“Oh, Grandma,” I said, folding her in my arms. “I did not mean to throw stones down a well at you.”
“I will never see my daughter again,” she wailed, gasping for air. “I shall never meet your sister, Beautiful Jasmine.”
Lukas patted her back as I said, “You shall gaze upon us all after you pass the red dust of the mortal world. You will shed your body and exchange your bones.”
Slowly, Grandma quieted. “I should like to rise to our ancestors.” She raised her small face and blinked at us with her swollen eyes. “You will burn offerings for me after I am gone? So I have gold to spend and silk to wear in the afterlife.”
“Of course,” I said, my heart full to overflowing. “They now make Mercedes and flat-screen televisions in paper for people to incinerate for their loved ones.”
She cocked her head to one side. “No Mercedes. I want a Jaguar.”
Lukas emitted a choked sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
I said, “Why don’t I sing to you now? I still remember some of the old songs you crooned to us:
Little sparrow
So young and new
Your mother sought for worms
So that you might grow strong.”
And with Lukas listening intently, I sang to her until she fell asleep again.
That afternoon, I asked nurse Isa for permission to buy some makeup and tinted hair gloss from the pharmacy. I wanted light, natural shades for Grandma. When I was younger, I had practiced my makeup in front of that mottled bathroom mirror in our New York apartment for hours, trying to adjust for its yellow cast as I applied my colors for a professional look. I loved doing Amy’s makeup too, but she never cared about the end result, nor could she ever remember how to replicate it. Then she would insist on reciprocating and paint me up like a clown. But Amy did not need cosmetics. Her beauty glowed from within, whereas I was all about the surface.
The shop woman watched me with suspicion, an immigrant and stranger in this small town. She thought I was a pocket-roller and subtly followed me as I brushed past another customer. Did she really think I would pick that elderly man’s pocket right in front of her? She stared at me as I selected some hair clips for Amy, probably because they were small and she was afraid I would slip them into my bag. I held up a set studded in rhinestones. Amy would look pretty in these. They would add some sparkle to her thick, unruly hair when she pinned it back from her heart-shaped face.
The saleswoman was starting to annoy me now. This close to Amsterdam, and she acted like she had never seen a person of color before. I knew we Chinese only made up one-third of one percent in the Netherlands as a whole, but this was ridiculous. I turned to her and said in perfect Dutch, “Do you think you could help me choose a hair color for my grandma?”
She jumped in surprise. Her shoulders relaxed and a slow smile spread across her face. If I spoke Dutch that well, I could not possibly be a criminal. “Of course, ma’am. This way.”
When I brought the supplies to Grandma’s room, I could smell the disease eating at her heart and lungs underneath the sharp cool scent of the tiger balm we’d rubbed across her chest earlier. She had mostly recovered from the emotion of the morning but pain still filmed her eyes, clouding their original golden brown. It went straight through my soul to see her like this. I pulled my hair into a sloppy ponytail so it would not get in my way as I worked. As Isa and I shampooed Grandma’s hair, her breathing grew so shallow I was afraid I had made a terrible mistake, overexerting her like this.
Isa exchanged a glance with me. “No worries, it is going good.”
I had picked a simple odorless hair glaze with a honey-brown tint. After I applied it onto Grandma’s white locks, her hair held a light coating of color. I then gently penciled in subtle eyebrows over her prominent skull bones, dabbed her dry lips with a natural peach gloss, and brushed a bit of blush over her fading cheeks. I had her close her eyes and finished her off with a pale pink powder that offset the pallor of her skin.
When I held the mirror in front of her, she smiled, as if recognizing an old friend. “Take this oxygen thing off my face and get that good-looking boy in here so he can see me. Tell him to bring his camera too.”
After Lukas had admired and photographed her to her satisfaction, we tiptoed from her room so she could rest. Outside her closed door, Lukas looked at me, then raised his hand and pulled my ponytail loose. My hair tumbled down around my face. He brushed a strand back, then bent down and whispered, “Thank you.”
That evening, as I often did, I went to bed before Helena and Willem returned from the restaurant for their late dinner.
There was a knock on my attic door. When I opened it, I could see Helena had shot out of her slipper with fury. Her nostrils flared and her legs were planted wide. She raised a finger, visibly shaking, and the thick gold-and-jade dragon bracelet on her wrist trembled in the hallway light.
Where I once used to cower, I decided to confront instead. “Is there something, Cousin Helena?”
She gritted out her words through a tight jaw. “What have you done to the hair and face of Grandma?”
Was that it? I should have known. I kept my voice calm. “It made her happy.”
She pointed her finger at me, two centimeters from my nose. “It exhausted her. You could have hurt her. She is in the last stage of her life. From a beautiful plate, you cannot eat. No need for her to be made up like pussycat. For whom?”
I knocked her stupid hand away from my face. “For herself.”
Helena reared and for a moment, I thought she would slap me. I almost wanted her to do it. I would hit her back so hard her head would spin for a week. She finally hissed, “Do not think you are so clever. I know why you came back, even though no one invited you.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“You want her favor again. Now that she is old and ready to pass on her inheritance, after you left for so many years. While I was the one who was always here for her. Me and my family.” She emphasized every phrase with a bob of her head.
My anger rose up in me. I had to voice my words before they exploded into the humiliating tears I refused to shed. I clenched my hands into tight fists. “And why did I not return to this house for so long? Where I had been treated so well? Was it because of Grandma that I stayed away?”
Helena puffed up like an envious dog tied to a short rope. She was not used to this version of me, the one that spoke. She sputtered, strangled by rage and shame, “Grandma always loved you best, like everyone else. You and your mother.”
I could not keep my voice from breaking. “Why did you stop caring about me?” I half lifted my hand toward her: this woman who should have been everything to me, who had instead taught me to beware of love.
Caught up in her hatred, Helena went on, ignoring my words. “That gold of hers belongs to us. We housed and clothed her all these years. I am more her daughter than your mother ever was.”
My arm dropped back to my side. “You never paid her for all those years she worked here for you as babysitter, cook, and maid. You only gave her pocket money to spend. The least you could do was to provide her with food and a place to live. Now you want the rest of her jewelry too?”
“We are family. Who pays family? Should I get money for all the diapers of yours I changed? Anything she asked for, we gave her. I deserve her legacy.” Helena’s eyes glittered with naked intensity. I could not tell if they were filled with greed or a desperate need to be loved. I was not even sure if it made a difference: it came down to hunger. Perhaps those desires all stemmed from the same place in our broken, burdened hearts.