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did not need to hang on tightly.
    “Are you all right, Maomao?” he asked.
    “I think so, Papa,” I told him. “But go slowly. I hurt all over.”
    He set out hunched over like a man with a cumbersome bundle on his back rather than a sickly child. He carried me to the bus stop anhour’s walk from our home. All the seats on the bus were taken and no one offered us one. Papa held me in his arms during the forty-minute ride. I clung to him as tightly as I could and closed my eyes. The weather was warm and I felt as if I were on fire.
    The bus deposited us a short distance from Dashushan Contagious Disease Hospital, several miles outside the city, where patients were isolated from the general population.
    Papa carried me into the lobby. He put me on a bench, showed the referral document to a clerk and waited.
    Half an hour later a doctor appeared. He looked at me carefully, turned my face to his, looked into my eyes and mouth, and felt my neck and arms and legs. He turned and glowered at Papa. “What kind of parent are you?” he snapped.
    “What do you mean?” Papa asked timidly. Others in the lobby stopped what they were doing and stared.
    “I mean,” he said, slowing his speech and giving emphasis to each word, “this little girl is very sick. Why didn’t you bring her here earlier? How could you let your own child deteriorate to this pathetic state?”
    “We took her to the university clinic every day,” Papa said. “They looked at her and gave her herbal medicines and sent us home.”
    “Oh, don’t blame someone else,” the doctor grumbled: “She’s your daughter. You’re responsible.”
    “We can’t do anything without a transfer permit from the clinic,” Papa said, his voice rising.
    The doctor paused for a moment, thought about Papa’s remark and shook his head. “Okay,” he said, sighing. “But I tell you … somebody should have known better. This is … not good!”
    I slumped over, weak, listening to the doctor’s bitter words echo up and down the hall. I was shocked and ashamed. The doctor was wrong. He didn’t realize Papa had carried me on his back all the way to the hospital. My sickness wasn’t Papa’s fault. I had not come to the hospital earlier because of the rudeness of another doctor. It was
his
fault. If this doctor only knew the truth, if there were some way for me to tell him, I was sure he would never talk to Papa that way.
    “I’ll do what I can for her. But I can’t promise much,” the doctor said with something that sounded like sympathy. “At best, her stay here will be a long one. You can go.”
    Papa reached out and touched my hand. He started to say something but hesitated and bit his lip. I wanted to tell him I was sorry for getting sick. I wanted to tell him I tried to be a good daughter and not a burden. I wanted to tell him I was sorry I could not walk to the bus. But I had no energy and I could not speak. And even if I could, I really didn’t know how to give voice to my pity and guilt. So I simply looked into his eyes and forced a hint of a smile.
    Before Papa left, he reached into the bag and pulled out my doll and handed her to me. “Mama and I will come back soon to visit you, Maomao,” he said, his voice wavering. “Be a good girl and do what they tell you.”
    I nodded. I listened to Papa’s footsteps as he walked away, and I heard the door open and close. The doctor summoned a nurse and told her to carry me to a room.

10
    The nurse took me to a small second-floor room crowded with four beds. She put me on the bed and covered me with a sheet. Three other girls in the room stared at me and whispered to one another.
    The doctor told the nurse I was in the fourth stage of the disease. “I hope we can save her,” he said.
    I could hardly speak or swallow food when I was admitted to the hospital. For two weeks I was fed through an IV. I was given daily shots and powders and pills and tests. I took my medicine as directed and slowly regained my