Chapter Seven

Justine

THE WORLD DOESN’T end when I step inside, so that’s a good start.

I’m hemmed in by the foyer, a cradle of dark wood and peacock tile. My mother’s gardening shoes are the only pair in attendance, meant for quick trips to the mailbox and chatting with neighbors, but the faded flower-dappled slippers I knew have been replaced with a warm oxblood set. I step out of my heels beside them, shrinking three inches before stepping into the living room.

Everything is the same, yet it isn’t. I’m reminded of those apocryphal stories of someone moving a person’s furniture an inch a day, driving them mad as the room seems to transform of its own accord. Yes, the gingham couch has survived, except I could swear it had one more red cushion and was closer to the kitchen wall. The rug beneath the low black table lacks ten years of luster, but my father’s favorite chair has been completely reupholstered, concealing countless stains and wear from my childhood.

At least the altar hasn’t changed. Black-and-white photos of my paternal grandparents flank a low golden censer, and a more recent picture of my maternal aunt is on the shelf below. She died when I was too young to solidify the memory, but for years, I dusted the tea cups and plate by her tablet as though she’d raised me herself. A host of joss sticks wait to be lit, their sandalwood cores wrapped in bright yellow incense. The scent lingers in every part of the house, tying me to the reality of being here, now.

A stranger, a wayward daughter, a guest in the place that molded me before maturity struck that mold with a hammer and insisted I could go anywhere. Obligation would have had me stay, but I subverted one duty with another, following Richard to a home that never had this warmth or sense of belonging. He hated incense and never liked talking about death. It was the reason he had no will when he died, and everything in his name was suddenly mine.

I can’t think about him and look at the photos at the same time. That’s asking for a Poe-styled haunting, my telltale heart rising up out of the floor before the truth of what I’ve done gushes out and splatters the walls. Yet, in a way, I’d almost prefer that to the simple shame of standing in front of two generations of my family and telling them, each one from flesh to ghost, that I murdered the man I left them for.

My younger self—much younger, barely seventeen—stares back at me from the wall near the stairs, immortalized in oil paint. She sits between my mother and father, the trio mirroring the same faint, serene smiles. After dozens of scrapped attempts, it became the first portrait I was proud of, where I learned the beautiful, mystifying complexity of the human face and how to give people I love a depth that transcended the canvas. My parents had it framed the day after the paint dried, pointing it out to every visitor, no matter how familiar.

I’m not sure where that pride is now. At that age, I was sure I knew everything, endlessly frustrated waiting for the world to notice. I vacillated from turning out half a dozen pieces a week, energetic and experimental, to spending days on a single hand, devouring the styles I came across and spitting out something new. My stamina was relentless, but so was my love for the art itself, the simple pleasure of leaving a mark somewhere everyone could see.

I’ve painted for others since leaving Richard—for Campbell, for Ulysse—yet trying to discern what I would create solely for myself conjures up a black void, etched with a bone-white truth that has only one name.

Death. I’m bringing death into this house, the same way I brought death into my bed, and the darkness makes my heart sing. The notion that I should be ashamed is inescapable, but the feeling drips away like blood through a drain, evidence stolen by gravity.

Standing in the middle of the living room is awkward, but I can’t find the will to explore elsewhere. I’m not ready to look at my old bedroom, and I’ve never stepped inside my parents’; the breach is unthinkable. A retreat into the kitchen would be a possibility, but I don’t want to start cooking in apology and have them arrive halfway through. The chance of using an ingredient my mother was saving for a special occasion is frighteningly high.

The front doorknob turns. I stifle the urge to bolt—where would I even go?—and try to fix my face in the proper expression. Am I happy, sad, deferent? I don’t have the first idea, and there’s no time to figure it out when I’m seeing my father for the first time in a decade.

His hair has succumbed to silver’s slow theft, but even the pull of wrinkles below his eyes can’t displace the passion brewing behind dark eyes, the irrepressible posture forming back and shoulders. He’s clean-shaven and in his Sunday best, a tan suit and monk-strap shoes, the deep brown grain of leather tapering to black at the toe. I remember him joking that he dresses more for my mother than for God, and that it was one of the only times I ever saw her blush.

I don’t know what to say that isn’t pointless, isn’t trite. “Hi.”

English, too, which I hadn’t thought about until it slips from my mouth, setting the tone. Switching to Mandarin with Danny was easy, but I wonder what they would read into the words now, after I’ve spent so many years using the language for business, refining my accent to match dealers in the north. Even in English, I stopped sounding like I was from Queens an age ago, inflection stripped away layer by layer. Richard ate through my life like fucking turpentine.

“Justine.” His voice is low, caught in his throat with feeling, and that alone is enough to send tears rushing to my eyes. “Welcome home.”

