full, but that only made the empty seats stick out even more. None of his friends from San Francisco had come, not even Wong Lao Jiu or his sons who Yang had helped sponsor out of China. She turned back to her husband and fingered the pale pink satin lining the coffin and picked invisible specks of lint off his charcoal gray suit and thought of Lanyu and Chuen—still back in Tianjin—unaware of their father’s death. Why did you leave me to bear your burdens again? Huh? That’s all you do is leave. Somewhere behind her, she heard expected sounds—the shuffle of feet and the loud rustling of people trying to be quiet—and then unexpected sounds. Deep, heavy wailing filled the air, cacophonous cries that sounded like the imitation of grief, like the attempt of the lungs to mimic the soul’s pain. You think I should be crying for you? Like I cried for my ma and ba? She had not emptied out her sorrow like this since her mother’s funeral—and then her father’s a few months after that. Then it had been collective anguish, the mourners there all sharing their burdens, raising their voices also for their own dead, buried in the unyielding earth whose barrenness had put them there. “Ma.” The wailing stopped. “What?” “Come. Let’s go.” “No.” She turned back to the coffin, gripping the sides and straining to hear the others. What did you do with them? You would deprive your widow of her agony? She realized then that it had been her. She had been mourning alone, her cries not subsumed by the grief of others in the room; her grief had been the intrusion. “It’s time, Ma. They need the room.” She looked down, releasing her grip. You see that! Now I’m the one who has to leave. How does it feel? 44
四十四