No matter how she was feeling on any day, upon entering the hospital room where her aunt was staying, Ai Ling would feel a quickening sense of calm, as if she were entering a temporal state where things stood still, unchanging. She had never felt this way—whether at the childcare centre or at home with Wei Xiang—and the sense of serenity had continued to stay with her, deepening with each visit. Sitting on the bus on the way to the hospital, surrounded by other commuters, she could sense her body readying itself in anticipation, like someone preparing for an underwater dive. When she closed her eyes, she could imagine her aunt on the other side of where she was going, and if Ai Ling continued to stay very still, she could get a glimpse of her late uncle—a lonely figure in her mind’s eye, staring absently at her. These daydreams, Ai Ling told herself, were nothing more than illusions, mere flights of fancy. Yet the memory of her uncle was always at the back of her mind, a shadow hovering behind her consciousness; at times, she was afraid of confusing it with the other memories she had hoarded. Whenever she thought of her uncle or aunt, Ai Ling had to suppress the sadness, the sly encroachment of grief. She felt divided, like having many different selves working in tandem inside her, directing her down different paths. Still she was able to find the middle ground to exist, without breaking up over every stirred-up recollection. To her parents, who seemed to be having a worse time over her uncle’s death, Ai Ling was the embodiment of steadfastness. Yet, inwardly, Ai Ling knew she was barely holding everything together, always fearful of her moods running awry despite her self-control.
After the accident, Ai Ling had tried to distract herself with reading books and articles that dealt with situations like this, and picking up pointers on how to help a person in times of trauma, though she was still unsure how she could help her aunt when she would finally wake up. Looking at her aunt’s face—placid and peaceful in sleep—Ai Ling could hardly imagine what her response would be when she later heard the news about her husband’s death. In her darker moods, Ai Ling wished her aunt would remain in her slumber and never wake up, or if her memories were all wiped clean so that she would never even know who her husband was.
Unlike Ai Ling, her parents were industrious, keeping themselves busy with tasks and follow-ups. They would consult the doctors and nurses, arrange for further checks and scans and medication, and bring the necessary items to the hospitaclass="underline" a blanket, a change of clothes, packets of Milo, body and hand lotion. They barely stopped to stay in place for more than a few minutes, before they were onto their next task, keeping themselves occupied. Only once did Ai Ling see her mother standing quietly by the bed and looking down at her sister, but when she heard Ai Ling entering the room, she quickly excused herself, muttering about something she had forgotten to pick up on her way to the hospital. Ai Ling tried not to notice that her mother’s eyes were red and puffy when she picked up her shoulder bag and left the room.
Her parents had wanted to hold the funeral without any delay. Ai Ling protested, but later dropped it when she knew it would not change her parents’ minds or decision. During the entire period of the wake—three long, seamless days—Ai Ling prayed for her aunt not to wake up from her coma, to remain in her blissfully undisturbed dream. For three days, Ai Ling was a bundle of tired nerves and fraught emotions, moving from the hospital to the funeral parlour, and vice versa, several times a day. She felt strangely disembodied, cut out of time.
It was during those days—Ai Ling had taken a week of compassionate leave, and gone home only to sleep and shower—that she sometimes imagined the kind of conversations she would have with her aunt when she woke up. Her aunt had a measured manner of speaking, as if she were always weighing her words for the correct tone or delivery. She never seemed to hurry when she talked, and it was this particular trait of hers that Ai Ling was drawn to. She could tell her aunt anything about her life, and she would listen patiently, never once jumping in to interrupt her with her opinions or views. Though her aunt’s replies were occasionally clichéd—”You have to be more patient with him…” “A married life is full of ups and downs…” “Give him time and his own space, and he will come back to himself…”—Ai Ling had never felt patronised or brushed over by her aunt’s advice or encouragement.
On the last day of her uncle’s funeral, after they had cremated him, Ai Ling went straight home with Wei Xiang. When they were alone in the bedroom, Ai Ling laid her head on Wei Xiang’s chest and wrapped her arms around him. The warmth of Wei Xiang’s skin brought tears to her eyes. When she kissed Wei Xiang and started to take off her clothes, he was taken aback.
“Are you sure? Don’t you want to rest?” he asked.
“No, no need.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Ai Ling then led Wei Xiang to the bed, holding her body to his, reaching for his physical presence—a weight to hold her down when all she could feel was a benumbing sense of lightness, of being unmoored from everything around her. She felt lost, and had a terrifying desire to regain what was missing from her, to seize it back for herself. She needed Wei Xiang’s body, his physicality, to make her feel she was still alive.
“Please, I want this,” Ai Ling said, breathlessly.
In their lovemaking, Wei Xiang was gentle, almost too careful, with her. But Ai Ling wanted it rougher. She clamped her legs tightly around his waist, forcing him to thrust deeper into her. Still Wei Xiang remained cautious. At one point, she saw his face registering signs of held-back pain.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she whispered, when Wei Xiang finally came inside her.
“No, it’s okay,” he said, his breath warm on her chest.
Ai Ling held onto him until he fell asleep. In the dark, she listened to his light snoring and watched his body move through the quiet stages of sleep.
It was easy to forget that other people existed outside one’s own realm of existence. In her preoccupation with her own thoughts, Ai Ling sometimes failed to see how her aunt’s current state was also affecting her parents, especially her mother. It did not help that her mother was never one to wear her emotions on her sleeve, unlike her father, who was much more open to expressing his feelings. Ai Ling had often wondered whether the trait—the reticence—ran in her mother’s side of the family, and in her too.
Whenever she was in the hospital, her mother tended to her aunt with minimum fuss—covering her with another blanket, dabbing her dry lips with lip balm, changing the socks on her feet, combing her hair—and mostly when Ai Ling was out of the room, so when Ai Ling returned to the bedside, she would always notice something different about her aunt. One time, behind the closed door of the hospital room’s toilet, Ai Ling heard her mother crying, though she had tried to mask it by running the sink tap.
A day before her aunt woke up, Ai Ling and her mother were in the hospital room—her father had returned home to rest, after a night of keeping watch—and in the midst of wiping down the mobile side table, her mother looked out of the window, staring into the distance.
“Your aunt loves the outdoors. She would have loved the weather today.”
Ai Ling glanced out the window and saw the leaves of the trees fluttering in the breeze, lusciously green, the sky full of clouds.