Page 43

FORTY

VERA

It takes Vera an unreasonably long time to recover. “This is unacceptable!” she’d say to anyone who would listen—her doctor, the nurses, and... her family. The truth is, though Vera would never admit it, there is a thrilling feeling of happiness that comes from having your loved ones visit you at the hospital. It’s so out of the way, and so completely not what anyone wants to be doing, that when they do it, you know that the only plausible reason is because they care about you. And so, despite the unacceptably long time that it takes those in charge to nurse her back to health, a not-so-small part of Vera enjoys lying in her hospital bed being fussed over.

And oh, what an eclectic crowd it is that rotates around her hospital bed! Everyone says so. Gladys from the bed across from her has remarked upon it—quite snidely, to Vera’s delight—at least three times now. “Such a varied stream of visitors you have, Vera,” Gladys said. “One might wonder what you got up to, to know so many different people.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Vera said smugly, and that was that.

In the mornings, it is Julia and sweet Emma who come to her. Emma climbs into the bed and snuggles up against Vera and tells her that she smells bad and should think about brushing her teeth, to which Vera responds that Emma’s breath doesn’t smell that great either. Then Emma says, “You smell bad but I love you,” and kisses her, and Vera says, “You smell of farmer’s armpit but I love you,” and kisses her forehead, and Emma smiles, and Julia groans and says, “Great, now she’s going to spend the day telling everyone she smells like a farmer’s armpit, thanks a lot, Vera.”

After they go, Vera naps and only wakes up when Sana comes over for teatime. Sana usually brings with her something unhealthy but exciting, like samosas, at which Gladys squawks, “Do you know what those things do to your cholesterol?” Vera urges Sana to bring cocaine, not to snort, of course, just to see what Gladys will say, but thus far has been refused. Young people nowadays are so dreadfully boring.

Then, about an hour later, Riki joins them and he and Sana say, “Hey, you,” to each other in such a tender way as to be utterly repulsive, and Vera throws them out soon after because there’s only so much googly eyes a woman her age can take. “He seems a bit wet behind the ears, that one,” Gladys says, and there, Vera has to agree with her. But he has Sana to keep him out of trouble, so Vera’s not too worried about him.

In the evening, Oliver and Tilly come. Apparently they have become friends, bonding over sports and their complicated relationships with their parents, and Tilly is now representing Oliver. Tilly tells Vera that he’s asked his colleague to represent her in case the cops come after her for tampering with evidence, but Vera brushes him away, saying she would love to see them try. She shoots Gladys a glare as she says this, but the other woman has wisely decided to pretend to be asleep.

Finally comes the day that Vera’s bronchitis clears and she is allowed to leave this godforsaken place. Everybody shows up to help her with the discharge process, which Vera says is ridiculous, but secretly she is rather smug about all the fuss. She hops off her bed and throws on her clothes, shooting Gladys meaningful side-eyes. “This is goodbye, Gladys.”

“I will miss you, Vera.”

The two old women narrow their eyes at each other, then Vera says, “Gladys, you are pain in my ass, but you should come visit my teahouse. These young people say they do something to make it nice. I think they destroy it, who knows?” She glares at the group of said young people, who grin uneasily at her.

Gladys gives a dramatic sigh. “Oh, would that I could. But I’m afraid that I can’t take the risk of trying exotic herbs, who knows what they might do to my liv—”

“Oh, shut up, Gladys, and visit my teahouse when you get out.” And with that, Vera strides out of the ward, with Emma, Julia, Sana, Oliver, Riki, and Tilly scurrying after her.

···

Oh,” Vera says, hours later. She barely recognizes her own teahouse. She stands in the middle of it, taking in the surroundings, which are somehow both foreign and yet familiar.

“Um, do you hate it?” Sana squeaks.

“Don’t be silly,” Vera snaps, and when she looks at them, her eyes are shining with tears. It takes a moment before she is able to speak without her voice wobbling. “This is...” Nope, not quite able to stop the wobble from taking over her voice. She takes a breath and tries again. “This is—it’s good. Very good.”

Tilly whistles. “Coming from her, I think it’s akin to a standing ovation.”

She shoots him a glare, and he grins and hugs her. “Come on, Ma. Just admit it. Sana’s artwork blew your mind.”

Vera releases her breath in a long sigh. “Okay, Sana’s artwork is more good than anything I see before.”

“Dang, that’s quite the compliment,” Julia says, nudging Sana, who’s red in the face and grinning.

“You like it?” Sana says. “Really?”

“Yes, better than when I give birth to Tilly.”

“Ooof,” Tilly says. Oliver pats his shoulder.

“Nothing personal, Tilly,” Vera says, “is just that you a very ugly baby.”

