Proceed by Invitation

Chapter 21 – Proceed by Invitation

The garden keeps better time than clocks. At 6:35 a.m., before the sun remembered its job description, Botanic Gardens hummed the low song of sprinklers and leaf‑drip. Aleem exited the MRT at Botanic Gardens station, crossed the zebra where mynahs practiced democracy, and paused at Nassim Gate under a sky that had chosen pearl for now.

He liked arriving first. It gave him the small ceremony of checking pockets without hurrying: handkerchief, two pens that did not need to be admired, a metal bottle, the folded card with their agreements in simple handwriting. No tape. No metronome. The bench in his chest would keep time.

A text blinked.

A: I’m at the entrance with a small umbrella that is brave but not delusional.

Aleem: I’m under the rain tree pretending to be a sculpture.

Her laugh reached him before she did. Aoi walked toward him with the quiet stride of someone who has practiced not interrupting mornings. Long sleeves against Singapore’s indoor climate even though they were outside; cotton trousers that forgave walking; hair tied back like a sentence that knows where the comma should go.

“Good morning,” she said, the vowels awake but not caffeinated.

“Good morning.” He gestured to the path where the ground wore its overnight gloss. “Shall we let the gardeners keep being bosses?”

“We shall,” she said, pleased to have language from last week fit here.

They entered under the green that remembers how to be a ceiling. A cleaner guided a hose as if painting. Two runners traded nods with the world. A monitor lizard made the bureaucratic decision to cross now, not later. They fell into a pace that respected both ambition and knees.

“Rules?” she asked, not because she had forgotten but because agreeing make rooms sturdier.

“Phones away unless maps demand respect. No photos. We say when our feet want water. We proceed by invitation.”

She smiled. “And we will be boring on purpose.”

“Our favorite rebellion,” he agreed.

They took the path past the Bandstand because bandstands in this country know how to be dignified at ungodly hours. The air smelled of damp bark and someone else’s pandan cake eaten on a bench yesterday. A gardener pushed a trolley stacked with green bags pungent with last night’s leaves and nodded at them like a senior usher.

Aoi slowed near the bandstand steps and set her palm on the wood rail. “When I was a trainee,” she said, “morning was… practice disguised as punishment. Now morning is permission.”

He thought of Tekong, of counting to keep weather out of his chest. “Morning taught me to make rooms,” he said. “Now rooms are kinder than almost anything.”

They walked again, toward Swan Lake, where the water pretended to be a mirror and two swans rehearsed a duet with the professionalism of civil servants. A jogger in a shirt that wanted attention failed to win any. The city, at this hour, had the good sense to be main character only to trees.

At a fork, Aoi glanced left to the Learning Forest and then at him. “May I choose?”

“You may,” he said, grateful for any sentence that presumed consent could be the root of casual.

She chose the boardwalk. The Learning Forest asked them to be quiet without signage. Roots lifted like knuckles, ferns performed small miracles, the sky arrived in filters. The walkway narrowed at a corner where a pool insisted on occupying its legal footprint. A family with a stroller approached, and they stepped aside into the courtesy pocket. When they rejoined the plank trail, she hovered a hand near his elbow and then lifted it.

“May I,” she asked plainly, “hold?”

“Yes,” he said, and the bench in his chest made room.

Her hand took his with the weight of a bird that trusts and the exactness of a floor mark. Not a cling, not a test. Warm, present. There was motion in it; hands in motion are easier to be brave with. They walked like that–two people, one sentence–past trees that looked older than their names.

“What do your hands know how to do?” she asked, as if this were equal to asking what music he loved.

“Carry crates. Tune a guitar slowly. Fold cranes without performing embarrassment. Tie gaffer knots that respect paint.” He paused. “And keep promises, if wrists count.”

She laughed, then turned the question on herself. “Hands make soup. Unpack suitcases without souvenirs exploding. Correct bun pins. Count quietly–two in, one, three out. And…” She squeezed, a comma. “Ask politely.”

“Good hands,” he said. The walkway widened. He didn’t keep her hand to demonstrate possession. She did not keep his to demonstrate fear. They let go when the boardwalk asked for a railing to respect and took each other again when the path suggested it. Proceed by invitation. It felt like a way of walking as much as loving.

At the Canopy Web, they watched a handful of braver toddlers try to bully physics. Aoi tilted her head, amused. “I used to rehearse on things that looked nothing like this and yet asked similar favors from ankles.”

He glanced down at the net where fathers rediscovered squeaking. “We can choose the floor,” he said.

“Floor,” she agreed. “We will not audition this morning.”

They detoured toward the Rainforest section, where signage made paragraphs out of trees. A rustle announced a troop of long‑tailed macaques making their commute like aunties. A small boy whispered monkey to himself three times to be sure. They complied by existing.

