Less than a week after...."Ha!"
A pretty young woman in a white T-s.h.i.+rt and blue jeans sat on the carpeted floor of the living room holding the picture frames of the last picture she and her grandparents took before their untimely death. She held it tightly to her chest, while wailing and sobbing at the same time. From the looks of her disheveled hair with brown highlights, Sheng Liena had not had her bath nor eaten much since Luo Fei and Luo Xue pa.s.sed away at the hospital.
According to the policy of HuaQu hospital anyone less than eighteen could not sign any legal doc.u.ments, but in Sheng Liena"s case, she was already nineteen years old and the only person related to the Luos by blood that could stand in place to sign off for the bodies of her grandparents to be released to the funeral home. Neither grandparents spoke of President Sheng Jinzhe her father, nor her paternal grandparents Sheng Henian and Sheng Ying since they had cut off ties with the other branch of the family. Sheng Liena was in her last days at secondary school when the tragedy broke out, luckily for her she only had a week to graduation which the school permitted for her to receive an early graduation when they caught wind of the calamity that had befallen her family.
"Grandma! Grandpa!"
Sheng Liena continued to cry, she hadn"t slept much nor left the house since the funeral arrangement was completed.
"Liena! Here, have some of this."
"Liena! Come! Let grandma give you a hug."
The sweet memories of her grandparents came flooding in, the picture as vivid as they happened the day before, tears rolled down her cheeks uncontrollably. In the memory, her grandfather was pa.s.sing her a slice of the cut green vegetable from one of the dishes at the table.
"Why! Why! Why did you have to die!
Sheng Liena screamed at no one, so consumed with grief not knowing who to blame for their death. Thinking back, the doctor said her grandmother was at the last stage of the stomach cancer which was discovered very late, as certain people don"t show symptoms to having the deadly disease until it was already too late, in this case her grandmother was one of those people.
"Don"t try to force Mrs Luo to eat, during this time, she may not have much of an appet.i.te and may vomit, if that occurs give her the medicine that I prescribed."
Initially when they saw the oncologist, the Luos were given a trial period at home to see how they could care for a chronically sick person like Luo Xue. Just like the doctor predicted Luo Xue was not able to hold down her food, they tried feeding vegetable broth, potato soup, but there wasn"t much difference. Luo Fei had to take his annual leave in advance from work to take care of his ailing wife. It didn"t last too long, because the were back at the hospital when they saw Luo Xue was violently throwing up by the second week.
As the pain memory from that time surfaced, Sheng Liena cried bitterly her face already red and smudged with tears and mucus from her running nose. Like a zombie, she got up from where she sat to begin going through her grandparents possession. It was there she discovered doc.u.ments regarding the "origin" of her stay with them. In a drawer tucked away was a very old alb.u.m with pictures of them and someone that felt vaguely familiar to her, the more she flipped the pages of the alb.u.m, the more the puzzles began to come together.
"Mama? Papa?"
Luo Xue had an habit of always writing behind every picture they took before inserting it into the alb.u.m. Sheng Liena took out the picture that was of her as a little girl with a young couple that looked familiar to her, she absentmindedly flipped the picture, her eye landing at the letters that was scribbled at the back.
"My daughter Yu, grandchild Liena and son-in-law Jinzhe."
It was written in that order as depicted by how the three stood in the picture, Sheng Liena was in the middle Sheng Yu and Sheng Jinzhe.
"If I am Sheng Liena, then that would mean that she is Sheng Yu and he is Sheng Jinzhe?"
"Mama! Papa!"
Sheng Liena fished for her phone at the back of her jeans pocket to search online for Sheng Jinzhe and Sheng Yu. The search turned up a Sheng Jinzhe President of Sheng Pharmaceuticals, the more she kept scrolling from page to page, that was when she found out that her mother had died sixteen years ago. The Psychiatrist of Sheng Liena, Dr Hu Beixing had counselled the Luos not to expose her to anything that would trigger her trauma, the couple worried that their grandchild would relapse made it a point not to speak about her parent. A year after she began living with them, the little girl no longer asked for her parents nor had nightmares, the Luos took it as a sign that their granddaughter had fully recovered, the camera in her room was taken down and the couple could now breathe freely in their home.
"Mama!!!!!!"
Sheng Liena began crying all over again, an old wound and a new wound both lay open, one was her mother and the other were her grandparents. Heartbroken, the young woman cried in abandon, her emotion all over the place. How does a person mourn for a loved one that they never even knew that they had died? Are some people blessed with long life while others are cursed to die so young or from an unspeakable illness? What yardstick should a person use to live their life? Is it by living well? Eating good food? Avoiding stress? Practice Yoga? Living in a house away from the city or polluted areas? Making a lot of money? What does it mean to find balance in life?