“Yep, nothing personal about that, Ma.”

The corners of Vera’s mouth quirk up, then she turns her attention to the furniture, which looks almost brand-new to her, although she can still spot the little dents here and there from years of use. “Wah, these chairs...”

“Me, it was me,” Riki says eagerly. Then he hesitates. “Uh, unless you hate it, in which case, uh, Oliver did it.”

“Is very good.”

“Okay then I shall take full credit,” Riki says, grinning with pride, and the sight of his earnest, boyish face makes Vera go all teary-eyed again.

Vera isn’t used to wallowing in such thick, heavy emotions, so she turns to the only thing she can think of. “Okay, now everyone sit down. I will make tea.”

As everyone settles down, Vera bustles about behind the counter, putting the kettle on and taking down various jars to put into a special concoction. This is such a unique and wondrous occasion, she simply must come up with the most groundbreaking tea. She takes out some goji berries, then considers what might go well with them. Ah yes, osmanthus, of course. She adds the osmanthus to the mix, then stands back, thinking. It needs one more ingredient to move it from “good” to “out of this world.” Ginseng? No, that would clash with the osmanthus. She needs something milder. Pea flower? No, the natural blue coloring from the pea flower would stain the mix and turn it the most unappetizing brown. She needs something sturdy, something to make a statement, something like...

Bird’s nest.

Yes, that’s it! Vera reaches up to the fourth row of shelves on the right, but her hand grasps at empty air. She does a double take. Her jar of bird’s nest is missing. Vera thinks of that day she smashed a few jars in her shop. She had cunningly picked the jars with the cheapest ingredients to break. The low-quality wulong teas and the stale chrysanthemum and that time she’d made the mistake of ordering peony tea, which had ended up tasting like gecko, not that she would know what gecko tasted of, but it just tasted like geckoes would, Vera was sure of it. Anyway, she definitely would not have broken her jar of bird’s nest. Bird’s nest is one of the most expensive ingredients in her shop. Maybe it got moved when the others did up the place. Vera goes through each jar but still can’t find it, which is thoroughly vexing.

Her mind goes back again to that morning when she came downstairs and felt so certain that someone had been inside her shop and moved things around. Was she right after all? Did someone come in and take her jar of bird’s nest? Hundreds of dollars’ worth of bird’s nest there had been in that jar. She’d been so careful and so stingy with it, saving it only for her most special customers, like Alex—

Vera gasps. Everything clicks then. Marshall dying from an acute allergic reaction to bird dander. Her making Alex some bird’s nest tea to take home. Alex looking so old and worn the days following Marshall’s death.

“Vera, are you okay?” Julia says. The others stop talking and watch her warily. “Maybe you should sit do—”

Vera flaps with urgency at Julia to quiet down. Then she hurries from behind the counter and practically grabs Oliver by the collar of his shirt. “Oliver. What is your father’s name?”

“Huh? It’s Alex. Alex Chen.”

It’s as though the weight of the world has just been dropped on her shoulders, while at the same time the floor beneath her feet falls away. Vera doesn’t know whether to feel vindicated or heartbroken about this. She’s done it. She’s proved everybody wrong and solved the unsolvable case. But all she wants to do right now is burst into tears. She needs to speak with Alex right this very minute.

The entire group runs to keep up with Vera as she storms down the street to Alex’s apartment building, and they all keep asking inane questions like: “What’s going on?” and “Maybe she’s still not thinking clearly?” and “Vera, why won’t you tell us where you’re going?” Then, when she finally stops at the front of Alex’s building, Oliver says, “Hey, this is my dad’s apartment. Do you know him?”

Vera presses the buzzer. “Alex, this is Vera. You better let me in now.” There is no answer. She leans into the speaker and says, “I know about bird’s nest.” The front gate unlocks, and Vera walks in with everyone scrambling to follow her.

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Oliver says. “Bird’s nest?”

Upstairs, Vera is about to knock on Alex’s door when it opens. At the sight of Alex, she sucks her breath in through her teeth. He looks awful, so thin and so hunched, his back curved like a banana, as though there is a great weight bearing down on him. It’s the weight of having killed his own son, Vera thinks, her heart squeezing in sorrow for Alex. He barely registers any surprise at seeing her with the rest of the gang.

“I was wondering when you would figure it out,” he says in Mandarin, shuffling back into the apartment. They all follow him inside the dark, dingy space.

“Ba, what’s going on?” Oliver says.

Alex regards him silently with his watery eyes before his gaze moves to Julia. When he spots little Emma, his chin trembles and a sob escapes him. “You tell them,” he whispers to Vera. “I can’t.”

“Tell us what?” Oliver says, his voice getting shrill.

