Wài Pó is sitting by the window in her room. I can only see her back.
‘Wài Pó,’ I say, but she does not reply.
I walk into the room and call her name again.
Still, she does not move. I sit beside her on the bed and stroke her arm.
When I am with people who are sad, I can feel it, heavy, inside my bones. My Wài Pó has a lot of sadness in her. Like the ocean, it does not have a beginning, middle and an end. I think in my mind that this is why she holds her prayer beads so tight; they are her rope when she is sinking.
She gets like this a lot, when she remembers those who have died, like Wài Gōng and Mum. She used to say, ‘I was supposed to go first.’ But she has stopped saying this now. She just gets quiet, like she is today.
As I stroke her arm, back and forth, back and forth, she turns to me and takes my hands.
‘So cold,’ she says.
She asks me how I am feeling. Her eyes are small and she does not blink.
The fear.
‘I will be fine,’ I say.
I will be fine.
I will be fine.
I will be fine.
Yes, I will be fine.
We sit like this, staring at the grey sky, letting her heartbreak come and go.