And afterwards,

the wiry lady in the gray buttoned-up shirt dress says, feel free to pick any one on the shelves, and I hear Ah Ma’s voice scolding me, if you had kept one of those nice plastic containers I had saved instead of trashing them when you cleaned out my apartment, you’d have a free container to put me inside, spotlessly cleaned and dried like each grape berry she handwashed and scrubbed for me. Wooden urns line the wall, some square and heavy like the one where Ah Ba’s ashes are saved, others more like an elegant bouquet vase, or fat and round like a fishbowl, or angular and beaker shaped. Ah Ma would disapprove of those uneven shapes. She’d prefer something simple and red. I can imagine her frowning upon the metallic fuchsia-mauve urn with laser-cut sculpted leaves, I could make a better one, she’d say. I hesitate in front of a small cube made with cherry wood thinking how she might like living next to Ah Ba on the same shelf at my home—would she stop nagging him in death, would they smile at each other when in life they never held each other close—when the wiry lady tries to be helpful and tells me, your mom is so tiny, she’ll fit. In the end, I choose a golden vase that sparkles like the loads of gold jewelry Ah Ma hoarded but never wore, just taking them out from time to time to look at, as if she wanted to make sure they didn’t disappear on her like her daughter did, or evaporate like her body in the cremator. I hug the urn hard, like I never did Ah Ma when she was alive.

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