The Astonishing Color of After: Chapters 1–21

by Emily X.R. Pan
After her mother's death, Leigh travels to Taiwan, where she tries to piece together her family history while also coming to terms with her grief.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–21, Chapters 22–44, Chapters 45–66, Chapters 67–87, Chapters 88–108
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. cerulean
    bright blue in color, like a clear sky
    When he finally got the words out, his voice crawled through an ocean to get to me. It was a cold cerulean sound, far away and garbled.
  2. garbled
    lacking orderly continuity
    When he finally got the words out, his voice crawled through an ocean to get to me. It was a cold cerulean sound, far away and garbled.
  3. emulsion
    a mixture of liquids that do not normally stay mixed
    It's easier to pretend the stain is acrylic paint. Pigment, emulsion. Water soluble until it dries.
  4. surreal
    resembling a dream
    The day after it happened, we spent hours searching for a note. That was the surreal part.
  5. translucent
    allowing light to pass through diffusely
    If Axel were there with me, he probably would've squeezed my shoulder and asked, What color?
    And I would've had to explain that I was colorless, translucent.
  6. trill
    a note that alternates with another note a semitone above it
    I wasn't frightened, even when the bird glided straight across the lawn to land on the porch, those claws tapping short trills into the wood.
  7. cicada
    stout-bodied insect with large membranous wings
    The body in the casket didn't even have the jade cicada pendant I'd seen my mother wear every single day of my life.
  8. suture
    join with a seam used in surgery
    And maybe he'd see how my mother had sliced up everything else. How even if he could wrench that arrow free, the rest of me was so punctured and torn that nothing would ever be able to suture me back together.
  9. vermilion
    a vivid red to reddish-orange color
    He'd probably been expecting a glacial blue, or maybe the dying vermilion of dusk.
  10. unfurl
    unroll, unfold, or spread out
    In a flash like a vision of the future, I saw the distance stretching between us, unfurling like a measuring tape, until we were separated by miles and miles.
  11. vane
    the flattened weblike part of a feather
    I turned my face out the window, my thumb stroking the vane of the feather.
  12. obscure
    difficult to find
    In the empty hours the morning after the funeral, I drove to the hardware store, winging through an obscure route to avoid being seen by anyone in the neighborhood who would recognize first the car and then my face.
  13. subside
    wear off or die down
    Each of those nights after that first appearance of the bird, when all noise upstairs had subsided, I went to stand on the porch and squint into the sky.
  14. billow
    rise and move, as in waves
    It was the type of summer night that should've been unbearably hot, but my every exhale sent a cloud of white billowing out in front of my face.
  15. furrow
    make or become wrinkled or creased
    I think of the way his brows furrowed, like there was something wrong with me.
  16. mousy
    having a drab pale brown color
    The stripe on the side is currently dyed mermaid green, but the rest of it is my natural color, a deep brown, exactly halfway between my mother’s thick black strands and my father’s mousy waves.
  17. emanate
    give out, as breath or an odor
    I’m tired of his doubting me, and I’m sick of the way he walks around emanating a murky Payne’s gray.
  18. stark
    devoid of any qualifications or disguise or adornment
    The colors of this kind of grief should be stark and piercing, with the alarmed brightness of something toxic.
  19. fissure
    a long narrow opening
    “Do you want me to go?" he says, and the fissure in his voice threatens to put a matching crack in my chest.
  20. warily
    in a manner marked by keen caution and watchful prudence
    Dad's eyebrows rise a couple millimeters, but he also looks relieved. "All right," he says warily.
  21. ornate
    marked by complexity and richness of detail
    There are two little girls perched on ornate wooden chairs with tall backs that stick up beyond their heads.
  22. curt
    brief and to the point
    “They live too far away," she replied curtly.
  23. incense
    a substance that produces a fragrant odor when burned
    Smells drift around the corner to meet us—a combination of incense smoke and garlicky oil.
  24. gauzy
    so thin as to transmit light
    Just as I stoop to help gather them, the next door over creaks open, pouring gauzy light everywhere.
  25. brocade
    thick expensive material with a raised pattern
    Now we’re all sitting in the living room. Dad and me in brocade armchairs, Waipo and Waigong on a couch made of wood and cushions.
  26. mottled
    having spots or patches of color
    My grandmother’s thin lips are stretched in a perpetual smile, her cheeks lightly mottled, nose small and flat.
  27. lilt
    a jaunty rhythm in music or speech
    Waipo says something: the lilt of her words form a question mark in the air.
  28. taut
    pulled or drawn tight
    Whatever it is he's saying sets my grandmother shaking her head, her body trembling like a string yanked taut.
  29. sully
    make dirty or spotty
    I'm a top teetering at the end of its spin, a squeeze of asphaltum paint sullying zinc white.
  30. materialize
    come into being; become reality
    But my fingers remember—my muscles know how to draw the dark eyes, the freckle on her right cheekbone, the tilt of her eyebrows. Her face materializes out of the ink.
  31. feign
    make believe with the intent to deceive
    There's only one guest room, and when I turned in last night, my father had already taken the floor—likely feigning sleep on top of those blankets—and left me the bed.
  32. render
    show in, or as in, a picture
    And once he went home, his quick strokes of color would bake from raw visual into warm, delicious audio. The kites would be rendered in arpeggios.
  33. spectral
    relating to an array of the components of an emission
    It seeps in from the window behind the thin curtain, washing the walls in spectral beams.
  34. arpeggio
    a chord whose notes are played in rapid succession
    Her hands roll over the keys, shaping wide arpeggios, her torso rocking to match the dark waves of the music.
  35. gangly
    tall, thin, and awkward
    I whirl around, and there on our sofa sits a dark-haired girl that is unmistakably me—but younger—grinning widely and elbowing a shorter, gangly version of Axel.
  36. reedy
    thin and high-pitched in tone
    He puffs up his cheeks and puckers his lips, blowing hard just under the knuckles to produce a reedy squeal that sings out across the water.
  37. deft
    skillful in physical movements; especially of the hands
    Her deft hand spreads a batter into a perfect flat circle, mashing an egg over the top, sprinkling it with scallions.
  38. splay
    widen or spread apart
    For a brief moment, one of them seems to swing its head around to peer at me through the haze, teeth bared, claws splayed.
  39. nostalgic
    unhappy about being away and longing for familiar things
    The image he's used as the "album cover" on this page is a photograph of Lockhart Orchard that twists my stomach, sends a nostalgic red ochre rippling through me.
  40. ominously
    in a manner suggesting something bad will happen
    My thumb hits play. The piece begins with the bass section humming low and deep, legato lines that crescendo ominously.
Created on Tue Jan 08 14:13:00 EST 2019 (updated Mon Mar 18 09:42:04 EDT 2019)

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