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The last time Beatrice’s father hit her; she was seventeen.
She went home briefly after graduation, mostly to bring back the few possessions she had accumulated during four years of boarding school, and to collect what would be necessary for her new life.
The idea still seemed intimidating. A new life, a new country. Strangely, Beatrice found solace in the uncertainty, on the idea that this new life she was about to start was hers . Not completely, of course– minimally, but more hers than all the years she had spent under her parents’ roof.
Still, there were some things she struggled to let go.
Memories, mostly. Almost all of them with only one person.
She had not expected such a simple demand to be greeted with so much anger. You fool , she scolded herself mere seconds later; with her parents, everything was a motive for discontent. Everything she did, asked, or said, was incorrect in their eyes, so she should’ve known better.
But what she asked was simple.
“I want to see Grandmother one last time before I leave. I haven’t seen her since last Christmas, and she doesn’t answer my calls. I just want to say goodbye.”
Mother had stayed silent, her cold gaze not leaving the article she was reading, not even bothering to meet her daughter’s eyes. Her father took another sip of his whiskey, clearly not more interested in Beatrice’s words than his wife.
“Father, please . She didn’t attend my graduation. Didn’t even call. I don’t know if she changed her home phone number or…”
“Silence!” was the only answer she got. Nothing new, Beatrice had gotten used to those two syllables after years. But this time, this last time , she decided it was worth it to push back a little more. She looked at her mother with pleading eyes, in a way that she had learnt at a young age that didn’t work, but she tried anyway.
“Mother?” Her voice was weak, childish even.
The woman simply turned the page of the magazine and took another sip of her drink.
Beatrice took a few steps towards her father’s desk. She would’ve been lying if she denied she even said a little prayer in her head hoping for him to change his mind
“I won’t bother you ever again after this week. You won’t have to see me anymore. I am just asking for this one thing, Father…”
The cold, monotone voice of Mr. Yang interrupted her.
“Your grandmother is dead, Beatrice.”
The words hit her like a train, knocked the air out of her lungs so abruptly she had to take a few seconds before her voice was strong enough to speak again.
“What? When?” She slowly repeated the words in her head to make sure she had listened correctly. Dead. She is dead. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What use would it have had? It isn’t like you could be at the service”.
“I could have been! I would’ve asked for permission at school, you know it was allowed for family emergencies!”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Her father looked up from the newspaper for the first time since the conversation had started. Looked at Beatrice with that disgusted gaze that had become the only one she was worthy of. She wasn’t sure what was reflected in her own eyes; any attempt at hiding her feelings had left, but there were none she could name. All the questions died on her lips as she looked at her disinterested father going back to his reading.
As if this was something obvious. Something that didn’t need explaining.
It had always been a possibility. One that Beatrice preferred to ignore most of the time because thinking about it was too painful.
Losing the scarce love of her parents had been bearable, almost expectable. Imminent, she told herself after a week of resignation. But her…
Beatrice couldn’t bring herself to imagine it.
She’d read about unconditional love; she had heard about it from the lips of other people. She knew it was a concept conceivable enough for other families. But not them. Not the Westons, on her mother’s side. And certainly not the Yangs.
Out of all the people on both sides of the family Nainai , her paternal grandmother, had always been the closest (and maybe the only one) to actually loving Beatrice for who she was. Without conditions. Without ties to her performance or abilities. Almost...
She still heavily disapproved when Beatrice wore pants, and constantly called her “dog ears” because she didn’t like to wear earrings, but she had also been the one who drove all the way from her house (two hours away from London) to attend Beatrice’s first piano recital and gave her the biggest hug after, even though Beatrice had panicked mid-performance and missed a few notes.
She had taken Beatrice to dinner after that, just the two of them (she was the only person who would get away with telling Beatrice’s father he wasn’t invited anywhere) and let her order whatever she wanted. Beatrice had blinked away the remaining tears of disappointment with the help of a big slice of carrot cake.
A small part of her, far back in her head, still murmured that her grandmother would still love her. Even after that . Even after learning what she was. That Beatrice would always be just her granddaughter, her kid, and that that bond would never be tainted for anything Beatrice was, or did.
There was a scenario, maybe in another universe, in which Nainai would drape her in a big hug, running her delicate hand through Beatrice’s hair while she sobbed, murmuring sweet words in both English and Chinese. One in which she would cut her son and daughter in law off for what they’ve done to their daughter. One in which Beatrice still found love and acceptance within her family.
But Beatrice knew it was childish.
Mrs. Yang always attended mass. Every Sunday without fail. Sometimes even twice a day. She carried at least three rosaries in her purse, and there was a Bible on her desk opened to a different verse every day. She observed Lent and Advent devoutly and (strictly) required everyone in the household to do the same.
There wasn’t even a small possibility that she would’ve accepted Beatrice. That she would’ve loved the sinner but hated the sin. It was just not how things worked.
Even since the incident that ended up with the complete disapproval of her parents and a ticket to Switzerland, Beatrice had been terrified of the word spreading to her grandmother. How had the conversation gone between her father and the matriarch? Had she agreed with all the terrible things Mr. Yang had called her granddaughter? Had she added some of her own? During her first weeks at boarding school, the girl had constantly imagined the elder lady taking down all the framed photos of her youngest granddaughter, erasing all traces of her the same way her parents had, and just cutting her off completely.
