Now here she was, faced with the undeniable mortality of her own father.
“When’s the operation?” she interrupted her sister.
She could practically hear Rosie swallow. “Friday.”
It was Wednesday. “I’ll get on the next flight home.” Marigold was reaching into her closet for her suitcase. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
The doctors said Philip had a year, three at best with chemotherapy. The cancer had progressed into his lymph nodes, and though the thoracotomy had been successful in removing the diseased lung tissue, he’d likely need the whole lung removed down the line.
Marigold stayed in the hospital with her family, speaking to the doctors and comforting her mother and sisters. She had initially planned to only stay home through the weekend, but the day Philip regained consciousness, she quietly submitted her request to the dean for a leave of absence.
After the operation, Philip had difficulty speaking, yet his eyes brightened when he saw her in the recovery room. He opened his mouth, straining for each word: “Mei Yoong. You’re back.”
“I’m back,” she whispered. She was still angry with him, and she hadn’t forgiven him. She doubted she ever would. Yet, seeing him lying in bed, his toes sticking out of the blanket, their ridges blue and old, she wished they hadn’t wasted an entire year being angry at each other. She wished she’d at least called more, if only to hear the clipped sound of her father’s goodbyes.
“I’m going to stay a while,” she said. She didn’t know if he’d heard. Philip had closed his eyes.
Once his breathing slowed and she was sure he was asleep, Marigold took off her gloves. She pressed her hand atop his.
As always, the shock scalded her fingertips. But by the time she felt the pain, she was already in the past.
It was winter in Philip’s village. The air was acrid with gunpowder, the wind bit into their bones, and every breath stung.
Marigold’s father was a young man, no more than twenty years old.He was carrying a woman in his arms. Blood soaked her collar bright red like the candied hawthorn berries she used to buy them for their birthdays.
“Take cover!” Philip shouted. He and Francis ducked under a truck as a green Japanese fighter jet circled the sky, bullets raining from its three painted suns. Once the plane flew away, Philip crawled out, still holding on to his mother. “Ma, stay with us. We’re almost at the boat.”
“Leave me,” she rasped. “I’ll only slow you down. Go. Live.”
Not far away, a bomb exploded. Flying debris sent Philip rocking forward, and Francis caught their mother as she fell out of Philip’s arms.
Francis looked down at her. Their mother was still, her eyes flat and unblinking, the life quivering from her body gone still, the pain on her face smoothed into a look of peaceful repose.
Philip let out a cry. He punched the ground, gravel biting into his knuckles until they bled.
“We have to go,” said Francis, pulling him up. “Philip, hurry!”
The plane was circling back for another run. Philip touched his forehead to his mother’s. He closed her eyes and found her a flat berth amid the rubble.
Then the brothers ran for the harbor, the smoke behind them rising.
Marigold let go of her father’s hand, gasping as though real smoke had penetrated her nostrils. She reached for her inhaler, put it to her mouth, and breathed in. It took a long time before the rolling blasts of bombs faded from her ears. Hours later,when she was home, she would still taste a lingering hatred that wasn’t hers.
Finally,finally,as she rolled the bitterness of her baba’s hate on her tongue, she understood what her visions were trying to show her.
She needed to speak with her grandmother.
When Yuk Fong had come to live at Three Flowers, the Yuens had repurposed their tiny living room into a bedroom. A beige floral bedsheet covered the sofa, and her clothes hung on a drying rack behind the TV. Marigold found her grandmother inside listening to a drama about an emperor and his murderous concubine on the radio.
“Is my father going to die?” Marigold asked.
Yuk Fong switched off the radio and made space for Marigold on the sofa. “Everybody dies,” she replied.
“Will he get better?”
“That, I don’t know,” Yuk Fong admitted. “I haven’t seen.”
