A dove fluttered its white wings, and Nian was startled as the soft noise pierced through the pitch-black silence. This serenity had captured her in a state of pondering for the entire evening. Only until now did she realize that she had been sitting at the Central Park for more than seven hours. As the new year drew closer, people started to crowd onto the streets where lights and fireworks occupied the night sky, reminding her of the real “The City that Never Sleeps”.

She remembered the last time she came to New York. She was making a video about the outside world for her stepfather who had never left China in his entire life; even when the examinations reported a tumor, he refused to go to the hospital in Switzerland due to the long distance and his obsession with his hometown. Nevertheless, he didn’t stop her when she decided to study abroad, guided by her neophilia and dauntlessness. He also said or did nothing when she stormed off from home, taking nothing and leaving everything, as if trying to wipe herself off from the memories of others.

       “Nian,” he tried to start a conversation the night before she set off for the US seven years ago. “You will see a lot that everyone around you has never seen, so I think I shouldn’t give you any inappropriate instructions. Well, when you go there, please remember to think about this place.” He points at the ground. “This is my only suggestion, and I believe your mother would agree with me too if she is here with us.”

       “Of course I will,” Nian answered light-heartedly.

       “The reason your mother named you ‘Nian’ is that she wished you could always remember home in your heart wherever you are.”

       “Uh-huh, you’ve told me this for a thousand times,” Nian flipped through her phone, looking at newly-posted messages. “As if you were really there when she gave birth to me.”

Nevertheless, she regretted saying this immediately; not daring to see his face, she glanced outside, squinted her eyes, and clutched her phone in her hand tighter. Her stepfather took care of mother when she died, and the mentioning of her brought up sad memories. The nights were becoming chilly comparing to the warm summer night that had still been lingering a few days ago. Nonetheless, her stepfather showed no signs of being hurt as he would hear similar words every time they argue, and he probably knew that she had never really meant it, so he continued.

       “I have never been to the US, but I know how it feels like to be far away from home.”

       “Yeah, you left Guangzhou for Beijing when you went to Tsinghua University,” Nian had said.

       “Well, it wouldn’t feel very good when you know that nobody can help you.”

       “Is that why you kept a dove when you were in university?” Nian had asked.

       “Yeah, and besides company, doves symbolize more in our culture: they remind me of my friends, my family, and my hometown.”

Seven years later, sitting in the park thousands of miles away from home, Nian had already forgotten about the subsequent conversations; nevertheless, she felt it now—the helplessness. Her entire life was captured in a storm, and she was like the powerless captain who could do nothing but let the waves push her shabby ship around to the unknown areas. Skipping, swaying, struggling. She missed the stability of land to which she was yearning to return.

She took out her phone—she still had the habit of grasping it tightly when she was afraid—and sent a text, which was later replied by a phone call.

       “Good evening, Nian, why do you want to give up psychology? You are the only straight-A student in class!” her professor’s voice came out from the speaker.

       “I’m sorry, professor. It’s just I realized psychology cannot solve my problems.”

       “What problems?”

       “I chose to study psychology as I wanted to understand the source of my stress better, but now I realize it can’t explain anything: it can only make me feel more confused instead. I really want to get my doctorate in psychology, but I think maybe I’ll go back to stick to microeconomics,” Nian says, surrendering to the flow of sophistication she had been withholding within herself for days.

       “Well, psychology is not the subject for you to solve problems, Nian. Look at the living things around you. Psychology helps you understand them, understand yourself—what you want, what you need, what you know. You are the one who can solve problems. You are the one who can open the knots you tied yourself,” the professor says.

Nian became quiet. She thought about the professor’s delicate speech while the professor waited quietly on the other side of the phone, leaving her to the deafening tranquility again. Of course she knew what she desired the most—a life without desperation—but what did she really cherish?

Nian gazed up at the night sky. Although fireworks and lights were decorating the entire night sky of the metropolis to an enchanting frenzy, only moonlight was occupying the piece of sky above her head, brushing the darkness like the soft feathery wings of a dove. Everything drew her back to the night when she was ten, discovering how she became engaged to psychology from watching detective movies with her stepfather every weekend.

       “Fascinating, huh?” her stepfather had asked her when they were snuggling in the sofa, as she remembered.

       “Human hearts are weird,” she had answered with her head held high, a small and unfamiliar figure in her memory.

