Chapter 8
Edward Quan ·
At last, I laughed.
When I woke, a patch of my pillow was wet.
Daylight filled the window.
I picked up my phone and found a photograph of Mom from when she was alive. She sat on the balcony peeling a tangerine, smiling brightly.
“I know, Mom,” I whispered.
In the days that followed, I still visited her on every anniversary of her death.
I simply stopped burning piles of things without thinking.
Instead, I wrote down what I wanted to tell her. With her favorite foods as offerings, I burned those words and a few ghost-money notes clearly marked with her name and birth details.
Sometimes, when I bought braised duck wings, I bought myself an extra portion too.
The offering tablet stayed in front of her headstone.
One passerby saw it and asked with a laugh, “Did your mother have quite an eventful life?”
I looked at the words *No ghost acquaintances may collect on her behalf* and smiled.
“Very eventful. An old ghost acquaintance nearly scammed her into pushing a millstone, too.”
The stranger left looking baffled.
I didn’t explain. People might not believe a story like that.
But I did.
At last, I understood.
Money had to be handed over in person. Words had to be said face-to-face. Every debt had to be accounted for.
If even a ghost couldn’t collect on someone else’s behalf, love certainly couldn’t.
**The End**
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