recede into
a horizon of glinting cars.