“Before I tell them anything,” Vera says, “what has confuse me this whole time is Oliver say his mother is dead. But your wife, Lily, she...”

Alex’s gaze slides away toward the bedroom. “Lily is gone,” he says in Mandarin. “All these years later, and I still haven’t come to terms with it. I wanted to preserve your teahouse as a safe space, Vera. I wanted it to exist as a space I could go to where I was happy, where I could talk as if my wife were still alive. I made her healthy at first, because I wanted to remember her the way she was, so full of life. But then you kept asking to meet her, and asking why she never came by, and I had to make up a reason, so I said she’s sick, and even that was better than not having her at all.”

“I see.” And she does see. She wishes she could have that space too, where she could chat with someone about Jinlong as though he were waiting for her to come home with some bread, or some tiny gossip she’d picked up at the market. “I have just one more question. Marshall’s laptop and flash drive, did you take them?”

Alex nods. “I have a key to the house. I went in through the back door. I just wanted to—I missed him so much. I was in a fog of grief. I went inside his room, I wanted to take a shirt of his, or something. I don’t know. I opened a drawer by the bed and saw the laptop and flash drive on top of it. I recognized the laptop, so I took it. I guess... I just had to know more about him, what he was doing.”

“I see,” Vera says. She’d thought that maybe Emma had moved the laptop and flash drive somehow, but no. “And why did you take the rest of my bird’s nest? To remove evidence?”

Pain flickers across Alex’s withered face. “No, Vera. It was to protect you. In case the police became suspicious...”

Vera can only nod. All this time, it had been him all along. She doesn’t quite know what to say to Alex. She doesn’t even know how to begin describing the storm that is raging inside her.

“Now you tell them,” Alex says. “Tell these young people the truth.”

Vera takes a heavy breath. This is it, then. Detective Vera Wong is finally getting the moment she’s fantasized about for weeks, to tell everyone that she’s finally figured out who Marshall’s killer is, but unlike her fantasies, there is no joy in it. “Alex killed Marshall.”

“ What? ” Everyone practically shouts it.

Oliver shakes his head. “No, that’s not possible. Baba loved Marshall more than anything. He was always the favorite son. You always said if not for Marshall, you wouldn’t have a reason to go on living after Ma died.”

Alex utters a sob that is so wretched it sounds as though it might tear his frail body apart. “Marshall’s whole life, I thought he was the sun. He was my world, my prodigal son. He shone so bright that you were left in the shadow, and I thought—” His voice breaks and tears stream down his withered face. “I see now that he blinded me. He made me think you were the bad one, that—”

Oliver is crying now, too. “Baba.” He stops speaking then, because what can one say at this moment?

“I am so sorry, son. That day...” Alex wipes at his eyes and looks at Julia, switching to English. “You call me, in the morning. You say Marshall leaving you. He make it rich, you tell me, and he don’t want to be married to you no more.”

Julia nods.

“I think, ‘This is impossible. How can? He love his wife and child. How can he just abandon? There must be mistake.’ I call Marshall, I ask him what is going on, and he say, ‘Ba, come out for dinner tonight, I’ve got something to celebrate.’ So, okay, I go to fancy restaurant. When I arrive, I see Marshall at reception desk. I am about to say hi to him when someone—” He spots Riki in the crowd of people. His eyes widen. “Oh, it’s you.”

Like everyone else, Riki is gaping. “That night...” he gasps.

“Yes. I recognize you. You rush inside, you grab my son’s shoulder, and you hit him.” Alex shakes his head. “I am so surprise. I just stand there, I don’t know what is going on. Then you run away, and Marshall is shouting all these things—I have never seen him like that. So many threats. I go to him, and he looks so surprise to see me. He immediately change, become the Marshall I know. It is so quick, the change. It disturb me, how easy he change his face.”

Oliver nods. “He was always careful to show you only the good side of him.”

“Then I look closer at him, and I notice that he not only have a bruise from the punch, he also has scratch mark on other cheek.”

Vera glances over at Sana, who says, in a small voice, “That was me.”

Alex’s rheumy eyes slide toward her, and he nods. “I see. I ask him, why that boy punch you? And who scratch you? He say, don’t worry about it, they are just asshole. But I am so shaken. I do not understand why so many people are so angry with my son. I ask him about Julia. Maybe he is shaken too, by the punch, but I see his mask slip. He is looser then, the bartender has give him double shot of whisky on the house because of fight. He say Julia just holding him back, he never love her.”

This must be so painful for Julia, Vera thinks, but when she looks over, Julia looks more angry than sad.