       “Exactly, they are erratic, constantly changing every second as your neurons release new signals in your nervous system.”

       “And these signals made up a chain of signals connected together?” she had asked.

       “Way more than that. Reality, unreality, they decide so many things beyond the actual world.”

As a child, she couldn’t understand it, and the vague memory was fading away as she grew up, just like the small figure viewed from the back walking farther and farther away.

Nian sighed and shivered as the night became colder. Her stepfather would tell her the answer if nothing had happened. However, three years before she was sitting and thinking about her life alone in a city distant from home, they had the fight that her guilt would constantly remind her about in the rest of her life. The memory was as sharp as ever.

       “There’s not such a huge difference! You will get used to it!” Nian had yelled.

       “This country is where I belong. Your mother can go live in the US, but I will never go live in anywhere else,” her stepfather had thrown out this announcement as his last words furiously before Nian ran out of the house. She had seldomly thought of him afterwards, intentionally.

Fireworks burst into the sky, dragging long tails of glaring sparks behind, and Nian gazed at them absently-mindedly. The signal theory which had been pushed roughly to the back of her mind by more professional psychological knowledges suddenly immersed out of water without any warning. And the young girl with curiosity and passion appeared in front of her eyes.

       “You must have chosen psychology for a reason, Nian,” her professor started to speak on the other side of the phone. “I just sent a friend of mine a message, and maybe you can go find him now.”

       “Hmm……” she hesitated.

       “I’ll give you his location.”

       “Uh, professor, I really want to be alone.”

       “Well, he knows your stepfather, I think. Oh, he says he is in the café on the Fifth Avenue. Here. Go and talk to him; maybe you will change your mind,” the professor hung up.

The flock of pigeons scattered on the open ground quietly with bulging eyes as if being frozen to the ground; none moved as Nian walked by. Walking out of the park is like stepping into the world of confusing noise and lights again. The small café hid among the tumult, sitting quietly in thick shadows. Not many people were still drinking coffee at this time as most of the citizens were poured out onto the streets with family and friends, heading to the Times Square for the New Year count-down.

The friend of the professor’s was so normal that he blended into the crowd completely. When Nian arrived, he was warming his hands around his coffee cup; he made a gesture to Nian and asked her, “Are you Nian?”

She nods.

       “Your professor told me you were Jia’s daughter?”

       “Stepdaughter, as a matter of fact.”

       “You must have been having a terrible time these past few years,” the man sighed. “To be honest, he told me that he regretted having the fight with you.”

       “Huh, why? Because he is okay with me settling down in New York now?”

       “No, because he missed you. I know he would be if he has the opportunity to see you right now,” the man said. Nian felt as if she was talking to her father.

       “What do you mean? Where is he?” Nian frowned.

       “Nian,” the man opened his mouth slowly and hesitantly. “Your stepfather is dead, killed by the recurrence of the tumor.”

Nian couldn’t speak. All the anger accumulated in the past years evaporated abruptly, leaving a huge amount of overwhelming emptiness in the space inside her heart. Apologizing to the man hastily, Nian ran out of the café. However, as soon as the cold air touched her cheeks, she realized she had nowhere to go in such a foreign land. Pushed by the crowd, she followed them as they started to head towards the Times Square where the count-down was about to start.

As she was walking, she silently rubbed her frozen tears off her face. All the memories she had with her father came back together, and she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t mourn.

Nian pictured herself in her mind, a weak girl nearly struck down by grief. Her stepfather, or father, has the name “Jia” which meant home. She never truly perceived the name through its meaning. However, now that “Jia” is gone, she had no home left.

An enthusiastic family was anticipating loudly beside Nian; as the count-down began, they waved their hats and scarfs excitedly, jumping up and down, laughing and cheering. Looking around at the happy faces celebrating the arrival of the new year, Nian realized she had never missed her home like she was right now, and she took out her phone.

The number had become distant and unfamiliar, but she dialed it, knowing nobody would answer. The number had become empty.

Nian grasped the phone tightly, thinking about nothing and everything, probably because there was too much to think about. She looked at the night sky. The famous pigeons of the Time Square were circling above people’s heads in a beautiful curve.

Her voice quivered as she spoke out the first words into the vacancy, “Dad, I’m so sorry.”

The family looked at her curiously, “Who are you talking to?”

Nian smiled at them, “My dad.”

They nodded, “Happy New Year.”

       “Happy New Year.”