Postscript by Aschea Ng

I wish my family would learn to finish our fights.

Sometimes, in the car, we argue about where to eat — Gor will want someplace cheap, Pa will tell us not to think about the price but sigh in that blameful way when my younger sister, Ning, suggests the overpriced pasta place. Then, someone will say something that cuts too deep, twisting the air into something silent and unbreathable. We leave it hanging, waiting for the quiet to erase the words we cannot take back.

I like to think of my family as perfect, because we have everything we need. We maintain this by using silence as a substitute for peace, where it’s become instinctive to ignore moments of contention in order to co-exist. But sometimes, it feels like we are held together by loose threads, where it’s only a matter of time before we start tearing at the seams.

Maybe we weren’t always like this. Some days, I flip through old photos with an ache for when Pa had an anal need to capture everything on camera, back when everything felt lighter. And lately, I’ve started rummaging through my inbox, where I found the first email I ever received. It’s from Pa, sent on October 2 2009, 2 months before I was born:

Everyone is excited to see you, including your brother Althan. so many times, he would ask you to come out of Mommy’s tummy ‘immediately

I try to reconcile the family Pa dreamt up with what we’ve become. We have forgotten how to be excited around each other, growing too wrapped up in our own lives. It started with Gor, who began locking himself in his room and stopped coming to church with us. Nobody knows why — in this family, we never ask each other why.

we are not material-luxury-rich; but we lead a comfortable life. we inherited the mindset from your PoPo in Hong Kong, where Mommy was born.

The one thing we never talk about is Popo. We live an ocean away, and don’t visit enough for her to even feel like my Popo. From what I know from rare video calls, her dementia has swallowed her whole, leaving her more emptiness than human.

Last December we flew to Hong Kong to visit her at the old folks’ home. The door to Popo’s cubicle was open and Annie, Popo’s household helper, was feeding Popo. Popo was a paper-thin figure drowning in a bunny-patterned comforter, her hair cropped and thin. A strange trepidation pulsed in my chest, filling the gap meant for love or some kind of sadness.

Ma told us in a cheery voice to tell Popo our names. I felt my heart drop. How did she expect me to talk to someone I barely recognised? It was annoying to see how Ning bounced up to Popo’s bedside effortlessly, talking to Popo in that nine-year-old high-pitched voice, showing Popo the deformed playdough turtle she made her.

When it was my turn, I approached Popo tentatively and half-whispered my name to her. As expected, she didn’t reply, which forced me to rack my brain for what Ma would want me to say. To my relief, Ma started doing all the talking. She asked Popo if she was cold, propped up her pillow, and helped to feed Popo. I stood beside Gor in the corridor, gazing absent-mindedly around the cubicle. A makeshift shelf stood at the back, swarming with medicine. Makeshift hooks were latched on the wall where Popo’s flowery blouses hung. Everything was portable and temporary like Popo would only be here for a while, like she would be gone soon.

Only then did it hit me that this was a goodbye trip. I knew Popo had been sick, but she must’ve gotten worse for Ma to have to move her to a care facility. Selfishly, my next thought was that I didn’t care about saying goodbye. Pa and Ma had never even mentioned the prospect of Popo being so fragile, and I knew nothing about her beyond her illness. Maybe a part of me found it easy to sink into indifference because I knew we should be spending this holiday in Disneyland, not in a musty old folk’s home.

Then Gor pulled me aside. “We must watch out for Ma and Pa,” he said. “They are very unstable. You see Ma talking to Popo like she’s a baby? That’s because there’s nothing else she can do.”

Gor is not somebody who cares, but the kind of person who prides himself on his apathy. It was almost insulting that he caught me in my traitorous detachment from Popo. But then I continued watching Ma smothering Popo with baby talk while Pa played songs by Teng Li Jun, asking “Ma, do you remember this song?” while holding his phone to Popo’s feeble ears. I’d never seen Pa and Ma so helpless, or realised that such pain existed in this family that I thought was so put together. I started seeing Ma as Popo’s daughter, and Pa as her son-in-law, and not parents trying to force concern into us by bringing us to this death-soaked place on a holiday. I felt shame kneading into my chest for wanting to leave this airless cubicle while my parents whispered their last words to Popo, begging for more time with her.

what our family is wealthy in, is the abundance of love we have for each other.

That night, we went to a roadside dessert shop, because Ma says that a night is not over until we have dessert. Ning was the first to order. She pointed at the mango sago, her eyes bright and clueless. “I want this!” She said. Ma smiled and told her it was a good choice.

“Oh my god,” Gor spat. “Of course you had to choose the most expensive thing. Do you think we’re very rich?”

That was all it took. Ning started crying, a blotchy redness seeping into her cheeks, tears clinging onto her winter coat. Pa and Ma kept repeating “shhh don’t cry, everything is okay” over and over. They passed Ning all the complementary tissues from the restaurant, then called the waiter to order the dessert when Ning wouldn’t stop crying.

I’m no better. All I did was pat Ning’s back awkwardly, unable to tell Pa and Ma that nothing was okay, that we couldn’t just fall into silence the moment that abundance of love became too much to live up to.

When I looked up, Gor was gone. I remembered staring at the bustling street, unable to wrap my head around how Gor just stood up and disappeared into the foreign night, leaving us stranded in this unfinished argument. He may be aloof, but he would never run away like that. Especially not on a nice family trip like this.

When we went back to the hotel and found Gor sitting on the bed, back facing us and hunched over his phone, I didn’t feel relief but rather an illogical rage hammering against my bones. From the threshold where we stood in a stunned silence, I wanted to scream at him, make him turn around to look at us and see how it’s not right that with the slip of his tongue, he manages to suck the life out of this family.

