2
When he went to the nursing home the same night, he did not enter his deceased mother's room right away. Or rather, he could not. He lingered just inside the doorway, trying to clear his mind and gather some courage. He had spent the one-hour drive convincing himself that he wouldn't cry or hesitate, but now that he was here, he couldn't stop the tremor within.
Mrs Riley stood beside him, one hand lightly gripping his elbow, as if expecting his knees to give way under him. He did not. Instead, he drew a deep breath and took the first of several steps into his mother's solitary room at the end of the drafty corridor lined with several rooms, one of the larger ones, with a view of the ocean his mother had spent decades diving as a sea woman back when they had not yet immigrated.
Growing up, he felt ashamed of her occupation as a female diver and a single mother. She smelled like the ocean and no matter how many times she washed, the smell lingered and would not clear; it clung to his clothes, seeped into his skin. There was not a single day he wasn't bullied at school. Heck, there was a time when he wanted her to quit so badly that he even thought of running away from home.
But he no longer felt that way. He missed those days, however strange it may sound. Sure, it had not been an ideal life, nor a kind childhood, but their small coastal town had held a quietness he had never been able to find again, a peace of mind that could not be replicated.
After immigrating with his mother in search of a better life, that stillness was forever gone. Not that he was ungrateful for the opportunity, he was. But it was simply different. A different kind of life entirely from the one they had lived by the sea; less peaceful and more hectic. Or perhaps it was only nostalgia that made him have these thoughts, the soft distortion of memory making the past seem better than it truly was. After all, anyone who had grown up in the past and become an adult, tended to think it was better than the present, though that might not always have been the case.
He entered.
The walls arrested him before the stiff body did. From one corner to the other, every inch of paint had been scored into jagged lines, carved by what he could only imagine was a blunt object or razor. But that was not what made his eyes narrow, nor why he inched closer. The markings were not random, though they would have seemed so to anyone not in the know. They were Chinese characters, so-called Hanzi. What made them eerily unnatural though was the way they had been formed, with each character broken apart and repeated across the walls in fragments, some crooked, some overlapping, as if done in panic.
It was those words again, and as he drew closer, his mother’s voice rang in his ears in a never-ending loop, making his heart race and mind reel with questions he had no answers to. Bùyào kāimén.
He swallowed hard and lifted a trembling hand, letting his fingers brush the half-formed strokes. Some lines were barely visible, others gouged so deeply they cut into the wall surface, jagged with flakes of cracked paint and dried specks of brown that could not have been anything but blood. It occurred to him then that the characters had not been scored with a tool at all. They had been dug in by hand.
His glassy eyes dropped to his mother. She was on the bed, but not in the way the dead were meant to rest. She had not been laid flat; instead, her body sat stiffly upright, shoulders hunched forwards, her jaw stretched into a grotesque rictus, as if her mouth had been forced open until the muscles locked in place. Her neck was rotated upwards and her eyes were wide open, fixed on the ceiling, as though she had been looking at something grotesque at the moment of death.
Her hands were drawn tightly to her chest in a defensive curl, fingers raised as if to ward something off, some bent backwards at unnatural angles. Two looked fractured, swollen and discoloured, the skin beneath the nails darkened with trapped blood. One nail had been torn away completely. She looked like she had fought something.
"Did she… really do all this?"
Mrs Riley's response came too quickly, as though she had been expecting the question the moment they entered.
"Patients with dementia-related psychosis sometimes act on delusions, Mr Wang," she said. "It isn't uncommon for them to believe they're in danger, even when there's no real threat. And when that fear escalates, it can lead to… drastic actions."
He looked back at his mother's twisted form, or rather, forced himself to. He understood her condition, and what Mrs Riley was implying, yet he could not stop himself from questioning it. Something about the whole situation did not feel right: the way she had died, and the way she had looked so helpless and terrified in her final moments, as if she had not been alone. His eyes narrowed at the thought. Had she seen something? Someone?
"You said she hanged herself?"
"There was a bedsheet tied to the bedpost. She must have used it. The position of the body might seem odd due to this, but rigor mortis can set in quickly depending on the level of stress and—"
Leo turned to face her, his expression darkening and his features hardening into something unreadable. "Does this look like someone who hanged herself to you, Mrs Riley?"
"I know this is difficult to accept," she said. "But your mother had been deteriorating. For a long, long time. She believed things that weren't there, heard things that weren't real. That kind of fear can be overwhelming, and sometimes those afflicted cannot cope with it."
