Page 63 of The Girl with a Thousand Faces
Has she taught these ghosts to play modern music? Surely not.
The sight is unnerving. You stand there for a good ten minutes, roiling with uneasy emotions, until she notices you with a jolt through the window and straightens guiltily.
By the time you come through the front door, Mami is in the kitchen, make-work tidying as if nothing unusual happened. The only tell is a guilty flush toher cheeks. The ghosts are present, doing chores and milling around, but the instruments and music are gone.
You could swear the ghosts speak louder than they did before. Some of them are definitely more active than they used to be. You wonder uneasily if Mami has been feeding them, and if so, on what; there is nothing on the shrine, no bowls of food with joss sticks.
“Back so soon?” she says, lifting the lid of a clay pot. Regardless of whatever she was doing with the ghosts, she hasn’t forgotten to cook.
“It is almost evening,” you point out, watching her, wondering whether it’s okay to ask about what you’ve just seen. “If I got back any later it’d be nighttime.”
“Yes, supper is almost ready.” Her response doesn’t really make sense.
“Thanks for cooking.” Fumbling for words, trying to sound normal even though your day was the literal definition of otherworldly.
“No need for thanks. Just wash up for me, afterward.” She plonks chopsticks on the table. “Where did you go?” No mention of the argument earlier today. Maybe she’s forgotten about it.
“Um…” You’re a natural chatterbox, a chronic oversharer, and that tendency to spill your life on other people has long been a source of conflict with her. Meeting the jiaoren is the most important thing to ever happen to you.
Which is exactly why you can’t seem to summon up the words.
It’s too much. You’re not ready. Your brain has only just begun to process the things that your eyes and hands experienced. Speaking about it to someone else is out of reach, a distant mountain surrounded by churning rivers. Especially when the “someone else” in question was the target of your boiling anger only a few hours ago.
Mami is looking at you, waiting for an answer.
“Just walked around the island,” you manage, and she nods distractedly. Neither of you mention the argument from before, which only makes it loom taller.
Together, you sit and eat. She’s made clay pot rice with chunks of preserved sausage, dried mushrooms, rehydrated bok choi, scallions aplenty, and a blend of salty-sweet sauces. These are the very last of the good ingredients brought on the boat; there won’t be food this nice for a while. You try to enjoy every bite, making it last.
It doesn’t escape you that she seems as averse to discussing her afternoon as you are to discussing yours. Better to leave it. To not question her, as she is not questioning you.
With hindsight, you should have talked to Mami about what was happening. About Sea Sister reaching for you beneath the waves, even as the village ghosts reached for her. The warning signs were there, all along.
But Mami isn’t easy to approach. She dislikes difficult conversations, seems to dislike conversations full stop. You have long suspected this was a consequence of her days working in a hospital, where she made endless polite chatter with endless patients, even as a cleaner.
Doesn’t help that Mami has never seemed to likeyou, specifically. She goes through phases of being almost affectionate, like those Friday evening walks. But it always feels like a slipup, like some kind of weak moment.
Again, lack of life experience is working against you. You are too young to understand how afraid she is of losing people she loves, yet again, and what that does to her: how she labors to keep everyone at a distance. That’s a lesson you’ve yet to imbibe, much less have sympathy for.
In the end, you’re both comfortable with things as they are, each willing to sue for peace, mutual secrets skinned in a thin varnish of mundane life. So you say nothing, and eat your damn food without complaint.
It’s a nice meal, at any rate. Mami always was a good cook.
When the bowls are empty and you’re both licking fingers clean, she says quite suddenly, “Are you worried, living here?”
The jiaoren’s ethereal face fills your mind, unbidden.
“No, I’m not worried.” The truth, mostly. You like the bits that don’t involve the village ghosts milling through your private spaces. “It’s beautiful. Quiet. No one has told me lately how annoying I am.”
More bitter than you mean to sound, and she actually winces.
“Good,” Mami says, not meeting your gaze. “Good.” For once, her sharpness seems abashed, even subdued, which is unlike her.
Despite feeling irritated, you ask, “Areyouworried?”
Unspoken between the lines:Are you safe here, talking to these stupid ghosts?
“I miss your father,” she says, once again catching you off guard.
