“Oh, shut up, Gladys, and visit my teahouse when you get out.” And with that, Vera strides out of the ward, with Emma, Julia, Sana, Oliver, Riki, and Tilly scurrying after her.
* * *
• • •
Oh,” Vera says, hours later. She barely recognizes her own teahouse. She stands in the middle of it, taking in the surroundings, which are somehow both foreign and yet familiar.
“Um, do you hate it?” Sana squeaks.
“Don’t be silly,” Vera snaps, and when she looks at them, her eyes are shining with tears. It takes a moment before she is able to speak without her voice wobbling. “This is . . .” Nope, not quite able to stop the wobble from taking over her voice. She takes a breath and tries again. “This is—it’s good. Very good.”
Tilly whistles. “Coming from her, I think it’s akin to a standing ovation.”
She shoots him a glare, and he grins and hugs her. “Come on, Ma. Just admit it. Sana’s artwork blew your mind.”
Vera releases her breath in a long sigh. “Okay, Sana’s artwork is more good than anything I see before.”
“Dang, that’s quite the compliment,” Julia says, nudging Sana, who’s red in the face and grinning.
“You like it?” Sana says. “Really?”
“Yes, better than when I give birth to Tilly.”
“Ooof,” Tilly says. Oliver pats his shoulder.
“Nothing personal, Tilly,” Vera says, “is just that you a very ugly baby.”
“Yep, nothing personal about that, Ma.”
The corners of Vera’s mouth quirk up, then she turns her attention to the furniture, which looks almost brand-new to her, although she can still spot the little dents here and there from years of use. “Wah, these chairs . . .”
“Me, it was me,” Riki says eagerly. Then he hesitates. “Uh, unless you hate it, in which case, uh, Oliver did it.”
“Is very good.”
“Okay then I shall take full credit,” Riki says, grinning with pride, and the sight of his earnest, boyish face makes Vera go all teary-eyed again.
Vera isn’t used to wallowing in such thick, heavy emotions, so she turns to the only thing she can think of. “Okay, now everyone sit down. I will make tea.”
As everyone settles down, Vera bustles about behind the counter, putting the kettle on and taking down various jars to put into a special concoction. This is such a unique and wondrous occasion, she simply must come up with the most groundbreaking tea. She takes out some goji berries, then considers what might go well with them. Ah yes, osmanthus, of course. She adds the osmanthus to the mix, then stands back, thinking. It needs one more ingredient to move it from “good” to “out of this world.” Ginseng? No, that would clash with the osmanthus. She needs something milder. Pea flower? No, the natural blue coloring from the pea flower would stain the mix and turn it the most unappetizing brown. She needs something sturdy, something to make a statement, something like . . .
Bird’s nest.
Yes, that’s it! Vera reaches up to the fourth row of shelves on the right, but her hand grasps at empty air. She does a double take. Her jar of bird’s nest is missing. Vera thinks of that day she smashed a few jars in her shop. She had cunningly picked the jars with the cheapest ingredients to break. The low-quality wulong teas and the stale chrysanthemum and that time she’d made the mistake of ordering peony tea, which had ended up tasting like gecko, not that she would know what gecko tasted of, but it just tasted like geckoes would, Vera was sure of it. Anyway, she definitely would not have broken her jar of bird’s nest. Bird’s nest is one of the most expensive ingredients in her shop. Maybe it got moved when the others did up the place. Vera goes through each jar but still can’t find it, which is thoroughly vexing.
Her mind goes back again to that morning when she came downstairs and felt so certain that someone had been inside her shop and moved things around. Was she right after all? Did someone come in and take her jar of bird’s nest? Hundreds of dollars’ worth of bird’s nest there had been in that jar. She’d been so careful and so stingy with it, saving it only for her most special customers, like Alex—
Vera gasps. Everything clicks then. Marshall dying from an acute allergic reaction to bird dander. Her making Alex some bird’s nest tea to take home. Alex looking so old and worn the days following Marshall’s death.
“Vera, are you okay?” Julia says. The others stop talking and watch her warily. “Maybe you should sit do—”
Vera flaps with urgency at Julia to quiet down. Then she hurries from behind the counter and practically grabs Oliver by the collar of his shirt. “Oliver. What is your father’s name?”
“Huh? It’s Alex. Alex Chen.”
It’s as though the weight of the world has just been dropped on her shoulders, while at the same time the floor beneath her feet falls away. Vera doesn’t know whether to feel vindicated or heartbroken about this. She’s done it. She’s proved everybody wrong and solved the unsolvable case. But all she wants to do right now is burst into tears. She needs to speak with Alex right this very minute.
The entire group runs to keep up with Vera as she storms down the street to Alex’s apartment building, and they all keep asking inane questions like: “What’s going on?” and “Maybe she’s still not thinking clearly?” and “Vera, why won’t you tell us where you’re going?” Then, when she finally stops at the front of Alex’s building, Oliver says, “Hey, this is my dad’s apartment. Do you know him?”
Vera presses the buzzer. “Alex, this is Vera. You better let me in now.” There is no answer. She leans into the speaker and says, “I know about bird’s nest.” The front gate unlocks, and Vera walks in with everyone scrambling to follow her.
“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Oliver says. “Bird’s nest?”
Upstairs, Vera is about to knock on Alex’s door when it opens. At the sight of Alex, she sucks her breath in through her teeth. He looks awful, so thin and so hunched, his back curved like a banana, as though there is a great weight bearing down on him. It’s the weight of having killed his own son, Vera thinks, her heart squeezing in sorrow for Alex. He barely registers any surprise at seeing her with the rest of the gang.
“I was wondering when you would figure it out,” he says in Mandarin, shuffling back into the apartment. They all follow him inside the dark, dingy space.
“Ba, what’s going on?” Oliver says.
Alex regards him silently with his watery eyes before his gaze moves to Julia. When he spots little Emma, his chin trembles and a sob escapes him. “You tell them,” he whispers to Vera. “I can’t.”