“I am so shock,” Alex continues. “I say, what about Emma?” He looks down at his granddaughter and fresh tears roll down his face. “You are so love, my dear. I am sorry. I don’t want to say in front of her.” His voice comes out in a whisper, and Vera’s heart throbs with pain because it’s obvious that what he’s about to reveal would be a huge blow to little Emma, and all Vera wants to do right now is to whisk the toddler away and tell her that everything is going to be okay.

“Sana, can you—?” Julia says.

“Yeah, of course.” Sana bends over so she is at eye level with Emma and says, “You wanna go get a cookie?” Emma nods, and Sana picks up the little girl and leaves the apartment.

Once they’re safely out of earshot, Julia turns back to Alex and, in a voice made of steel, says, “What did Marshall say about our daughter?”

“He say—” Alex lets out another sob. “He say, ‘That little freak. I’ll have a better one with someone else.’?” He bursts into tears. “I have never see anyone talk about own child like that. I think, maybe he is just drunk, or angry because he just get punch. But then he tell me how he going to get rich, and that’s why he leaving you, because he don’t want to have to divide the money with you. I say, but you must provide for your wife and child, and he laugh. I say, just like the way you always look after me, I know you are good boy, you always buy me grocery, and he look so confuse. He say, what grocery?”

Now it’s Vera’s turn to be confused. Alex has been so proud of the way Marshall left groceries for him every week.

“I did that,” Oliver says quietly.

Alex nods. “Yes, I figure that. All these years, I lose my relationship with you, and why? All this time, I think Marshall is only good one. When he go toilet, he leave his phone on table. I look through his messages, so many of them are from people demanding their money. And not just that, but one or two are saying thing like: ‘Those stupid fucks, made some good money out of them.’ I don’t know what Marshall up to, but I know is nothing good, is all about cheating people.

“After dinner, I ask him back here for tea. I beg him not to do this to his wife and child. That is when he turn ugly to me. He say he is not going to be like me, living in this shithole apartment just because I can’t let go of everyone who is pulling me back. He say he is glad when his mom die, because she always holding him back, always favoring Oliver. The things he say—” Alex weeps. “I feel like everything falling down. Everything is lie. I take out the tea from Vera and I think of how she is so kind to me, every day, and how I always tell her Marshall this, Marshall that. Marshall so good, Marshall so smart. I see that one of them has bird’s nest. I know Marshall is allergic to bird dander. I don’t know why—I don’t know what I am thinking—but I choose that tea. I give to Marshall. I watch him drink.”

For a few moments, the entire apartment is so silent that Vera can practically hear everybody’s hearts beating.

“I kill him,” Alex says quietly. “I kill my own son. His breathing get rough, he try to get his phone, but he can’t type, his vision must be blurry, his hands all swollen. I watch him dying. He run out of here, stumble down street. Everything close by then. He cannot talk anymore. He see Vera’s teahouse and he break inside. I think he want to give clue, that the bird dander is from tea.”

Vera nods.

“But why was he holding a flash drive?” Riki says.

“Maybe to create more suspicion? Make it clear that this wasn’t a simple death,” Julia mutters. She stares at Alex with a mixture of pity and anger on her face. “Did you—” She shakes her head as though trying to clear it. “When I was taking photos of Cassie, I felt like someone was watching me...”

Alex nods, once. “It was me. I just want to make sure you are okay, even without Marshall. I follow Vera too, especially when she has Emma. I just—I can’t believe I take away her baba.” His voice cracks. “I have to make sure you are all okay.”

One corner of Julia’s mouth twitches into a half smile. “We’re okay. We’re better than okay. You don’t have to worry about us.” She is still steely-eyed. Vera no longer recognizes the sniffly, frightened woman that Julia was when they first met. Julia now looks like nothing could possibly tear her down. Vera can’t be any prouder of her.

Oliver, on the other hand, is sobbing like a child. “Baba,” he moans. “I can’t believe this.”

“I am sorry, son.” Alex walks to him slowly and puts his arms gingerly around Oliver. “I am so sorry for everything I’ve done to you. All those times I told you that you were worthless,” he whispers in Mandarin. Oliver only nods, crying harder. “You are not worthless. You are not.”

“I don’t want to lose you, Baba.”

“Me neither. Come and visit me, and we will talk.” Alex grasps Oliver’s hands so tight that his knuckles turn white. “We will talk.”

Vera hopes that down the road, Oliver will look back on this moment and find a way of healing.

Later, they wait outside on the curb together, Oliver with an arm around his father’s frail shoulders. As Alex is helped into the police cruiser, he meets Vera’s eyes and says, “Thank you for everything, Vera. You are a true friend.”

And Vera smiles through her tears and nods. She is already wondering what bento boxes she will be allowed to bring for Alex in prison.