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Chapters 1-10
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Astonishing Color of After, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Memory, Family, and Identity
Death, Transformation, and the Afterlife
Creativity, Self-Expression, and Dreams
Grief, Guilt, and Healing
Summary
Analysis
A week after Leigh shows Dad the box, all the windows fly open in the middle of the night. The slamming sounds and the draft wake Leigh, who is on the sofa. She calls out for Mom, and the room falls silent. Another crash sounds upstairs. Leigh hears Dad cursing. She tries to go upstairs, but she can’t help but think of Mom’s body and the stain it left behind. A gust of wind catches Dad in a mini cyclone at the top of the stairs, leaving him covered in red feathers. Though they do not discuss the event, one week later, Dad books two plane tickets to Taiwan.
This is the first point at which it seems like something is haunting Leigh and Dad. Though the bird does not appear, the red feathers indicate that it is orchestrating this supernatural disruption and suggest that it will persistently interrupt their lives until its wishes are met. Even after this unexplainable display, Dad refuses to admit to Leigh that he may have been wrong in denying the bird’s existence. The fact that he gives in to Leigh’s (and the bird’s) desire to go to Taiwan illustrates that some part of him believes doing so will satisfy his wife’s spirit.
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The flight lasts over 15 hours. Leigh takes comfort in the fact that she is doing what Mom wants her to do. Dad acts like the trip was his idea, and he bombards Leigh with “fun facts” about Taipei. Their trip, he says, coincides with the Ghost Festival in Jilong. Leigh ignores him until he stops talking. There is an email from Axel sitting in her inbox. Leigh leaves it unopened, thinking she can pretend nothing has changed between them. Dad falls asleep, and Leigh takes comfort in the feel of his arm against hers. She is often cold now, and she wonders if this is the first step to becoming a bird.
The reader may interpret Dad’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge the true reason for their trip as his continued denial of supernatural motivators. Dad’s attempt to connect with Leigh feels impersonal, and so she ignores it. The unopened email from Axel tethers Leigh to her life in the states even as she heads abroad, hinting that more than one past event is following her. It is worth noting the comfort Leigh takes in Dad’s unconscious touch, which shows how the distance between father and daughter complicates Leigh’s desire to connect. That she wonders if emotional coldness is a sign she is transforming into a bird suggests that she attributes Mom’s death, in some way, to Mom’s having felt unconnected and isolated.
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They land in Taipei in the evening. Dad tries to find the apartment address, while Leigh marvels at how different the homes are. She is suddenly apprehensive, wondering whether her grandparents will accept her. Dad’s hands shake, and he drops some papers. An elderly woman appears in a doorway, and calls their names. Though Leigh should not be surprised her grandmother (Waipo) speaks only Chinese, she is. Waipo calls Leigh pretty, and leads her and Dad inside the apartment, where Leigh’s grandfather (Waigong) is waiting. Leigh cannot remember how to greet them in Chinese. She can only think of telling Axel her feelings were white at Mom’s funeral.
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In the apartment, Dad and Leigh pay their respects to the bodhisattva statues. Thinking of Mom’s note, Leigh prays that she will remember what Mom wanted her to do. They drink tea with Waipo and Waigong. Dad and Waipo do most of the talking, as Waigong has suffered a stroke and Leigh understands little Chinese. She tries to discern her mother’s features in the faces of her grandparents. Dad has brought Waipo’s favorite American chocolates as a gift, and Leigh is jealous of this intimate knowledge. Just as Waipo goes to turn on the TV, Leigh implores her to wait. She retrieves the bird’s package and shows Waipo and Waigong what’s inside.
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Ignoring Dad’s frustration, Leigh shows Waipo and Waigong the photos and the cicada necklace. Her grandparents seem alarmed. Waipo speaks to Dad in rapid Mandarin. Dad asks Leigh where she got the box but becomes angry when she references the bird. According to Waipo, she and Waigong were going to send this package to Leigh but burned it instead. That way, Mom could have her things “on her next journey.” Angry, Dad leaves the room. Leigh draws a picture of Mom and the bird, trying to make Waipo and Waigong understand. She draws a caterpillar and butterfly, and the message seems to click with Waipo: Mom has turned into a bird.
Leigh wakes to the sound of raised voices. She is clutching Mom’s cicada necklace, though she doesn’t remember having it when she went to sleep. Dad is not in their shared guest room. Leigh finds him with Waipo and Waigong, crying. He apologizes to her before sweeping down the hall to their room. Waipo starts to prepare Leigh something to eat. Dad returns with his luggage, insisting Mom wouldn’t want him to argue with her parents. Leigh, he says, can stay—he will go to Hong Kong. Shocked, Leigh reminds him that Waipo and Waigong don’t speak any English. Dad tells her to practice her Chinese and that he loves her. Then he leaves the apartment.
