“Hold still!” Su Yi hissed.
Felicity grasped the cup tightly, suddenly feeling like she was ten years old again, perched on the ottoman in her mother’s bedroom as one of the Thai maids arranged her hair into an intricate braid. She would shift a little, and her mother would groan in annoyance. “Hold still! Siri is doing very delicate work here, and if you make one false move, you’re going to mess it all up! Do you want to be the only girl at Countess Mountbatten’s tea party with bad hair? Everyone will be looking at you because you’re my daughter. Do you want to disgrace me by looking unkempt?”
Felicity could feel the veins in her neck beginning to throb at the memory. Where were her blood-pressure pills? She couldn’t deal with Mummy like this. She hated even seeing her like this, dressed in a hospital gown with her hair out of place. Mummy must never look unkempt. Now that she was conscious, they must send over some of her own clothes and have Simon set her hair properly. And some jewelry. Where was the jade amulet she always wore against her chest? She stared at the heart monitor anxiously: 112…115…120. Oh dear oh dear. She didn’t want to be responsible for causing another heart attack. She needed to leave the room now.
“You know, Astrid’s been dying to see you,” Felicity blurted out, appalled at her own choice of words. She pulled the cup away from her mother and fled out the door.
A few moments later, Astrid entered, the bright light from the doorway silhouetting her, and making her glow like an angel. Su Yi smiled at her. Her favorite granddaughter always looked so calm and collected, no matter the occasion. Today she was wearing a pale lilac dress with a low-waisted sash and delicate knife pleats all along the skirt. Her long hair was gathered into a loose bun at the nape of her neck, and the delicate locks on the side framed her face like Botticelli’s Venus.
“Aiyah, how wonderful you look!” Su Yi said in Cantonese, the dialect she preferred to use with most of her grandchildren.
“Don’t you recognize the dress? It’s one of your Poirets, from the 1920s,” Astrid said, sitting in the chair beside her bed and taking her hand.
“Ah yes, of course. It was my mother’s actually. I thought it was terribly old-fashioned by the time she gave it to me, but it looks perfect on you.”
“I wish I could have met great-grandma.”
“You would have appreciated her. She was very beautiful, like you. She always told me that it was unfortunate that I took after my father.”
“Oh but Ah Ma, you’re so beautiful! Weren’t you the leading debutante of your day?”
“I wasn’t ugly, but I didn’t come close to my mother in looks. My older brother looked more like her.” Su Yi sighed for a moment. “If only you could have met him.”
“Great-uncle Alexander?”
“I always called him by his Chinese name, Ah Jit. He was so strikingly handsome and so kind.”
“You’ve always said that.”
“He died much too young.”
“Cholera, wasn’t it?”
Su Yi paused for a moment, before saying, “Yes, there was an epidemic in Batavia, where father had sent him to manage our businesses. You know, things would have been so different for all of us had he lived.”
“What do you mean?”
“He wouldn’t have behaved like Alfred, for one thing.”
Astrid wasn’t sure what her grandmother meant, but she didn’t wish to upset her by prodding any further. “Great-uncle Alfred is coming home, you know? He’s due in on Thursday. Auntie Cat and Auntie Alix are on their way as well.”
“Why is everyone coming down? Do they think I’m dying?”
“Oh, no, no. Everyone just wants to see you.” Astrid laughed lightly.
“Hmm. Well, if that’s the case, I want to be at home. Please tell Francis that I want to go home today.”
“I don’t think you can go home just yet, Ah Ma. You need to get a bit better first.”
“Nonsense! Where is Francis now?”
Astrid pushed the button beside the bed, and within a few moments Francis Oon arrived in the room accompanied by his usual entourage of nurses. “Is everything okay?” he asked, looking a bit flustered. He always got flustered around her. Astrid noticed a spot of chili sauce at the edge of his mouth and tried to ignore it. She addressed him in English. “My grandmother wishes to be discharged.”
Professor Oon leaned toward his patient and spoke in Hokkien. “Mrs. Young, we can’t allow you to go home just yet. You need to get stronger first.”
“I feel fine.”
“Well, we want you to feel even better before we release you—”
Astrid cut in. “Professor Oon, I think my grandmother would be so much more comfortable at home. Can’t we just have things set up for her at Tyersall Park?”
“Er, it’s not that simple. Step outside with me for a moment, will you?” the doctor said a little uneasily. Astrid followed him out of the room, slightly annoyed by the ungracious way he had handled that. Now of course her grandmother would know they were discussing her condition.
Professor Oon found himself staring at Astrid. This woman was so blindingly pretty, it made him nervous just to be around her. He felt like he could lose control at any moment and say something inappropriate. “Er, Astrid, I must be very…um, blunt with you. Your grandmother’s condition is extremely…touch and go…at the moment. There’s been a tremendous amount of scarring on the heart, and her erection…I mean, her ejection fraction is up to twenty-seven percent. I know it looks like she’s getting better, but you need to know that we are making monumental efforts to keep her alive. All those machines she’s hooked up to…she needs them, and she requires nonstop care.”
“How long does she really have?”
“Hard to say, but it’s a matter of weeks. Her heart muscle is irreparably damaged, and her condition is worsening day by day. She could go at any moment, really.”
Astrid let out a long exhale. “Well, it’s even more essential that we get her home then. I know my grandmother would not want to spend her last days here. Why can’t we simply move all the machines? Let’s set up a medical suite just like this one for her at home. We can have you and the rest of her medical team stationed there.”
“Something like that has never been done before. To set up a mobile cardiac intensive care unit in a private home with all the equipment we would need and round-the-clock doctors and nurses—it’s a huge undertaking, and it would be extremely cost prohibitive.”
Astrid cocked her head, giving him a subtly eviscerating look that said: Really? Do we really need to go there? “Professor Oon, I think I can speak for my entire family. The cost is not an issue. Let’s just make it happen, shall we?”
“Okay, I’ll get to work on that,” Professor Oon replied, his face flushing red.