Water asked to be water. It began as a whisper and turned into the kind of rain Singapore prefers–polite, warm, inclined to be thorough. Aoi opened the umbrella she had called brave; it earned the adjective by covering exactly two heads if those heads belonged to people who knew how to stand close without occupying each other’s spines.

“Permission?” she asked with umbrella shorthand.

“Permission,” he answered, stepping into the small dome where ordinary lives.

The umbrella made them talk in the tone humans use at museums when the exhibit is a secret they’re allowed to tell. He could smell her shampoo–a sentence without adjectives. She could hear the way his breath had learned not to hurry.

“Your mother,” she said, “knew before you told her?”

“Yes,” he said. “She measures with tape the world doesn’t sell. I told her anyway. She said, ‘Don’t be the wind. Be the bench.’”

Aoi looked at the path, letting the words land on something that wouldn’t break. “Good mother,” she said. “My manager… knew too. I told her we are trying with rules. She nodded like a person writing a checklist on air.”

“Good manager,” he said. “Good rules.”

They walked to the end of the rain and into the sunlight that had decided to be generous now. The umbrella dripped in a disciplined line. They closed it together, uncoordinated and perfect, fingers grazing and then retreating like polite neighbors.

They found a bench under a tembusu that had earned a heritage plaque and a reputation for being more than wood. The seat was cool and patient. He wiped a circle with his handkerchief as if performing a small ceremony for knees.

“May I sit next to you,” she asked, smiling at the obviousness.

“Please,” he said. “We can teach the bench a new sentence.”

They sat with a palm’s width between them because distance keeps its promises when asked nicely. A mynah jumped three times and decided they were not a threat to its career.

“Do we need to talk about anything we are trying not to talk about?” he asked, half‑joking, fully adult.

Aoi took a breath that clarified rather than filled. “I want to say out loud,” she began, “that I like being a person with you. Not a story. Not a memory. A person who walks and carries umbrellas and tries to like bitter gourd.”

He angled toward her, not so much that the bench had to negotiate. “I like being a person with you,” he said. “The rules help me be brave.”

She looked at the canopy like a student checking the ceiling for answers and finding leaves instead. “I also want to be honest about time. Some weeks I will be in cities that are not yours. Sometimes work will ask for my voice to be small on purpose. Those days, silence is not disinterest. It’s logistics.”

“Thank you for naming it,” he said. “I can be boring. I can wait without writing tragedies in my head.” He paused. “Also, tell me when you want words. I won’t send you a thesis at midnight.”

“Thank you,” she said. “And you–work will grow. You will teach rooms in places I cannot be. You will have your own schedules. Please don’t let me become a task in your calendar. If we need to reschedule a walk, we reschedule. If we need to nap instead of talk, we nap.”

“Naps are holy,” he said fervently, and she laughed in a key he wanted to memorize.

They fell quiet–the good kind, where each breath polishes the hour. A child asked an auntie if swans like prata. A gardener’s radio played a ballad that took its responsibilities seriously. The bench approved of their posture.

“May I try something?” Aoi asked after their shared oxygen had calmed.

“Please.”

“I want to count us,” she said. “Not as technique. As… agreeing.” She held out her hand, palm up, an offering not a demand.

He placed his palm against hers. No lacework. No interlacing. Flat like a promise. Her skin was warm with weather. His was calm with practice.

“Two in,” she said softly. “Hold one. Three out.”

They counted once, then again, their palms teaching skin how to be metronome. On the third cycle, a breeze arrived and decided to be part of it. On the fourth, he felt the strange bravery of being matched without being swallowed.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “For letting the bench count too.”

“Thank you,” he said, and did not move his hand away until she did.

The Ginger Garden gave them shade that smelled like everything a kitchen hopes to be. They read labels like tourists who cared: torch ginger, spiral, shell, names that felt like cousins. A couple practicing wedding photos at the archway negotiated with a veil and lost with dignity. Aoi pretended to officiate an imaginary ceremony for a fern; he pretended to be the fern’s uncle in charge of snacks. They were stupid in the precise amount that adults are allowed to be when no one needs them to be serious.

At the Jacob Ballas entrance, they paused, because even though they were not children, the garden’s rules were correct: for children. They peered through the gate like citizens admiring a small republic. A toddler in a bucket hat ran as if velocity were a moral good. A father followed at a realistic pace and did not perform frustration. The world seemed to be trying today.

“I brought something,” Aoi said, opening her sling bag like a magician who prefers decency to spectacle. Two onigiri appeared wrapped like small planets. “Salmon. And umeboshi for courage.”

He laughed. “Courage tastes sour and correct.”