He didn't answer. Not because he accepted her explanation, but because he knew pressing further would lead nowhere. The system had already closed around her death and written it off as delusion-induced suicide. End of story. So, he changed the topic instead.
"There's something else I wanted to ask you."
"Sure, go ahead."
"Ma… did she have access to a phone? One used outside of regular call times?"
"No. We don't allow personal phones in the rooms, though the patients are free to use the reception line once a week. That said, some of our staff do occasionally lend their phones to patients when they're distressed and want to contact a family member. It's not policy, but… it happens."
He pulled out his phone and tapped into the call log. The number was still there, the one that had reached him just past midnight. The one his mother used, or something that pretended to be her, before the news of her passing reached him.
He held the screen towards her.
"Do you recognise this number?"
"Let me see." She adjusted her glasses, squinting at the screen, and her expression shifted almost immediately. "Oh—that's Carsten's number. He's our new caretaker. Started about two weeks ago. How did you—"
"Do you think I could speak to him?" he asked. "In private."
"In private?" she repeated, her brows lifting.
"It's no big deal, really," he said. "I just… want to ask him something. Could you help me with that?"
"Well," she hesitated, "I can check for you. He's off today, but I can see when his next shift is. If he's comfortable with it, I'll let you know."
"Thanks. I appreciate it."
"Sure."
A moment of silence then passed between them before Leo gathered enough courage to speak up.
"Hey, uh, I'm sorry about earlier. I just—when I saw her like that, I didn't know what to think. I didn't mean to raise my voice or… come off as rude. I hope you don't mind."
"No worries," she said. "I'm used to these kinds of reactions from bereaved families. My staff and I are trained for it, so don't be too hard on yourself." She paused. "Though, that does remind me, we'll need to go over a few things. Regarding arrangements."
"Uh, yeah, sure. What… what exactly? This is a first for me, losing a family member I mean, so I'm not really sure how to proceed."
"Well, when a resident passes, we notify the next of kin, which in this case is you. From here, we'll need your direction on whether you'd prefer to handle the funeral arrangements yourself or have us assist in contacting a funeral service. Some families prefer to work with one they know, others ask us to recommend one. It's entirely up to you."
"Right. How long do I have to decide?"
"We'll keep her in our facility morgue for up to seventy-two hours. After that, by law, she'll need to be transferred to either a funeral home, crematorium, or hospital mortuary. Also, if you're planning a service or cremation, you'll need to let us know which funeral director to release the body to."
He rubbed the side of his neck, unsure of what to do, how to proceed, and completely overwhelmed.
"I guess she wanted to be cremated? She once told me that, long before she, uh, she took ill. I just haven't—I'm sorry."
"That's all right," she said, "I can give you a list of registered funeral homes we've worked with before. Some offer same-day or next-day services. If you have someone in mind, I can help you get in touch with them."
He nodded. "Sure. Anything else I need to take care of?"
"We'll need you to sign some release papers and consent for the body transfer. There's also a death certificate we'll file with the local registry, but that's… uh, something we'll prepare on your behalf unless you'd like to handle it yourself?" She paused, taking in his expression, and quickly added, "It doesn't all have to be done today, of course. Just before the seventy-two hours are up."
"Right, uh, you think you can email me the list?"
"Sure, no problem."
"Thanks. I'll take care of it. Just… maybe just not today."
"Of course."
There was another silent moment after this awkward exchange, one that lasted longer than either of them wanted and was comfortable with.
"We've got coffee downstairs if you need a second or—"
"No," he cut in, shaking his head. "I'll be fine. Really. Thank you… for everything."
He exited the room and walked down the unnecessarily narrow corridor, which was lit by a solitary, flickering lamp that cast broken shadows across the walls. The entire place stank of old wood and sour urine, as though it had not been properly cleaned in a long time. Yet, to his surprise, the place was not as empty as it had been when he first arrived.
An elderly man stood sobbing next to a barred window, a female resident nearby shouted at her own reflection, slapping her face as if trying to wake herself from something. Further down, another elderly man pushed a walker while smoking with his free hand, despite his old age – or perhaps because of it.
He couldn't tell whether ending up in such a place was a good thing or a bad thing. He knew, for certain, that he wanted nothing but the best for his future partner and children, that he would never want to be a burden to them in old age. And yet, especially now, he couldn't help but feel an immense, gut-wrenching remorse for having agreed to put his mother in this… prison. The gruesome image of her distorted face and crooked fingers then flashed through his mind, sending a sharp pang through his chest. If she had stayed with him, would she have ended up like that?
