“Tell us what?” Oliver says, his voice getting shrill.
“Before I tell them anything,” Vera says, “what has confuse me this whole time is Oliver say his mother is dead. But your wife, Lily, she . . .”
Alex’s gaze slides away toward the bedroom. “Lily is gone,” he says in Mandarin. “All these years later, and I still haven’t come to terms with it. I wanted to preserve your teahouse as a safe space, Vera. I wanted it to exist as a space I could go to where I was happy, where I could talk as if my wife were still alive. I made her healthy at first, because I wanted to remember her the way she was, so full of life. But then you kept asking to meet her, and asking why she never came by, and I had to make up a reason, so I said she’s sick, and even that was better than not having her at all.”
“I see.” And she does see. She wishes she could have that space too, where she could chat with someone about Jinlong as though he were waiting for her to come home with some bread, or some tiny gossip she’d picked up at the market. “I have just one more question. Marshall’s laptop and flash drive, did you take them?”
Alex nods. “I have a key to the house. I went in through the back door. I just wanted to—I missed him so much. I was in a fog of grief. I went inside his room, I wanted to take a shirt of his, or something. I don’t know. I opened a drawer by the bed and saw the laptop and flash drive on top of it. I recognized the laptop, so I took it. I guess . . . I just had to know more about him, what he was doing.”
“I see,” Vera says. She’d thought that maybe Emma had moved the laptop and flash drive somehow, but no. “And why did you take the rest of my bird’s nest? To remove evidence?”
Pain flickers across Alex’s withered face. “No, Vera. It was to protect you. In case the police became suspicious . . .”
Vera can only nod. All this time, it had been him all along. She doesn’t quite know what to say to Alex. She doesn’t even know how to begin describing the storm that is raging inside her.
“Now you tell them,” Alex says. “Tell these young people the truth.”
Vera takes a heavy breath. This is it, then. Detective Vera Wong is finally getting the moment she’s fantasized about for weeks, to tell everyone that she’s finally figured out who Marshall’s killer is, but unlike her fantasies, there is no joy in it. “Alex killed Marshall.”
“What?” Everyone practically shouts it.
Oliver shakes his head. “No, that’s not possible. Baba loved Marshall more than anything. He was always the favorite son. You always said if not for Marshall, you wouldn’t have a reason to go on living after Ma died.”
Alex utters a sob that is so wretched it sounds as though it might tear his frail body apart. “Marshall’s whole life, I thought he was the sun. He was my world, my prodigal son. He shone so bright that you were left in the shadow, and I thought—” His voice breaks and tears stream down his withered face. “I see now that he blinded me. He made me think you were the bad one, that—”
Oliver is crying now, too. “Baba.” He stops speaking then, because what can one say at this moment?
“I am so sorry, son. That day . . .” Alex wipes at his eyes and looks at Julia, switching to English. “You call me, in the morning. You say Marshall leaving you. He make it rich, you tell me, and he don’t want to be married to you no more.”
Julia nods.
“I think, ‘This is impossible. How can? He love his wife and child. How can he just abandon? There must be mistake.’ I call Marshall, I ask him what is going on, and he say, ‘Ba, come out for dinner tonight, I’ve got something to celebrate.’ So, okay, I go to fancy restaurant. When I arrive, I see Marshall at reception desk. I am about to say hi to him when someone—” He spots Riki in the crowd of people. His eyes widen. “Oh, it’s you.”
Like everyone else, Riki is gaping. “That night . . .” he gasps.
“Yes. I recognize you. You rush inside, you grab my son’s shoulder, and you hit him.” Alex shakes his head. “I am so surprise. I just stand there, I don’t know what is going on. Then you run away, and Marshall is shouting all these things—I have never seen him like that. So many threats. I go to him, and he looks so surprise to see me. He immediately change, become the Marshall I know. It is so quick, the change. It disturb me, how easy he change his face.”
Oliver nods. “He was always careful to show you only the good side of him.”
“Then I look closer at him, and I notice that he not only have a bruise from the punch, he also has scratch mark on other cheek.”
Vera glances over at Sana, who says, in a small voice, “That was me.”
Alex’s rheumy eyes slide toward her, and he nods. “I see. I ask him, why that boy punch you? And who scratch you? He say, don’t worry about it, they are just asshole. But I am so shaken. I do not understand why so many people are so angry with my son. I ask him about Julia. Maybe he is shaken too, by the punch, but I see his mask slip. He is looser then, the bartender has give him double shot of whisky on the house because of fight. He say Julia just holding him back, he never love her.”
This must be so painful for Julia, Vera thinks, but when she looks over, Julia looks more angry than sad.
“I am so shock,” Alex continues. “I say, what about Emma?” He looks down at his granddaughter and fresh tears roll down his face. “You are so love, my dear. I am sorry. I don’t want to say in front of her.” His voice comes out in a whisper, and Vera’s heart throbs with pain because it’s obvious that what he’s about to reveal would be a huge blow to little Emma, and all Vera wants to do right now is to whisk the toddler away and tell her that everything is going to be okay.
“Sana, can you—?” Julia says.
“Yeah, of course.” Sana bends over so she is at eye level with Emma and says, “You wanna go get a cookie?” Emma nods, and Sana picks up the little girl and leaves the apartment.
Once they’re safely out of earshot, Julia turns back to Alex and, in a voice made of steel, says, “What did Marshall say about our daughter?”
“He say—” Alex lets out another sob. “He say, ‘That little freak. I’ll have a better one with someone else.’ ” He bursts into tears. “I have never see anyone talk about own child like that. I think, maybe he is just drunk, or angry because he just get punch. But then he tell me how he going to get rich, and that’s why he leaving you, because he don’t want to have to divide the money with you. I say, but you must provide for your wife and child, and he laugh. I say, just like the way you always look after me, I know you are good boy, you always buy me grocery, and he look so confuse. He say, what grocery?”