Isabel Wu
“How sweet of her!” Astrid said, looking up from the note. “I’m glad she’s doing so much better.”
“I am too. She gave me the note when I went to drop off the girls last night. She was worried that you wouldn’t want to read it.”
“Why wouldn’t I? I’m so happy you showed it to me. It’s the best thing that’s happened today. It feels like one more burden has been lifted. You know, all through the service, I was thinking of my grandmother’s last conversation with me. She really wanted me to be happy. She wanted us to ignore all the rules of mourning and get married as soon as we possibly could.”
“We will, Astrid, I promise.”
“I never thought Michael would be the one to hold things up,” Astrid said with a sigh.
“We’ll get through this. I have a plan,” Charlie said.
They were suddenly interrupted by voices echoing through the north transept. Astrid peeked out the door for a moment. “It’s my mother,” she mouthed to Charlie.
Victoria, Felicity, and Alix skulked through the transept and entered the chapel on the opposite side. In the middle of the room was Su Yi’s coffin.
“I’m telling you, her dentures were crooked,” Felicity said.
“They didn’t look crooked to me,” Victoria argued.
“You’ll see. Whoever the stupid mortician was that worked on her didn’t place them properly.”
“This is such a bad idea—” Alix began to protest.
“No, we must do this for Mummy. I won’t be able to sleep if I let Mummy be cremated with crooked teeth.” Felicity began to unfasten the lid of the casket. “Here, help me with this.”
The three women lifted the lid of the casket slowly. Looking down at their mother cocooned in her golden robe, the sisters, normally such pillars of discipline and resolve, began to sob quietly. Felicity reached over to embrace Victoria, and the two of them began to cry even harder.
“We must be strong. We’re all that’s left now.” Felicity sniffed as she began to collect herself. “It’s funny how lovely she looks. Her complexion is smoother than it’s ever been.”
“While we’re here, do we really want to let this Fabergé spectacle case be cremated? What a waste,” Victoria said, sniffing.
“Those were her funerary instructions. We must honor them,” Alix insisted.
Victoria scoffed at her little sister. “I don’t think Mummy really considered the implications when she wrote that. Surely she would have wanted us to remove the Fabergé case after the funeral? Just like we removed the gold tiara? You know how she hated waste.”
“All right, all right, just take the glasses out and place them beside her pillow. Now, someone help me open her mouth.” Felicity leaned into the coffin and tugged at her mother’s stiff jaw.
Suddenly she let out a shriek.
“What happened, what happened?” Victoria gasped.
Felicity cried, “The pearl! The Tahitian black pearl! I opened her mouth and it rolled down her throat!”
CHAPTER SIX
EMERALD HILL, SINGAPORE
It was eleven thirty on Sunday night, and Cassian was finally down for the count. Astrid padded back to her bedroom, sinking wearily into bed. It had been a long weekend after a very long week, what with her grandmother’s funeral, and she thought that Cassian spending a day with his father would give her a chance to recoup a little. Instead, her son had returned home and had spent the better part of the evening attempting to launch an insurrection. Astrid fired off a text to Michael:
ASTRID LEONG: Simple request—when Cassian spends the day w/ you, could you please refrain from letting him play 7 straight hours of Warcraft? He comes back a total zombie and is just impossible. Thought we were in agreement about the gaming.
A few minutes later, Michael replied:
MICHAEL TEO: Stop exaggerating. He didn’t play for 7 hrs.
AL: 7 hours, 6 hours, it was clearly too much. Tomorrow is a school day and he’s still up.