Yes, she was beautiful. Yes, she was kind. Yes, she cared a lot. No, she never got justice. Who gives an onion pancake? That’s how it goes in this life for most of us. You think you’re special? You aren’t special. The past is not going to come whirling back to you the way you want. Doesn’t it already reek of mildewy brown wainscotting and mothballs? Old incense and rotten oranges? How spoiled are you, anyway? You’re just going to have to take it how it was, with everything that’s missing—everything I don’t remember, everything I was never told, everything I never saw. Also, everything I don’t care about and everything I don’t want to tell. That’s it. Like it or lump it. I’m just one old lady, one cranky old lady with a faulty memory, a big ego, and all my confabulations. Too too bad, too too sad, so sad for you.

Raymond? He lived with us until he was twelve, and then he took off. I don’t know where he is. Why does everyone ask me? I don’t know. He was troubled, and then he was gone. Why don’t you ask me about Macy? Didn’t Macy pay for your plane ticket? Aren’t you staying in her beautiful flat in the Mid-Levels? Didn’t she pay for your education, and your condo in Vancouver? Wasn’t it Macy who invited you here to watch the handover of Hong Kong from the British Crown to the People’s Republic of China? Didn’t she also help arrange the adoption of your new daughter from that orphanage in Qinghai?

I can tell you Macy’s story because Ting-Yan and I raised Macy, and Macy stayed. Macy was a good girl who became a good woman. A smart girl who became a rich woman, a kind woman who takes care of her family. We treated Raymond and Macy the same, but Raymond took off. Too much of his messed-up parents in him, in my humble opinion.