Chapter Twenty-Three
The typhoon lasted three days.
Lily lasted four.
She’d contracted pneumonia, Dr. Wong determined.
I held her hand while he administered penicillin, a miracle drug that he said had saved millions during the war.
Her skin was hot, and when I entwined our fingers there was the softest smile on her young, freckled face. Everything should have been fine.
Except Lily was allergic to penicillin.
We couldn’t have known.
That last day, Lily spent every hour with her mother. She sat on her lap and let her braid her hair. Sai Ma even fed her with her own chopsticks.
I’d never seen Lily smile wider or laugh harder, even when she had been with me.
In the evening, after dinner and Dr. Wong’s visit to administer another dose of penicillin, I crept into my sister’s room. She’d been waiting for me.
“Are you hurt?” I asked right away. She was clutching her side.
“Cramps. It happens after a new dose, it’ll go away.
” She patted the empty space next to her on the bed.
Once I sat, she leaned on my shoulder. “Did you know the Tsangs have the most enormous book in their library? It’s an unabridged English dictionary, which means it has every word ever to exist. It’s only to look impressive, like their piano.
But I was so bored that I read all the way up to h. Do you know what harborage means?”
“Harborage, like the road we live on?”
“I only learned it last week,” she said. “It means a place where ships seek shelter. Isn’t that funny? Gu Ma’s house is all the way up in the hills. How could any ships seek shelter here?”
I didn’t share her musing. I was more worried about how flushed she looked, and the way she clutched her stomach, wincing. “You ought to rest, Lily. Once you get better, we’re running away. Remember?”
“I’ve been thinking . . .” Lily coughed, a strained wheezing sound. “Maybe there’s no need to run away. Mama’s been nice.”
Only because she thought you were going to die, I thought. Her words were slurring. I checked her temples for fever, but she was cool.
“Get better, and we can talk about it—”
“Do you think she’s changed?”
“I think she cares about you,” I said evasively, for that much I thought was true. “She just doesn’t know how to show it.”
“She’s learning.”
“Yes, because you’re a good teacher.”
Lily allowed herself a smile. “I’m going to lie down. I feel dizzy. Will you . . . will you sing for me?”
She sounded so tired. Some rest would do her good, I thought, stroking her hair. I parted my lips to sing:
There are two hwamei in the tree,
Singing their sweetest song
For at last, the rain is lifting,
Chattering into the sea.
There are two hwamei in the tree,
Snow melting off their feathers.
They perch upon the blossomed bough,
Ready to fly wing to wing.
Lily’s eyes fluttered half closed. She hugged my old doll, and I pulled the blanket over them, cocooning them together. “Gah Jeh.” The words came out haltingly, with a faint wheeze. “If I sleep too long, will you . . . will you kiss me awake?”
“Of course I will.”
That made her smile. “Once I’m better,” she murmured, “I want to tell you . . . about the books I read. I found some . . . some stories I know you’ll love.”
It only took one more song before she fell asleep. Her tight hold on my doll eased, and I smoothed away the pinch in her brow before I kissed her pale cheek good night.
I closed her door and practically skipped down to my room. From my window, the sky was blue and clear once more, just like in my song, and across the city, trucks were cleaning up the devastation of the storm. We’d weathered the worst, and I was so sure it was over.
Not long after midnight, I heard Sai Ma scream. For the rest of my life, I would regret that I didn’t make it to Lily’s room fast enough, that I didn’t give her the kiss she’d asked for. Maybe if I had, she would have woken up.
But I was too late.
My sister lay with her feet sticking out from her pink sheets, the way she liked to sleep, half an arm dangling off the side of the bed. And I knew.
“No,” I choked out. Only a few hours ago I’d been at her side. She’d asked me to sing to her. She’d been fine!
A sob wrenched out of my chest as I took Lily’s hand. Her skin was gray under the moonlight. She looked like she was sleeping.
“Wake up,” I whispered. “Come on, silly. Not another one of your pranks, wake up!”
I tapped her cheeks, my grief welling inside me. “Lily!”
I buried my face in her pillow, sobbing. Come back, I pleaded. Lily, don’t leave me.
We were supposed to run away together. We were supposed to build a life together where we’d erase each other’s heartaches, where I’d show her what it meant to be wanted, to be loved. She was supposed to have a future! And now . . .
And now . . .
“Yut Ying,” came a soft voice. My stepmother placed her hand on my shoulder.
