On an afternoon with leaden humidity, I sit at the white marble table after school, picking up the broccoli with my chopsticks mechanically, loading my rice-filled spoon just a little more. My mother has her chin in her hand, watching me as I bring the spoon to my mouth, telling me that she had a boring hike with some elderly retirees at the Penang Youth Park in the morning. I look on emotionless as I chew the tasteless Chinese take-out and glance at the brown stains and branching flaxen lines in the marble. An uncontrollable impulse to clean the jagged lines away arrests me for a moment, then passes.
“How was your day at school?”
“Fine, boring and tiring.”
“Why? C’mon, share some stories with me. ”
“I’m really tired.”
“Why are you so cold?” She starts to complain about my impatience, nagging me to change my attitude.
“I know laaa….,” I am annoyed and respond in a deepening voice, the sound of my rising anger.
My mother shakes her head hopelessly, not knowing how to break through the invisible concrete wall between us. She lifts herself up from the wooden chair leaning heavily on the marble and instructs me to do the dishes. I finish eating and get up to wash the dishes as my mother leaves for the living room. Her brown-checked housecoat passes across the kitchen and then she’s gone. I take a deep breath as the tap water flows steadily onto the dirty dishes.
Later at night, I try to contact my sister who is studying abroad in Japan. She answers the phone with the loud, high-pitched voice so easily recognizable as my sister’s. It makes her sound so much more energetic than I am.
“What?”
“I just wanted to chat.”
“Oh. Let’s chat, then” and thus she begins chattering about herself for the next half hour. School, classmates, professors, boys, activities and then, the conversation turns to our parents and me.
“You should spend more time with mum. Look after her. Can you?”
“I will try.” But what I’m really thinking is, “You don’t have to tell me that. It’s nice that you are far, far away from home, so that’s easy for you to say. Try doing it yourself.”
I change the subject with a joke and we end the conversation on a light-hearted note.  When she was around, I hated her. She acted like a second mother, bossing me around, scolding me when I was impolite to our mother. Why should she care? It really wasn’t her business.
A week later, my mother tells me that my grandfather is dying in Taiwan and that stabs me right in the heart. I am distraught for my grandfather crawling to his death while the rest of us hang onto what is left of him, hoping that he can stay just a little longer. Did I feel pity for my mother? I can’t remember.
My mother shows me the text conversation between her and my dad, while he is on business in Tokyo.
“My father is dying. I need to go home to see him.”
“Is it urgent?”
“Yes, it can’t wait.”
“What about our daughter? Who is going to take her to school, take care of her?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll sort it out.”
My father is still on business when my mother leaves for Taiwan. I wave her off at the Penang International Airport, my mother in white. She is happy to be going home, having always felt like a foreigner in Malaysia. I was quietly joyous. Finally, I would be home alone for the first time in all my life for ten whole days.
One morning of independence, I am in class when I read the news that my grandfather has passed away in a text message from my mother.  It shakes me to the core because I never thought he would actually die. I was hoping to see him in November, after school was out. I can’t hold back the tears; like a tap turned on, they flow until my tears run out.
Back at home, I mop the brown and white tiles in the apartment to distract myself from my sadness. The cleaning comforts me and chases away my thoughts. Not long afterwards, sitting alone at the white marble table, my heart feels like a tall, glass window, and the lines of the marble crack quietly across its transparent emptiness.