Eventually, I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. It was late and I felt safe, snuggled next to my mother. The last thing I remember was Mother smelling my hair at the top of my head and rubbing her ankle.

Bea and I came home from school just as a storm had rolled in. The thunder was fierce, and lightning hit a tree at the end of the block as we disembarked from the bus. We watched aghast as a flash of light pierced the sky, and the body of the tree split in two. Bea started to cry, and we ran all the way home.

When we got there, Mother wasn’t home. Bea and I watched television, built a fort with our blankets from our bed, and brought our flashlights into our cave to read stories to one another. When our stomachs rumbled, we went to the kitchen and found piles of baked goods on the counter. We were snacking on muffins when Father came home after a twelve-hour shift. He placed his metal lunch box on the counter next to all the baking and tore off his baseball cap.

“Where’s your mother?” he asked.

“We don’t know,” Bea said. “She wasn’t home when we got here.”

Father looked perplexed. “You’ve been home for five hours and you don’t know where Mom is?”

He went upstairs and jumped into the shower. When he emerged, I felt a sudden coolness in the air. Bea and I stayed in the living room playing with some old sock puppets, trying to ignore the stillness around us. We heard cupboards and drawers being opened and closed, things being thrown about, and the stomping of Father’s heavy feet. I heard him pick up the phone and call Auntie Choo Neo. He was yelling frantically into the phone in Hakka. He put the phone down, and then everything was silent for a long time.

Eventually, Father started crying upstairs. Then, his sobs turned into pained moans. I held back my tears, knowing that Bea was watching me. We held each other tight and didn’t move.

I knew Mother was gone.

鬼Ghost

AUNTIE CHOO NEO TOOK OVER THE HOUSE WITH PLEASURE. She rearranged things in the kitchen, and when Bea and I protested that Mother had put something in its place for a reason, she would snap, “Well, she’s not here anymore, is she?”

Auntie fixated on the banana tree in our kitchen. It had always held a prominent place in our bay window because Mother had said it reminded her of home. For days, Auntie kept muttering about how she needed to move it out of the house. When Uncle Stephen came by she demanded he get rid of the plant immediately. “We can’t leave that gui kia de he le chiu, that ghost in the tree, here. Boing he le lah sap, throw that dirty thing away!” she ordered.

“Choo Neo, you are being ridiculous,” Uncle Stephen grunted as he lifted the plant. “You need to help me.”