Sai Ma’s eyes were red and raw, her tearstained cheeks mirrors of my own. She was the last person I ever wanted to see, but in this moment, I turned to her and buried my face in her chest. I wept.
Lily was only thirteen. My sister—who shared only half my blood but possessed all of my love, who laughed like a goose and blew kisses at thunderstorms, who devoured books like they were noodles and who’d splash juice at my face when I fell asleep during her writing lessons—was gone.
My lone solace was that she was with her mother in her last moments. I hoped that Sai Ma held her hand and kissed her face. That she gave her daughter the love that she’d so craved during her short life. No matter how much I despised Sai Ma, I refused to believe that she would have done any less.
Some lies were worth believing.
For a month, my family mourned. In Lily’s memory, all resentments were forgotten.
Even Sai Ma was changed. She stopped powdering her face, even stopped eating on some days.
She sent Richard to live with her parents for she could hardly take care of herself, let alone her surviving child. She was kind to me.
In the mornings we prayed together before Lily’s altar.
We burned spirit money and toys to keep her company in heaven.
On days I forgot to eat, Sai Ma brought me a plate of sliced fruit.
“For your strength,” she would say. Whenever Sai Ma sobbed in the parlor, I brought her soup to drink.
We sat on the settee, exchanging no words except for disjointed good mornings and thank yous, and listening to melancholy ballads on the phonograph until the sky turned dark.
In the blur of that summer, I forgot how much I hated Sai Ma, and I almost forgave her.
On the fortieth day, my stepmother emerged from her bedroom with her face fully made up and the return of that fake mole on her cheek.
“Lily’s ashes will go to her in-laws,” she announced at breakfast. “They don’t belong with us.”
The declaration came out of nowhere, but Gu Ma didn’t look surprised. Neither did Baba.
As for me, I immediately lost my appetite. “How can her ashes not belong with our family?” I asked. “She’s your daughter.”
“Are you a fortune reader, Yut Ying?” said Sai Ma. “Even your aunt agrees with me. She’s spoken with several specialists.”
Gu Ma took a bite of a steamed bun, nodding. “If you care about your sister, you won’t deprive her of a proper passage to heaven. This is tradition; she belongs with the Tsangs.”
“Why?” I demanded. “She wasn’t even married.”
“It doesn’t matter,” replied my aunt. “A contract was signed. She’s not part of this family anymore.”
“She’s not property, she’s your daughter. Baba—do something!”
“That’s enough, Yut Ying,” warned Baba.
I slammed down my bowl and turned to Sai Ma. “All Lily ever wanted was to come home, and for you to love her. But you always saw her as a burden. Now that she’s dead, she’s still a burden! That’s why you don’t want her with you.”
“How dare you!” Sai Ma rose. “She was my daughter. Of course I want her with me.”
“Then why did you send her away in the first place?”
“That’s enough!” Baba barked. His fingers were curled into the table, supporting him as he half stood. “Yut Ying, go to your room.”
I didn’t budge. “Why did you send her away?” I asked again.
“Pok Mun, it’s fine.” Sai Ma wiped her mouth with her napkin. When she spoke, she sounded tired and small. “I was protecting her. We all know the world is an ugly place, but some of us find out earlier than others.”
For the briefest moment, I wondered what ugly secrets haunted my stepmother’s past, to turn her into the bitter, deceitful woman she’d become—or whether she was simply putting on another show. It didn’t matter. The truth wouldn’t bring Lily back.
I shut myself off in my room. I sat by the window, folding my arms over the wooden sill. Gu Ma hadn’t hired anyone to clear out the fallen bauhinia tree, and its petals slathered the courtyard in a pale red sea.
Sing for me, Gah Jeh, Lily used to say on quiet mornings like these.
I couldn’t sing. My voice had dried up inside, and it was all I could do just to keep breathing. Every breath hurt. Every single breath.
It’s my fault, I thought. I should’ve stayed with you. I shouldn’t have let you go. I’m sorry, Lily.
I drew in air, holding it as long as I could.
The glittering cold came upon me like an old friend, sweeping me away from this unbearable existence.
Once I vanished, I felt no pain. Not the swollen ache in my throat, the rawness behind my eyes, the unbearable grief in my heart.
My only imprint on this world was my shadow, bereft and dark against the scratched wooden floor.
The next day, I did it again—for a little longer. And longer.
Not once did I worry that there might be consequences.