But because we are all trapped in the same prison of wordlessness, the only thing I could choke out was “Gor, do you want the dessert?” before passing him the mango sago that we couldn’t stomach, letting the residual cold from holding the box of desert throb through my fingers.

Mommy and PaPa are proud to have brought up your brother who understands and embraces LOVE.

For the rest of the trip, Gor stopped speaking. I wondered if it was because he blamed himself for that night, but I never thought to ask him.

I’m amazed at how easy it was for me to shut Gor out, sitting furthest away from him on the bus, hating him for ruining the trip. He lurked at the corner of family photos while Ma brought us to Waterfall Bay Park, Lion Rock Mountain, Causeway Bay. For the most part, I played along with Ma. I let the thrill of this unfamiliar land stretch across the unsaid words that gaped between us like a wound.

We visited Kowloon Walled City Park, a perfectly manicured garden that replaced the illegal settlements that once stood there. Everyone was in a good mood except Gor, who trailed behind us like dead weight.

But when Ma told us to smile for a picture in front of a pond that was overflowing with Koi, saying it’s to show Popo the next day when we visit her again, I was hit with a sudden heaviness. Something felt wrong about strolling in picturesque gardens when Popo was trapped in that suffocating cubicle just a bus ride away. What scared me most was that Ma never stopped smiling, even though the only thing I could think about was the old folks’ home, and what it must be like to watch your mother on the edge of death, whispering words of love that grow lost in the remnants of her mind. Ma seemed to hide that ugly, raw version of herself deep beneath her skin, sewing herself back into the unshakeable Ma we all know. But I couldn’t unsee where the stitches had been buried. Shouldn’t we have been acting like Gor instead? Drifting through the days like ghosts, mourning and unsmiling?

I realised that I didn’t blame Gor for his sullenness. Instead, his moroseness choked me with guilt, reminding me that this was not a holiday at all. He groaned whenever Ning asked if we could stay longer or when Ma wanted another picture, making Ma’s smile falter. It was like he was making it a crime to enjoy that trip. He was the only one who wouldn’t let me off the hook for the hesitancy I felt around Popo, forcing me to feel the brokenness that has ripped through this household with the way he slumped against benches and walls wherever we went. Whenever we offered to let him choose where to go next, he’d stare vaguely at the ground, letting us wilt in the silence until a similar chill settled across us all.

Still, I can’t think of Gor as the bad guy. I think he loves his family, though it is a love that unravels grudgingly, like when he pushed his plate towards Ma when he saw her giving most of her food to Ning, muttering that he wasn’t hungry. He didn’t complain when Pa asked him to carry the backpacks at the end of the day when we were all worn down by the bright lights of Causeway Bay, but sighed and rolled his eyes when Ma praised him for being a “good boy.” Deep down, I think I respect him for being someone I cannot see through. He is insensitive, but he wrenches us away from the silence by embracing the weariness that drenched that holiday. He is not afraid to rip apart the wound.

On the last night, we rode a tram back to the hotel. The tram was empty, and we staggered ourselves across the top deck, simmering in an exhausting silence. We didn’t think of shutting the windows, but let ourselves shiver in the frigid, clammy breeze. As I watched shutters being pulled down roadside shops to close for the day as neon signs flickered on, it finally hit me that this holiday was ending. In many ways, it was the worst trip

I’d been on, spent dragging Gor around when he obviously detests us and watching Popo wither before our eyes, where I realised that my perfect family can hardly hold a conversation.

But what can I do? had always been something I asked myself, usually as an excuse to do nothing, like how I stood by Popo’s bed unable to tell her that I wish I got to know her before she disappeared, and for the words to stop drying up on the edge of my tongue.

Through the tram window, I could see faceless people shuffle past on the chilly streets, bundled in thick sweaters and soundlessly moving towards their next destination. I wondered how many of them live in the inescapable grasp of silence just like we do, that forces them to seal their lips and avert their eyes whenever something too frightening and incomprehensible shatters the thin tightrope of normalcy that we spend our lives teetering on. Is this in our nature? For silence to be passed down from family to family, a brittle comfort that tears at the walls of our hearts, and yet feels impossible to live without. But at that moment, something about living with that unsettling peace manufactured by silence forever did not sit right with me.

I saw Gor sitting one seat in front of me. He wasn’t using his phone, glaring indecipherably into the distance. I don’t know why, but something shifted in the quiet. I found myself moving closer to him and asking him if he was okay, the words coming out too quick and uncertain, regretting it the moment I spoke.

On the cusp of asking and waiting for his reaction, I felt my heart lurching on the edge of my chest, yearning for him to say anything, to give a sign that he is not too far gone.

And he responded, saying yes with just as much uncertainty, cautiously slipping through the blanket of silence. Then he clears his throat and hesitates ever so slightly before offering me a crumpled mint from his pocket.

All I want is a good family, for there to be something still floating beneath these waves of quiet. But we have the love that swims in photographs, brief moments of forgiveness, quiet smiles, and long-forgotten emails. The same reason why Ma and Pa keep going back to Popo even though she is lost to an unreachable place. We will keep brushing past each other, letting the silence both sever us and hold us together.

likewise, we are going to give you so much love, Aschea.

Can’t wait to see you! lots of love…

PaPa

Aschea is an LA student from the class of 2027. She writes to navigate the mundane nature of her life, and always ends up finding meaning in the ordinary while doing so.