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After Dad leaves, Leigh sits in the guest room, holding Mom’s cicada pendant and wondering how it survived being burnt. She opens the curtains to look at the city and sees the bird staring at her through the window’s bars. It gives a startled scream and flies off, tearing the window screen. Leigh runs outside to try and catch up to the bird, but she’s caught in a downpour instead. Waipo retrieves her. Back in the apartment, Waipo dries Leigh’s hair, and Leigh imagines Waipo is her mother.
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Later, Leigh feels drawn to a particular dresser drawer in the guest room. Inside, she discovers a red feather and a rectangular box. The feather reminds Leigh of the bird, and she wonders if this is another message. There are Chinese characters on the box, but Leigh only recognizes one word: “people.” Inside are black incense sticks, which are oddly warm. Leigh hears the incense whispering, but hides it when Waipo comes to tell her breakfast is ready. She puts the cicada pendant on Leigh’s neck. The Taiwanese food reminds Leigh of the rare occasions Mom made an Asian breakfast, and she wonders if her mother missed home.
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Leigh spends the day wandering the open-air market with Waipo and sipping bubble tea in a park. She thinks of Axel, who would love painting watercolors of the children flying kites in the park and then translating those images into music. Leigh did not tell Axel she was going to Taiwan, but she sees everything here through his eyes. Later, alone in her room, she investigates the dresser drawer again and hears whispering coming from it. Along with the feather and incense, it now contains a book of matches. Leigh lights one of the black tarry sticks and smoke billows out, filling her throat and lungs.
When the smoke clears, Leigh is standing in her living room at home, watching Mom play the piano. Leigh can smell Mom’s shampoo. She sees a younger version of herself and Axel sitting on the couch, and she concludes she is in her mother’s memory. Dad appears, and Mom retrieves the danhuang su she has baked. Leigh wants to remember Mom this way: her playful joy. Then the colors invert and the scene shifts to another memory. Leigh watches Dad teach an even younger version of herself to whistle through a blade of grass. Mom and Dad embrace before the colors invert again, and Leigh is back in the apartment in Taiwan. The incense is gone.
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Leigh wonders who to blame for Mom’s death. She knows the question is “inappropriate,” but cannot stop wondering what made her mother want to die. Suicide seems unreasonable to Leigh, whose mother had her family, friends, and a steady career teaching piano. Leigh wonders if she should have paid more attention to the signs Mom was swinging toward a depressive period—if she excused Mom’s mood too easily. Try as she might, Leigh cannot say for sure what anyone could have done to save her mother.
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The next morning, Leigh and Waipo go into the city to buy breakfast. Leigh repeats the word “bird” in Chinese, but she doesn’t know if Waipo understands. The woman at the breakfast shop studies Leigh closely before asking if she is “hunxie”—which means “biracial,” according to Waipo. Leigh recalls times when kids made fun of her Asian lunches or placed bets on her race. This was a regular enough occurrence to remind her that people saw her as different. To be labeled again in Taiwan makes her uncomfortable. Back at the apartment, Leigh notices the same picture of two girls she found in the box is on her grandparents’ altar. Before she can ask about it, the doorbell rings.
Waipo greets a deliveryman in Taiwanese and takes his package. A pale young woman enters the apartment as Waipo opens the box. She introduces herself in English as Feng, and she asks what language Leigh prefers. Excited, Leigh asks how Feng knows her grandparents, and Feng claims to be an old family friend. Waipo hands Leigh a piece of paper with Feng’s address, written in Pinyin. Feng has been away for a long time, but is temporarily living in Taiwan. She has brought her favorite pastries for Leigh to try.
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Waigong helps himself to the pastries while Waipo continues speaking in Taiwanese. To Leigh, Feng looks like she is Waipo and Waigong’s real granddaughter, while Leigh herself is the outsider among them. Feng has also brought a SIM card for Leigh’s phone, which will give her internet access. Leigh thinks of Axel’s unread email. Feng tells Leigh she wants her to have “the best time” in Taiwan, and to let her know if she needs any help. Waipo tells a joke that makes Feng and Waigong laugh, and Leigh is once again excluded. Feng leaves the apartment. Leigh examines the bag of pastries and discovers a logo of a red bird on it.
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