They ate on a low wall that had chosen to become a kitchen just for them. The umeboshi made his face perform yoga; the salmon made hers close her eyes like a prayer nobody needed to witness. He offered his bottle; she offered the last corner of rice; they managed not to make a content moment of it.

“What do you fear?” she asked, the way people ask when the sun is benevolent and you are both fed.

“Becoming wind,” he said. “Accidentally. Hurting rooms by trying to make them love me.” He thought. “And losing language. If I couldn’t find the small words, I would panic.”

She nodded, the kind of nod that gets added to a sentence like a semicolon. “I fear… being watched into a statue when I need to be a person. And–” she smiled– “bitter gourd.”

He considered this confession with the gravity it deserved. “We will introduce you slowly,” he said. “With egg and a supportive sauce.”

“We proceed by invitation,” she replied, solemn, and then laughed at herself.

They looped back past Gallop Extension where the black‑and‑white house sat like a teacher who forgives late submissions. A class of schoolkids, in shorts and curiosity, trailed a docent who had the voice of patient thunder. A girl asked if the trees were older than her grandmother. The docent did the math and told the truth gently.

On the slope above the lawn, Aoi pointed at a patch of sunlight and then at her sleeve. “May I?” she asked, and he understood from context.

“Please,” he said, setting his tote down to give his shoulder permission.

She leaned–head to his shoulder, weight measured in honesty and seconds. It lasted as long as a breath and one more. He kept his body like furniture that had passed quality control. When she straightened, the day did not lose balance.

“Thank you,” she said, not embarrassed. “Bench.”

“Anytime,” he said, meaning when invited.

By nine, the garden began to fill with humans with opinions and hats. They let themselves be part of the world again. At Cluny Court they bought kopi and a small bag of kaya buns and sat on the steps because tables are not required for breakfast. She tore the bun into equal halves without drama. He watched the steam that had nowhere important to be.

“Next,” she said, a word that in mouth like hers always arrived with respect for ‘now.’ “We test new rooms?”

“We do,” he said. “The National Library on Thursday lunch–quiet chairs, good air. I can leave a stack of handouts with the librarian who knows paper. You can sit with a book and not read.”

“And the wet market,” she said, bravely. “You guard me from bitter gourd.”

“I will negotiate with vegetables on your behalf.”

“And your mother,” she added, glancing at him. “May I meet her… not soon, but not never?”

He set the bun down like an adult putting a toy away carefully. “Yes,” he said. “Later. We will be boring about it. She will feed you until you become an adjective.”

“I would like to be an adjective,” she said gravely. “Preferably ‘full.’”

They stood because the day had appointments. At the junction, they performed the choreography of parting the way professionals rehearse exits. No hugging like airports. No promises with unnecessary capital letters. Just two people who had decided to keep a room between them and move through it kindly.

“Text when you reach,” he said.

“I will. You too.”

“Thank you for today,” he added, a sentence that never gets old.

“Thank you for walking at the pace where breath can write,” she said.

They bowed–earned, correct, finite–and stepped in opposite directions because sidewalks are not operas.

At home, his mother had laid out ikan bilis to dry in a tray by the window, which meant the kitchen smelled like history arguing with salt. She glanced at his face and gave the half smile reserved for good news he didn’t ruin by over‑explaining.

“Garden?” she asked.

“Garden,” he said. “We held an umbrella. We counted once, just to prove we could.”

“She is a person?” his mother asked, never content with stories about statues.

“She is,” he said. “We are learning to be boring together.”

“Good,” she said. “Boring keeps hearts alive.”

He showered the garden off his skin, made tea, and stood before the locker door’s paper museum. The squares looked back like a committee he had chosen on purpose.

Respect. Distance. Gratitude.
Approval, always.
Don’t be the wind.
Rest is allowed.
Hold the room steady.
Small is brave.
Credit small; safety large.
We will be boring on purpose.
Be the bench.
Proceed by invitation.

He cut a new square from the corner of an expired calendar–the corner no elder relative would scold him for wasting–and wrote: Listen with hands. He placed it below Proceed by invitation and above Be the bench. The stack accepted it like a chord adding a note it had always wanted.

His phone chimed. A: Home. Thank you for rooms. Also, bitter gourd… I am not ready.

Aleem: We will negotiate a treaty with vegetables. Next: library. I’ll bring chairs in lowercase.

A: Lowercase chairs are the best.

He put the phone down screen‑first because some conversations deserve to rest between sentences. He lay on his side facing the wall that had memorized his breath and let the morning repeat itself like a hymn written for ordinary people.

Two in, hold, three out. Not magic. Structure. A way to keep a room inside you and then invite someone to sit.

Respect. Distance. Gratitude.

Outside, gardeners hosed the paths into compliance, children negotiated with brunch, and a city pretended to be busy while allowing two people to learn how to hold hands without breaking anything.