Page 77 of The Girl with a Thousand Faces
Mami buried her face in her hands.
“I deserved to know all this,” you say, wound tight with raging anger. “You’ve lied to me, from the moment we landed here.”
“I was trying to protect you!”
“By bringing me to an island of ghosts?” Fury swarms you. “By dancing with your dead, submerging in your memories, insulting me, and chasing me away when you find me annoying?” Somehow, your voice has risen to a near scream. “I hate being here with you! I wish Baba had come and you had stayed behind!”
“Baba is already dead!” she shrieks back.
Your mouth is hanging open. Surely it can’t be true. You want to speak but your voice seems tangled in your throat.
“He took his own life!” Mami wails, fingers knotted through her hair. “That man is a coward who walked off into the night and threw himself into the harbor. Your precious father left us alone to our fate!”
“No.” Head shaking, whole body rejecting this revelation. “His note said—”
“I wrote that, not him. His real note, you never saw. I read it before youwoke. It was cruel, and sad. I couldn’t let you have that truth. But now…” Her strength is gone; she slumps in your grasp.
“I don’t believe you—”
“I kept the note,” she says. “It’s in my room. Inside the blue vase.”
Wordlessly, you stalk away from her, down the short hallway, and into her space. Usually it would be tidy, but dishes and dirty clothes are lying on the floor, poorly attended to.
Almost, you don’t want to find it, but there it is: a crackling slip of paper, tucked into the vase’s narrow mouth.
You read it in absolute silence. Then you read it three more times, until a veil of tears obscures the written characters. The paper slips from your fingers and you don’t bother picking it up.
I won’t repeat the last words your father ever penned. Better that they stay lost.
Though it feels like an age, it can’t be more than a few moments till you walk back into the living room, greeted by a room of ghosts, your mother almost indistinguishable among them. All eyes on you.
Poor Baba. Desperate, trapped, hurting. The thought of him dying alone, so close to your Wanchai flat and feeling like a failure, is almost enough to break you. If only you had spoken to him that night. If only you’d sat with him, how things might be different. It isn’t fair to think that, but your brain can’t help seeking the blame.
And Mami, carrying that burden by herself, holding it tight in her heart. She was wrong to lie, but some truths are too difficult to share. No wonder she retreated from you, from all of reality. Sympathy and fury war against each other in your heart.
You hear yourself saying, “Obviously, you knew all along that he was never coming for us.”
“… Yes.” She slumps miserably.
“So why did you bring us here?”
“I thought it would be safer. I thought we could hide. I thought, even if my family were ghosts, perhaps they could help, or…” She dashes the heel of her hand against her eyes. “I’m so sorry, daughter. I have failed you. I let grief destroy me. I took comfort from my ghosts, and lost myself. I have not been a good parent.”
“Finally, we agree.” But you are crying, too. Haven’t stopped since reading Baba’s note.
Her hands flutter, useless and anxious. “I was wrong to return.”
“It doesn’t matter.” It does, actually, but there’s no more time to argue. “Mami, we need to get off the island. Can you row one of those little fishing boats?”
“I think so. There isn’t one nearby, though. We will have to cross the island.”
Thunder rolls like cannonballs, and lightning flashes in the distance. Outside, the wind is already picking up with rain smattering lightly; the storm is not far.
You look at the sky, and swallow. “I don’t think we have enough time to get there. We want to be on the eastern shore, if we are to get to the other islands quickly.”
“Then perhaps the village will help us.” Mami looks at the ghosts, eddying around her. She kneels on the hard floor, palms held up. “Aunties and uncles, cousins and friends, will you help us? Will you take care of your own? We need a boat, to leave the island before my little sister brings her storm. Can you bring it to the closest shore, to the east of here?”
The ghosts murmur and whisper and converge on your mother, as spirit hands stroke her graying hair and promises of aid mist into echoing words.
