Started With a Lie

Chapter Twenty-Four

    Something’s wrong with Madam Jin. I need help, I text to Lee.

    “This is definitely Mary.”

    “Are you okay, Madam Jin? Come with me.” I reach out my hand. “Let’s go sit down. We can talk this out.”

    She stares at my hand, at me, at my mother. “Why don’t you believe me?” she screams and I wince. She’s never yelled at me before. Reaching down to pick up her phone, she dials a number and runs a hand through her messed up hair. “Hello? Yes… yes…it’s me. I’m going to need two units of security pronto to room A203. Yes… send the best ones you’ve got.” Her phone slaps shut and she puts her loose strands of hair behind her hair and starts pacing around.

    I don’t know what to say. She just yelled at me. But, I want to help her. “What’s going on, Madam Jin? What can I do?”

    She ignores me like I’m not even there and continues pacing and then stops abruptly. “You,” she says, “you have albums, right? Pictures? Anything of Mary—your mom?” I nod. “Good, where are they?”

    “Home.”

    “Let’s go,” she says in a frantic manner I’ve never seen her in.

 

     The car ride to my house is fast and reckless and Madam Jin presses her driver to hurry up even though we’ve ran over at least three red lights. Even though it’s spring and the ice has melted, it feels as if at any second the car will flip over and skid into a tree. Nonetheless, we get to my house in one piece. Both of us rush inside, greeted by Lee.

    “What’s going on?” he says. “I just got your text. I was about to come to the hospital.”

    Madam Jin rushes by him too, driven by a force to find those photo albums. She rushes to the bookcase in the living room where all the albums are stacked in perfect order from year to year. She slides a random one out and flips through it. Sweat appears on her usually flawless face.

    “I don’t know what’s going on, Lee,” I tell him, holding onto his forearms as he holds me. I didn’t realize I was leaning onto him.

    “What happened?” His face is worried and confused just like mine. His eyes dart to Madam Jin and then back to mine.

    “I—We were at my mom’s room at the hospital. Suddenly, she just cracked or something because she started crying and I had to take her out of the room. She kept calling my mom ‘Mary’ and then she called her security team to watch my mom,” I explain. “Now she said she wanted to see the photo albums.”

    “What is happening?” Mark says, walking into the room. “Grandma Jin?”

    Lee calls him over and starts speaking to him in hushed tones and I go kneel down next to Madam Jin. She’s on the floor next to scattered albums, all open. Flipping through each one slowly, she starts crying. There’s a picture of my mom when she was younger and Madam Jin runs her finger over it. “This is… This is Mary.”

    “Mary? Who is this Mary?” I ask gently.

    “Mary...Mary…she’s alive,” she whispers quietly. She closes the album and holds it to her chest, clutching it as if she lets go, this Mary person will disappear with it.

    Mark brings over a cup of tea and places it next to Madam Jin. “I don’t know what’s wrong, but drink this, Grams.” He puts his arms on Madam Jin’s shoulders. “Let’s get you on the couch, okay?”

    She nods and gets up. I help Mark support her over to the couch where she sits, still clutching the album with her dear life. Lee brings over the tea and leaves it on the coffee table nearby. We all take a seat on one of the surrounding seats, me sitting right next to her to make sure she doesn’t faint or something.