Story Excerpt

The Longest Night of the Year
by Melissa Yi

After we spoke to the police—

After I put my mom to bed, surrounded by my aunties—

After I ate and drank to show more aunties that I hadn’t died, even though I spit the food in my napkin, especially the jiaozi. Those were my dad’s favourite. We’d made them for him, joking about how he had to wait for tonight for the Dongzhi Festival—

I headed to Électronique Ly, in Montreal’s Chinatown, before dawn.

Why? I don’t know. To stare at the yellow-and-black police tape flapping in the cold December wind. To blink at the broken door and display windows. Most glass had been thrust inward, but some shards on the sidewalk glinted in the early-morning sun. To walk by a wilting bouquet and a slushed-up teddy bear that someone had left in front of the Truth Tellers building beside our store, outside the police tape. To accept condolences from Mrs. Au, who ventured out of her herbal store at eight a.m. to tell me how sorry she was and how this should never happen in Canada.

Snowflakes landed on my eyeballs. I smelled exhaust. A Black man ranted about interest rates and poutine on the other side of the street. Cars honked.

My stomach curdled, but I refused to eat or drink any more.

My dad never got to taste a single jiaozi.

An old white man asked me for spare change, and I glared at him until he held up his hands and moseyed away, shimmying his hips like life was normal.

At long last, I watched a police cruiser slowly draw up to the curb. Two cops spoke to each other before one took photos of the crime scene and the other spoke on her radio. Both ignored me and my silent vigil.

Two cops. More than twelve hours after my father was beaten to death in his own store on the longest night of the year. You’d think a man’s life would be worth more than that.

You’d be wrong.

Two Asian men exited the Truth Tellers building, the taller, square-built one trying to get away from the one in glasses.

“Why don’t you help us?” Glasses asked the square guy in Mandarin. I can speak both Mandarin and Vietnamese thanks to my parents. “Why don’t you write about real issues, like what happened to Adam Ly?”

My throat closed. I had to squeeze my eyes shut. Someone cared. That undid me more than the cops’ indifference.

“He should make the front page of every newspaper,” Glasses said. His handsome face sparked a memory, and I tried to place his broad forehead, high cheekbones, and full lips while he continued. “You could write an exclusive about him. Here’s your chance, Neil. Real men, good men die right here in Montreal. My grandmother can’t even walk the streets without getting knocked over. Quit writing about Donald Trump and DO SOMETHING!”

Square Guy mumbled and hurried south on Clark. Glasses lit a cigaret, watching him go.

I stepped toward him, ignoring the cigaret smoke. It stank, but I’d walk through hell for my dad. “Excuse me.”

Glasses glanced over his shoulder, his face an indifferent mask, before his eyes widened. He recognized me, or at least my features. I’d inherited my dad’s penetrating eyes and rounded nose and my mom’s cheekbones and heart-shaped face.

I nodded. “I’m Adam Ly’s daughter, Amelia.”

Glasses exhaled. He must have read the distaste on my face, because he dropped his nearly new cigaret on the wet pavement before crushing it with the sole of his sneaker. “Sorry. I didn’t know any of his family was around. I should have realized. Le quartier chinois, right?”

I smiled at him. That’s what they call Chinatown in French, which I also speak, although I’m most comfortable in English. He meant that we live in a small world, which is normally comforting, but not today. Maybe not ever again.

Why didn’t anyone help my father?

I choked that back. All I could manage was, “I’m glad someone cares about my dad.”

His eyebrows shot skyward behind his glasses. “Are you serious? Everyone liked your dad.”

My nose burned. I couldn’t speak, so he did.

“Everyone. He sold my grandmother her first radio. It still works. Every time it dies, she brings it downstairs, and he fixes it for free. I told her that she should pay him, but she says, ‘Ai yah, Shan! He makes enough money on his karaoke equipment. He can look after a little old lady for free.’”

Rusty laughter broke out of my throat. Old people love getting free stuff. “I like Mrs. Ma. Sorry I didn’t recognize you. Haven’t seen you for a long time, Shan.”

He shrugged. “I went away to university and was working in IT in Toronto. Just got here for a few days for Dongzhi. I don’t expect you to recognize me. You can call me whatever makes you comfortable, either Jack or Shan.” He sighed. “I don’t want my grandmother living here anymore since—”

“Since someone beat my father to death. I get it.” My own words stabbed me in the heart, but I forced them out. My parents had taught me to “eat bitterness” from a young age so that I could tolerate tragedy without falling apart. Who knew that all this time we’d been rehearsing for my father’s death? I changed the subject. “Did your grandmother hear anything from her apartment upstairs?”

He hesitated. “She said no.”

Someone killed my father in the store right under Mrs. Ma’s feet, and she couldn’t or wouldn’t testify. I didn’t blame the ninety-year-old lady, but I wanted to eviscerate the killer myself. Slowly.

I took deep breaths, exhaling white fog into the air. In my Intro to Psych class, I’d learned about Kitty Genovese, the bartender who was robbed, raped, and stabbed to death in New York in 1964 while at least thirty-seven neighbours ignored her cries. A more recent case in China scared me even more. Across the decades, bystanders had often ig-nored a human in need.

At least someone had left flowers and a bear for my dad.

At least Shan had harassed the media, such as it was.

At least the police followed up. Sort of. I scowled at their cruiser, wishing they held a suspect in their metal cage in the backseat.

Shan stepped into my vision. “Sorry. I’m frustrated, but you’re the one who’s in mourning. Can I . . . get you something? A cup of tea, or a pineapple bun?”

I forced a toothy grin. “That sounds great. But could we have it with your grandmother? My treat.”