He snapped back to reality and looked down at his feet. A slipper had struck him. His gaze followed the corridor until it landed on an elderly man. He was missing one slipper; the other hung loosely on his foot, revealing a bare, bony leg.
"Get out of here, Chink!" the man shouted through his toothless mouth. A tattoo on his bare arm revealed he had once been part of an extremist group in his youth. "You don't belong here!"
Leo didn't even flinch. He simply kept walking. These people were too old, too unwell to be taken at face value. He knew that better than most. He had watched his mother change over the years, seen her personality erode in real time. None of them were of sound mind anymore.
Then he heard it. A voice that pulled him out of his thoughts and stirred something in him, guilt, remorse, or perhaps something else entirely, but whatever it was, it made him come to a full stop. The tone was familiar. Painfully so. Affectionate and soft in the same way his mother's had been, so much so that for a brief, disorienting second, he thought she had risen from the dead just to comfort him. But it wasn't her.
"Here! Here!"
Beneath the flickering lamp sat an elderly woman in a sun-faded blouse, of Asian descent. She was smiling, her eyes crinkling warmly at the corners as she eagerly waved him over, as though she knew him. His instinct was to ignore her, to keep walking, to get out of this dim, suffocating place that seemed to have long since lost whatever colour and life it once had. But then the older woman repeated herself, now louder and firmer, as if she dared him to ignore her and carry on.
"Leo, my son! My son!"
His hands curled into fists hearing this and the tears pressed in. It sounded so… real. Like it was his mother calling him. Though he knew he wasn't supposed to, he turned to face her and drew closer.
"How do you know my name?"
She looked around them as though checking whether anyone was close enough to hear, then beckoned him nearer, her unnaturally twisted, bony fingers curling in a motion that unsettled him more than he wanted to admit. Hesitating, he leaned in slowly, turning his head, close enough to catch the foul odour of her dry mouth.
What happened next was sudden and brutal. He didn't see it coming, and even if he had, he doubted he would have been able to react in time.
Her mouth snapped open and she bit down on his ear with a shocking force, clamping onto it as though intent on tearing straight through the cartilage. He screamed as hot blood burst out, staggering backwards, but she held on, thrashing her head side to side with unprecedented intensity, refusing to let go.
The staff came running just seconds later; two male caretakers grabbed her and yanked her backwards as one of the nurses jabbed her arm with a syringe. Her limbs twitched, and then, finally, slowed. Then she was still again, limp in her arms, the expression on her face returning to a warm, vacant smile as though she hadn't just tried to bite off his ear.
Leo was on his knees, one hand pressed hard against his ripped ear, the other holding a bundle of tissues someone had thrust into his palm in the chaos. The pain was unlike anything he had ever experienced, too jarring and overwhelming to be captured by plain words. His entire left side was warm and sticky at this point and crimson blood soaked through his collar and sleeve.
He looked up, still dazed, as they began to wheel the woman away. Her expression changed again at that moment and her chapped, bloody lips parted, just enough for him to see it, as she mouthed something. Something in Mandarin.
It took him a second to recognise it, but when he did, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and his blood turned in his veins, the air in his lungs no longer providing enough oxygen. There it was again, those words that kept haunting him. Bùyào kāimén.
Then she started to laugh, hysterical, as if she was mocking him; it made his blood run cold and a cold shiver to shoot up his spine. Yet, he couldn't take his eyes off her, not even when a nurse came over to help him rise back to his feet. Even so, the woman did not stop, she kept laughing all the way down the corridor, even as her body slumped against the straps of the wheelchair, even as the staff exchanged frightened glances behind her back.
For a long while, he remained completely frozen, consumed by a terror that left him unable to move, the paper towel pressed against his torn ear now soaked through. His heart pounded with a growing, suffocating certainty that something wasn't right. First his mother, now this woman. The same words, looping like a broken recorder that wouldn't let him catch his breath. But he could not wrap his head around it. It made no sense. What door? And, moreover, why was he not supposed to open it?
Those thoughts spiralled as he entered the code to his flat and stepped inside, shutting the world out behind him.
He threw himself onto the bed and lay there staring at the ceiling, his ear throbbing with every pulse as his body worked to repair itself. Not long afterwards, he dozed off, his mother's voice repeating in his mind like a sinister beat he couldn't get rid of. "Bùyào kāimén." But she said nothing else, offered no explanation – not even in his nightmares – only those words, as though he might understand if repeated long enough.
He did not.