Oh, God. Composure hangs on by a thread as my mother follows him inside, dressed in a prim white dress with a slender matching jacket. She looks as she did at Richard’s funeral, a spine of steel guarding a heart of gold, so put together when I collapsed in grief—not for him, but for everything I lost. The short crop of her hair remains resiliently black, framing the subtle pearl of her earrings.

“You look like you’re about to fall over,” she says, direct as always. “Have you eaten?”

Right before the flight, but that doesn’t matter. “No.”

“We packed the leftovers from the parishioners.” My mother gestures toward the living room. “You two sit. Talk. I’ll get everything from the car.”

Usually, I’d never let her do that work alone, but my father’s small smile overrides any argument I might have summoned. He takes a seat in his chair and folds his hands, one sleeve riding up and exposing his watch. The bulk of brass and leather was one of the first things he bought after coming to New York, and so old he has to reset the hands twice a day before they slip too many minutes.

He’s the same good man, and I’m—something else. Sofia was right; lying to someone like him feels sadistic. Even when I was younger, hiding stolen cigarettes and the most provocative art books I could get my hands on, my father accepted every excuse given as if I wasn’t capable of telling lies.

Now I don’t know how to stop.

“How was the plane?” he asks.

I braced myself for upset and accusations, or the distant simmer of disappointment. Not small talk, carefully crafted pieces of normality. “Good. I always forget how little time it takes, even when it feels like I live so far away.”

My father nods. “I remember the first time we took you to Chengdu. You kept walking up and down the aisle, asking the flight attendants why the plane couldn’t go faster.”

What was I—four, five? A laugh escapes my lips. “I’m surprised you didn’t strap me in my seat to stop me from bothering everyone.”

“Twenty minutes of that was enough to tire you out for the next ten hours,” he jokes. “Even a wandering soul like yours needs a place to rest, eventually.”

My eyes fall. Every word pulling at my tongue wants to emerge as a desperate howl—I’m sorry; I should have told you; I should have run after the first time; I was too scared, even though you’ve never been anything but forgiving; forgive me please—but if the dam inside me breaks, everything will spill out. Too many truths live inside the chaos. I can’t expose them when I’m not the only one at risk.

“I missed you so much,” I finally choke out. “I didn’t mean to be away for so long.”

“You grew fast. Faster than I did, before your roots could settle.” He leans back in his chair, the mirror of his eyes briefly unreadable. “But I couldn’t blame you, after I fled from my father too.”

Guilt’s slender arrow finds its mark, burying to the nerve. My father is proof that new fruit can bloom from a poisonous tree; Yeye treated his son more like a tool than a person, but he was clever enough to frame the move to America as a worthy expansion to the family business, putting an ocean between himself and the cruel man who raised him. For my father to draw even a single line of comparison between himself and my grandfather destroys me in too many ways to count.

“No, I didn’t leave because of you.” I mutter the words before I can think better of it. “I wanted to make Richard happy. I wasn’t thinking of your happiness, or Mama, or myself, really. It threw my whole life out of balance.”

“You wanted to be a good wife,” my father says, his sympathy damning me further. “That’s no crime.”

A hysterical laugh brews in the cauldron of my throat, but my mother rescues me with her return, arms full of clear plastic Tupperware containers. I’m on my feet—running again—to help her, using the excuse to displace the conversation and retreat into the kitchen.

“Campbell’s still coming to dinner,” I say, bringing up the first new subject I can think of. “They just wanted me to have some time with you here first.”

“Your mysterious paramour,” my mother notes, tone inquisitive. “Does Campbell know you’re a widow?”

Out of countless stigmas for her to be worried about, I somehow managed to forget about that one. “Yes, of course. I told them everything.”

She lets out a huff of surprise, but the raised eyebrow is her tell for approval. I’m not sure whether she’s signing off on my honesty or Campbell’s implied magnanimity, but I’ll take any kind of win I can get right now.

“I’m starving,” I add, desperate to distance us from emotional topics. “What survived the choir boys?”

My mother dismisses me to get a plate and starts peeling back blue lids, giving me a sample from each tub. A double serving of Auntie Chen’s tea-smoked duck is first—“When she heard you were coming home, she packed this up for you before anyone else could grab another bite”—still has the faint tang of camphor lingering in crispy amber skin. I’m laden with an impossible amount of food, but the burden is a mercy. It’s a silent request to stay, to linger.

I nearly elbow my father as he sneaks in to take a bowl of grass jelly before it’s packed away, jostling for position until three of us eventually end up at the living room table together. Saying grace is a brief formality, but one I respect before digging in. Home isn’t just a building properly arranged; it’s countless rituals held in the same space, stretching far past the foundation. I may have forgotten some of my lines, but the play goes on anyway.

We’re just missing an actor. I hope Campbell is back soon.