Page 38

THIRTY-FIVE

VERA

Get out now.

Just like that, Vera’s stay at Julia’s place has come to an end. She has overstayed Julia’s welcome. She has tried to solve Marshall’s murder and she has failed miserably. It is clear, after tonight, that all of her instincts have been dreadfully, awfully wrong. None of her suspects have turned out to be the killer. Who is the killer? Did she just make it up in her desperation for some meaning, some purpose to her life? She was the one who smashed up her shop. Sure, it was because she had come downstairs one morning to find that things weren’t where they should be. But is she one hundred percent sure that someone indeed stole into her shop?

Or is it possible that Vera wanted so badly for there to have been a killer who came back for the flash drive that she made it all up? Isn’t that what the mind does as it ages? It starts conflating reality with imagination. Yes, Vera can see it now. Maybe she herself had misplaced a jar here, a canister there, and then, having forgotten about it and with her imagination fired up by Marshall’s death, she jumped to the conclusion that someone had been in her teahouse.

And then she’d taken that idea and run with it. And why? Because deep in her heart of hearts, Vera has been tired of the teahouse. Tired of opening it every morning and getting just one single customer, and even then, it’s always been clear that the only reason Alex came by was because he pitied her. And the emptiness of her shop is merely a reminder of how she has failed. She hadn’t expected Julia to offer to have her move in; that had been a surprise, and oh, what an incredibly wonderful time it had been, while it lasted.

For a few precious weeks, Vera experienced a renewed purpose in life. Received multiple hugs throughout the day, little arms around her neck, and a little sticky face kissing her cheeks. She had been brought back into the sunlight, and now, through her own doing, she has been cast back out into the darkness. And now that she has experienced the warmth of the sun, the darkness seems even more bleak than before.

Vera barely notices the long walk back to her house, but by the time she gets there, her feet are covered in blisters. She doesn’t notice the blisters either. She does notice the sun-bleached sign that says: VERA WANG’S WORLD-FAMOUS TEAHOUSE , and the sight of it makes tears rush to her eyes. She chokes back her sobs and unlocks the door, letting it fall shut behind her.

The teahouse is empty. The walls have been stripped bare, the furniture taken out by Riki. It looks like an old abandoned shell, a house occupied only by ghosts. Her phone rings then, and Vera leaps back to life, scrambling to take it out of her bag.

“Julia!” she calls into the receiver.

There’s a beat of silence, then someone says, “Ma?”

“Tilly!” Vera takes the phone away from her ear and stares at the screen. It does indeed say Tilbert Wong. “Oh, Tilly. You have called.” She can taste tears at the back of her throat. Her son must have felt that something was wrong through their mother-son bond.

“Uh, yeah. You haven’t texted or called for ages. Is everything okay?”

Vera nods, her face scrunching up into a silent sob. “Yes,” she manages to say after a while. She looks around the dark, empty store. “Well, the shop is—well, is a long story, but the shop is a bit empty.”

“Oh? Are you closing it down?”

Vera is about to say that no, of course she isn’t, when Tilly says, “About time, Ma. Nobody even knows it’s there. Thank god you’re closing it down. You should sell. Prices in Chinatown are going up, you could get a really good price for it.”

Thank god you’re closing it down. So much relief in his voice. So much history in this little shop, Vera and Jinlong pouring their hearts and souls into it, and now her son is thanking god that she wants to close it down. And the thing is, he’s not wrong. Vera knows this. The tiny flicker of hope that had sparked when her phone rang dies.

“Okay, Tilly. Thank you for calling. You’re right. I go to bed now.” She hangs up and trudges up the stairs, not bothering to turn on any of the lights. She goes straight to her cold bedroom and slides under the covers, where she curls up and makes herself as tiny as possible, wishing she could just simply disappear.