 

I held my breath when Mrs. Ma opened the door with her black-and-white hair in curlers. Her apartment smelled like old people, boiled cabbage, and closed-in air.

“Shan? Who’re you bringing without telling me?” Mrs. Ma demanded in Mandarin, shuffling backwards in her house slippers. Behind her, I made out a dim studio apartment stuffed with a sofa and a two-chair table near the door, and a bed next to the bathroom on the right. Sun filtered through a small window that I knew hung directly over our store’s front door.

“Grandma, I texted you three times.” Shan tried to hug her.

She waved him away. “Eh, you didn’t call me. I was in the shower! Who’s this pretty girl?”

I had trouble meeting her cloudy eyes. I bowed my head to her and showed her the plastic bag of food. “Pleased to meet you, Auntie. I’m Amelia Ly, the daughter—”

“Ahhh, Amelia! Of course. I knew you when you were a little girl!” she shouted above someone else’s K-drama resonating through the walls.

I yanked my boots off and lined them up beside Shan’s worn sneakers. Mrs. Ma pointed at a basket of slippers next to her worn welcome mat.

“Your mother used to bring you to the store,” Mrs. Ma said. “You were so good. You’d sleep most of the time when you were a baby. Your father said he won the jackpot with you!”

I couldn’t speak, so I wiggled my feet inside my too-big but soft white-terrycloth slippers.

“Look at me, running off my mouth. I’m so sorry. I feel so bad. Your father was a good man. Come in, come in!” She beckoned me inside, clucking at her grandson, who shut and locked the door behind us. I tried not to flinch at the sound of the bolt.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were bringing Amelia Ly? What’s wrong with you? I would have put on the kettle. You drink tea, right, Amelia?” She tottered to the kitchen area near the window, a counter holding a kettle, a hot plate, a microwave, and a sink. Someone had nailed a board to the wall as a shelf, and it sagged under the weight of a container of sugar, a jar of flour, a jar of dried mushrooms, packages of noodles, and whatever else.

“Of course, Auntie. We brought you some treats.” I followed her to the kitchen.

Shan held up the plastic bag that I’d abandoned on a wooden stool by the front door while I picked out my slippers. “You like pineapple buns.”

She held up a finger. “Depends where you got them.” Shan told her Pâtisserie QQ, and she clicked her tongue. “Too sweet! You go to Tao Hong next time. Did I not raise you right?” She shoved a stool against the wall to reach the window, muttering about fresh air.

Before she tried to climb on the kitchen counter and/or fall in the sink, I hastily opened the window a crack myself, wincing at the cold. When I turned around, Mrs. Ma was already confronting Shan.

“You trying to save money? The last thing you should do is save money when this girl’s father was a hero!”

Tears welled in my eyes. I had to steady my voice when I asked, “How do you mean, a hero?” I figured she meant fixing her radio for free.

“He didn’t—” Mrs. Ma slowly turned to face me. “Of course he didn’t tell you. Forgive me.”

“Tell me what?”

“Last night, a bad man with a spider tattoo knocked me over on the street into the garbage. Your father ran him off. I had bought some fresh ground pork and coriander. I wanted to make dumplings for Shan and the pork I got yesterday wasn’t fresh enough. You know why we have to eat dumplings for the Dongzhi Festival? Dr. Zhang Zhongjing wrapped mutton and Chinese medicine in dough, inventing jiaozi. You eat those every Dongzhi so your ears don’t get frostbite!”

I felt Shan twitch, ready to interrupt his grandmother, but I needed every detail. “Yes, Mrs. Ma.”

She beamed back at me. “I’m glad you understand the importance. I got some new flour too. Everything fresh for the Dongzhi Festival. You celebrate, right?”

I closed my eyes. We hadn’t celebrated this year.

“I’m so sorry. Of course not this year. I’m an old woman. So stupid. Let me make you tea.”

Shan tossed himself on the sofa, raising a cloud of dust in the sunlight. I held my breath again. Mrs. Ma probably hadn’t noticed with her cataracts.

She clucked her tongue as she flicked the switch on her black plastic kettle. “Shan bought that new thing for me. I liked my old one better! This one’s so small, sometimes I boil extra water to make sure I have enough.” She set a pot on her hot plate, a single portable electronic burner that I recognized because my father kept one in the back room of his store.

I pinched my nose to keep the tears back.

“The old kettle screamed when the water boiled.” Shan scrolled through his phone. “Hey, check out Reddit.”

I froze. A notice about my dad?

“A truck on the T-Can tried to merge—”

When my heart stopped thundering, I understood that someone had posted about another bad Montreal driver on the Trans-Canada Highway. People forget how to drive, especially during the first few snows of the winter. This one had been caught on a dashcam and crossposted to r/montreal and r/IdiotsInCars.

“I wish someone would catch whoever killed my dad,” I said out loud.

Mrs. Ma didn’t seem to hear me, but Shan touched my arm. “We’ll get him.”

I nodded in thanks and made my way to the kitchen to help Mrs. Ma. Before I tucked her footstool back between bags of rice and more containers of flour, I gazed down at the police cruiser, now slowly pulling away.

I busied myself setting tea on a warped but pretty black lacquer tray of a building in the mountains. Mrs. Ma insisted on wiping the tray down first. I ignored the specks of food her cloth left behind.

Mrs. Ma sat in a hard-backed chair, so I joined Shan on the sofa, moving gingerly to minimize the dust cloud. We sipped our slightly bitter oolong tea, which she said had been chosen specially by the Au family for its ability to lower cholesterol, and Shan asked his grandmother gently, “What else did you see last night . . . ?”

 

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Copyright © 2024. The Longest Night of the Year by Melissa Yi