What We Leave Behind

After having returned from the store Chang put the small glass lily in a decorative vase behind the urns. She'd spent the last two days brightening it up, putting some of her parent's favorite things in life there, the flower was a finishing touch.

Sitting at the kitchen table she cut out the small obituary she wrote, and had printed in the newspaper for her mother to add to the alter beside her Dad's. As she was cutting she heard the doorbell ring.

Setting the pages and the scissors down she slowly made her way to the door, looking through the peephole first, before opening the door.

A couple of older Chinese women stood at the doorstep talking amongst themselves. When she opened the door, the two well-dressed women stared at her in shock and a little disgust. Chang had no energy to entertain any salespeople, especially not when they looked at her like that, and so seeing them standing there staring she started to close the door.

Chang had already had enough of the stares on the bus and the way home. She had been wearing the same clothes since entering the hospital, she'd washed her face and brushed her teeth perfunctorily, but other than that hadn't groomed herself. She hadn't eaten since leaving the hospital and slept a few hours in spurts.

As she closed the door one of the women put her hand on the door.

"Wait, how rude! How did your mother raise you?"

Chang felt a small flash of anger and pain in her deadened heart hearing the woman's words.

"Get your hand off the door, leave me alone, I have no interest in what you're selling."

"We are not selling anything, are you Chang Ying, LiHua's daughter?"

"My name is Chang Xie, how do you know my mother's name? Wait are you my mother's two elders sisters.?" It took a minute for Chang to process who they could be.

Her mother had mentioned her family very infrequently, and so she was vaguely aware that she had two aunts on her mother's side, but she had never met them; let alone know what they looked like.

"Yes." The woman who spoke before and had stopped her from closing the door. "I am your eldest aunt FenLan Ping and my sister ChenHua Lee. Are you not going to invite us in?" FenLan scowled at her as she saw Chang was still hunched begin the partially closed door, making no move to open it.

"No I am not, while under normal circumstances maybe I would have been excited to see you but now isn't a good time. My mom just passed the other day, I posted the obituary in the paper, you can view it there if you want to. Thank you for coming by goodbye." Chang pushed the door closed in their shocked faces and slumped to the ground ignoring the insistent knocks and rings.

Eventually the noise stopped echoing through the house and silence reined once more. After the unexpected visit from her mom's family Chang sat there by thee door for an unknown amount of time until she heard a small light knocking on the door again.

At first she ignored it, but it continued insistently until she got up and opened it. Her aunt ChenHua stood the with a colorful reusable bag in her hand, the other outstretched to rap on the door again with her knuckles.

"Please don't, you didn't show up for over 20 years, so why are you here now?" Chang started to sob in front of the older woman.

Setting the bag down the slightly round woman pulled her into a tight hug, her head barely coming to Chang's shoulder.

"Because while I may have failed as an older sister in many ways. I won't now. I won't let my youngest sister's daughter waste away in grief."

After crying on the porch in her aunts warm hug she let her in wiping her face as she closed the door behind them.