He tells her to leave it on the counter.

“I’ll come back out for it. I’ve just got to finish this email.”

Dave returns to the study, closes the door behind him and sits down. He continues:

I have a ticket, and I can come to you. But I need to sort things out here. I have to explain to Mayling

He stops. There are two new messages in his inbox:

10-14-02

4:16 am (GMT +7)

Let me tell you this: I am sick. I am disgusting and wrong. I am sick of sadness, anger, guilt. It’s become such a part of me that I can’t remember how my body feels without it. A badge, a license. No, no. That’s tragic. I won’t be one of those. I am one of those.

I tried, I did. To make you happy, give you some good moments. Convince you that you were loved, you really were. I let you bitch about your children and afterwards tried to make excuses for them. Where did they all go? You got so tired, and so did I. The same picture, you sitting on your bed, eyes open, expecting, waiting for something I don’t know what. For me? Popo, I’ll take you outside, go on feel the sunshine. Don’t wait for me, I’ve run out of ideas, I don’t know what to do.

10-14-02

4:25 am (GMT +7)

It’s so nice when it finally stops raining. Today is blazing hot, glorious sun. Suli slides the wet garments out onto the metal poles. She smiles at the fortress of identical high rises because it looks like a holiday out there, a new, non-religious, urban festival. But instead of flags and streamers there are shirts, towels, pillowcases, pants, socks, bras, bedsheets, all waving brightly in celebration of the weather. She thinks of Indonesia. She misses her family. Her work done, she says Bye! I’m leaving for market now! and Popo says Bye! Don’t forget to pay the electric bill! Popo sits upright in her bed like a good child, eyes open, waiting for the slam of the iron gate and the elevator ding and its grinding downwards. Then slowly she pulls herself up, sits on the edge of the bed. She wiggles her feet into her hard plastic slippers.

She gets up and begins slow, careful steps, arms out, moving through the small, glowing children…through the warriors and their angry, rearing horses…through the dragonfire. There’s the door frame, the wall. There’s the hard edge of the dining table. There’s the windowsill. She climbs onto the ledge, pushes a damp shirt out of the way. Maybe she’s thinking, this will be over soon, and she’s glad that she’ll finally have some peace. Or, this is a terrible mistake, what have I done, forgive me. Or is she thinking only of the cold on her skin, or of the children playing below in the courtyard who will have to see her shattered corpse on the ground, or is she unable to think of anything at all because the shock has already killed her before she hits the ground?