Peter said it was signed her lao bu: “mother.” He put the letter down and ran his hand through his hair several times.

I was astounded. “Did you know about her past?” I asked Peter.

He shook his head. “I didn’t know those papers were in this box.” He looked at me anxiously. “Did you know about this?” he asked in return.

“No” was all I could say.

I looked for any identifiable marks on the letter and envelope to discern when Mother may have received this news. The envelope had a blue and red airmail border. Her name and our address in Sparwood were written neatly on the front. The postmark on the stamps was dated March 1988, and the return address was from Auntie Ah Lian. She must have sent it around the time my po po passed away. Perhaps the birth certificate and the photo of Mother and Po Po I found had been in this envelope as well. Staring at the date, I wondered if this was what put Mother over the edge. She must have left to try to recover whatever link she had to this place.

Peter riffled through the box and pulled out an empty picture frame. Mother must have found this, too, when she returned, the original home of the worn photo of her and Po Po in the airport, sent to her years ago. Peter and I didn’t know what more we could say to one another. We promised to keep in touch, and then he left.

The letter left me reeling. The irony was not lost on me. Mother always held her status as a citizen of Malaysia over Father like she was higher class or of good breeding. She never allowed herself to relate to Father’s statelessness, how it affected his psyche, or how it drove his choices. It must’ve crushed her to realize that, all along, she was like him, like the swill in the Brunei River, something that officials tried to ignore and push towards the ocean. Worse, she would have considered her Chinese blood to be tainted with Indigenous blood, from her Iban mother.

Depleted, I wordlessly closed the old colonial-style shutters on our windows to shut out the daylight. I fell asleep with Leo between John and me, the last call to prayer of the day lulling us into the night.

±Earth

PETER TOLD ME WHERE TO FIND MOTHER’S TOMBSTONE, but only after I promised I was not pregnant and would not bring Leo to the gravesite. It was like he was channelling Mother and begging me not to let the souls at the cemetery snatch my baby. Peter told me he could not come with me, as he was fearful of attending the cemetery outside of Qingming, Tomb Sweeping Festival. He warned me to leave if I felt a bad energy and gave very clear instructions. It was as if he knew that I had no idea how to properly honour my ancestors. I was grateful for his help.