Not that the young woman could find anyone that could answer the question for her, to her she thought her grandparents lived a decent life, even though they were in their late sixties, some would consider they had lived long enough if judged by the current life expectancy. Sheng Liena did not think so, her dream was to introduce them to the person she was going to get married to and have them see their great grandchildren. It was painful indeed for the young woman, but just because a person has lost someone did not mean that the world has to come to a stop. Despite knowing that, a part of the young woman could neither move forward nor back, as she was stuck in time.
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6 hours later...
"h.e.l.lo?"
Sheng Jinzhe heard a young female voice on the line, only a few knew his private number, the number that appeared on his screen didn"t look like any of the ones he recognized.
"h.e.l.lo, am I speaking with Sheng Jinzhe?"
"Yes, and who are you?"
"This is Sheng Liena, your daughter."
The phone almost fell out of the hand of Sheng Jinzhe, he hadn"t heard anything from the Luos in the past sixteen years not even his daughter.
"Liena? I almost couldn"t recognize your voice, you left when you were so little."
"Papa, grandma and grandpa are dead. It was only when I was going through their things that I came across a picture of you and mama."
"Father-in-law and mother-in-law are dead?! What happened to them?!"
"Grandma died of cancer and grandpa died from shock on the same day as her."
Sheng Liena spoke in a toneless voice, when mentioning her grandparent"s death to her estranged father.
"I"m so sorry to hear that they are no longer with us. Where are you staying so that I can have someone pick you up?"
Sheng Jinzhe infused a tone of concern in his voice as he spoke to the daughter he hadn"t seen in so long.
"Papa you didn"t ask me how I have been doing all these years? Whether I ate three square meals or how I fared during grandpa and grandma"s death!"
Sheng Liena"s voice shook with emotion, while she expressed her disappointment in her father.
"Liena, we have a lot to catch up on and it is not something that should be said on the phone."
"Whatever! When is the person you are sending over coming?"
Sheng Jinzhe fought the urge to chastise his daughter on the phone for the rude way he spoke to him, rather than letting her have a piece of his mind, he had to force himself to be calm and talk to her in a reasonable manner.
"Text me the address of where you are staying, he would be on his way as I get the text."
"I don"t like being kept waiting!"
"Liena, I understand that we haven"t spoken in years and you probably see me as a terrible father, but notwithstanding I am still your father and you have to give me the respect I deserve!"
This time, the facade of calmness flew out of the window, Sheng Jinzhe was very displeased with his daughter and he wasn"t hiding it anymore.
"Bye!"
The phone went dead, as Sheng Liena was the one who ended the call abruptly. On the other end, her father was seething in rage that she dared to drop the phone on him!
Seconds later, his phone beeped with a message displayed across the screen. Sheng Jinzhe flipped the screen of his phone to read the message that his daughter just sent to him. Right then, he texted his driver the address with the message to pick up his daughter.
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One hour later....
The drive from her grandparents house was entirely in silence, the driver greeted the young woman that President Sheng had asked him to pick, as he took her travelling bag and other personal items to the boot of the car, Sheng Liena could not help noticing that the driver although he appeared a few years older than her, kept casting questioning looks her way, as though wanting to know who she was to President Sheng. The car drove out of the one story building which had linen upon linen that covered the possessions that were inside, awaiting the day when the owner would one day return.
The car drove through so many houses and trees, until finally they pulled into a building that looked some what familiar to the young woman. They both got out to wheel her traveling bags and carry in rest of her belonging.
Sheng Jinzhe sat on the couch in the living room waiting anxiously for his daughter to walk through the doors. The moment she walked in, he was struck by how much she looked like his mother, the thought almost made him burst out into laughter, as he recalled when his wife gave birth to her, his in-laws and parents were arguing who the baby looked like, a similar argument ensued when his son, Xiaobo was born. He couldn"t wait to see the shock on his mother"s face when see his daughter.
"Liena!"
Sheng Liena saw her father leave the couch, as he began making his way to her. The young woman gave a casual wave to her father, while walking pa.s.s him to take the stairs up. Sheng Jinzhe"s face crumbled with disappointment, as he openmouthedly stared after his daughter
"HAAAAAAAA!!!!!"
The two men heard the blood curdling scream from downstairs and ran up the stairs to see what could be the cause. Laying on the ground in front of the room that belonged to Sheng Xiaobo, was Liena who must have seen something that frightened her to the point of losing consciousness. The door was wide open, with the room untouched surrounded by films of dust.
"Liena you see that big scary shadow that is in your mind, I want you to replace it with the prettiest thing you have ever seen."
The voice of Dr Hu Beixing lured the little girl to think of b.u.t.terflies, to her that was what she saw as the most beautiful thing, she never grew tired of drawing them. The wall of b.u.t.terflies that she used to hide the scary shadow shattered when she stood at the front of a familiar room, as memories of the past poured in, that was when the young woman realized that the "scary shadow" was the image of her mother hanging from the ceiling fan of her brother"s room.