Adrenaline. Right. My blood might as well have been Red Bull at the time. I could’ve moved boulders if I’d had to. But now, hours after the accident, I’m exhausted, my arms noodly, my legs stiff and slow. I manage to lift Jake’s torso a few inches up, my muscles trembling hard. “I can’t do this on my own,” I gasp, and am about to drop him when Ma catches his head.
“Er Jie, you take his hips,” she barks. “Da Jie, you take his legs.”
Big Aunt rushes to take Jake’s legs, as she’s told, but Second Aunt is frozen, her eyes wide. “I can’t—I don’t—” Big Aunt snorts, and Second Aunt glares at her. “What? I don’t want touch dead body, is that wrong?”
“Your family in need and you don’t even want to help,” Big Aunt says. “You tell me, is wrong or no?”
“It’s okay, I’ll take the hips,” Fourth Aunt says, running forward. She waves Second Aunt away. “You open Da Jie’s trunk.” She lifts, and together we heave Jake out of the trunk.
It’s hard to describe the walk to Big Aunt’s car, which, as promised, is waiting for us just a few feet away. Jake is heavy, warm, and limp, and even under the layers of blankets, I’m acutely aware that we’re carrying a dead human. We’re moving as fast as we can, but we have to adjust to one another’s speeds, which slows us down. Any moment now, Mr. Kim next door is going to wake up, get a glass of water from his kitchen, glance out the window, and see us. Or maybe, from across the street, Mabel’s chihuahua will wake up and ask to go outside.
Somehow, we manage to make it to Big Aunt’s trunk without any neighbor shouting “Hey, what are you doing?” Through unspoken agreement, we lower him gently instead of dropping him unceremoniously. I guess we have hearts after all, even though we’ve just moved a dead body.
10
Present Day
The drive to Big Aunt’s bakery, which is only a ten-minute walk away from ours, is tense and interminable. Ma, Fourth Aunt, and I are all squished up in the back seat, and nobody says anything. Big Aunt’s bakery is on Valley, a few blocks away from the huge Ranch 99 supermarket. It sits in between a beauty salon, which conveniently belongs to Second Aunt, and a florist, which conveniently belongs to Ma. She parks at the back of the bakery, and we spill out of the car. I take big gulps of air, grateful to be out of the suffocating, thick silence of the car.
This time of night, there are no cars around, nobody in sight. It’s as though the entire world is asleep and this moment belongs to us, this awful, dark moment that will forever be tucked into my memories as the worst night of my life. I’m so grateful that I have my family with me. It’s a strange thought to have as we heave Jake out of Big Aunt’s trunk and move him, with much difficulty, across the parking lot and through the bakery’s back door.
Big Aunt locks the door behind us and turns on the lights. Brilliant white light fills the kitchen, blinding us.
“Aiya! Turn off lights! Someone will see!” Ma cries.
“Nobody will see, got no windows back here,” Big Aunt says. “Put him down there—no, not there, too close to my flour. Yes, there, okay. Make sure he not touch anything.” With that, she hurries over to the giant industrial-sized refrigerator. She pulls the handle and opens the heavy door with some effort. We crowd around behind her and—
“Wah,” Ma says. “Very beautiful.”
I can only nod, speechless at the towering piece of art that stands in refrigerated glory before me. It’s stunning—eight tiers of perfectly round cake covered with flawless buttercream, each layer made to look like poured marble in different shades of dusk pink and gray. Flowers adorn it in a gently weaving cascade—peonies and hydrangeas and roses, all made with loving hands out of sugar paste, their petals as thin as tissue paper. It’s incredible. I’ve seen Big Aunt’s wedding cakes plenty of times before, of course, but she’s outdone herself. She’s always been good at her job, but this isn’t just a cake, it’s pure artwork.
“It’s amazing, Big Aunt,” I breathe. “It’s perfect.”
“This is your best yet,” Fourth Aunt says.
Big Aunt is way too traditional to show pleasure at compliments. She waves our compliments off, muttering, “Ah masa? Is nothing.” But there’s just the tiniest quirk to the corners of her lips that makes it obvious that she’s fighting off a huge smile.
“Is not bad,” Second Aunt grunts, and the quirk leaves Big Aunt’s mouth.