But then Easter arrived, and she received a postcard filled with that cursive handwriting she knew very well. Grandmother didn’t show any sign of thinking of her differently; she dedicated Beatrice a Bible verse as she did every year, and even asked about the new school and what Beatrice had learned in religious studies. Nothing seemed to be different.
When Beatrice returned home for Christmas (dread filling her bones as she entered the matriarch’s house) the woman greeted her with the same warm enthusiasm. It wasn’t until hours later, when the adults had engaged in social drinking and political conversation, that her brother informed her that their parents had decided to spare Grandmother the disappointment .
They were hiding her. Brushing her under the rug like dirt.
It was oddly relieving.
Years passed, and every Christmas was the same. Those three weeks in which Beatrice had no excuse but to return to London were considerably more bearable because of her. Still, every year the girl held her breath as she waited to greet her grandmother at the door, fearing that this time would be the one in which she finally knew.
She feared the day in which she would be met with a cold gaze, in which there would be no more hugs. Maybe Grandmother won’t even dare say a word to her.
That image, in which the eyes of her Nainai were filled with nothing but disgust … that was the one she couldn’t bear to see.
***
Tears started to collect in her eyes, though years of practice prevented them from rolling down her cheeks. Beatrice could fear the tips of her ears burning red (an uncomfortable inheritance from her mother), and she clenched her hands so hard that she could practically feel her nails digging into her palm.
“You had no right!” she spat, without realising how poisoned her voice sounded. That wasn’t a tone she had ever dared use in front of anyone, especially not her parents. This managed to make her father finally put the newspaper down, slowly folding it and placing it on the desk.
“I beg your pardon?” he asked, letting out a chuckle. This time, when he looked at Beatrice, it was as if he was looking at a bug. An insignificant creature, not worthy of his attention.
“She was my family!” his daughter cried, “she raised me! You had no right to– to” the words propelled from her mouth as Beatrice tried to voice all her thoughts, struggling between controlling herself and bringing all the anger and sadness to the surface. She turned around for a second and looked at her mother, who observed the scene in silence. “How could you allow this?”
Something else was said in the background, something along the lines of “ Don’t talk to your mother like that!” , but Beatrice was still lost in the fact that her grandmother, her person , had died and she had been denied the chance to say goodbye.
“You had no right to strip me from that! I deserved to see her one last time!” This time she was practically yelling, all composure and self-restraint long forgotten. She was still facing her mother, so she didn’t see her father standing up and walking towards her.
The slap landed heavy on her cheek. The voice in the back of her mind joked that she had lost practice, because it made her trip lightly. She wondered if it had really been worse than usual, because she saw white spots for a few seconds before refocusing her eyes and finding her father’s furious gaze. Beatrice barely had time to recompose herself before she felt his hand grabbing her hair and pulling her closer, so she was just centimetres away from his face.
“You didn’t deserve anything , do you hear me?” he wasn’t even yelling, just using that low, grave tone of his that had always made Beatrice’s blood run cold. She tried to tear his hand off, but he only held her tighter. “You lost all your rights to this family the moment you offended God. I wasn’t going to let you insult her memory like that.”
The tears in Beatrice’s eyes finally started rolling down her cheeks. Those words were not new, but the idea of her presence being an insult to the one person she loved the most had opened a new tear in her heart. The mere act of existing like that was enough to strip her away from this part of her life as well.
Suddenly what she was about to do– leaving this house, this country, and starting a new life dedicated to God— didn’t seem enough. Because she could never run away from who she was. This part of her that was inertly wrong would follow her forever, and her father had just reminded her of it. She would forever be faulty.
He would never forget, and he would make sure she didn’t either.
“I don’t want to hear another word about this, understood?” Beatrice gulped once, then twice, but the words were stuck in her throat. Mr. Yang tightened the hold on her hair and brought her closer. “Understood?”
“Yes, Sir.” She managed to answer, and only then he let go of her, practically tossing her away.
Both of her parents returned to their previous activities in a way that indicated the conversation was over. Beatrice could only exit the room in silence, still holding back the loudest sobs unwilling to give them that pleasure.
It wasn’t until she was back in her room that she realised she had bitten her lip and drawn blood.
***
She couldn’t stop thinking about her grandmother’s last moments. She didn’t even know what they had looked like. Had she been in pain? Or had it been quick, in her sleep maybe?
It could’ve happened any day during the last six months. Beatrice could’ve been in class, or in practice, maybe hiding in the library as usual. She could’ve been reading Nainai’s favourite Psalm or singing her favourite hymn. But now she had no way of knowing.
People liked to say that you could feel when someone special passed away. A breeze of hair, a candle extinguishing, a bird or a butterfly passing by. Beatrice remembered nothing.
Had she asked for Beatrice? If so, what had they told her?
There wasn’t even a speck of information she could hold onto. She knew nothing, she’d been stripped of any connection to those last moments. Completely erased from the incident.
And she hadn’t even been worthy of a small sign from God to know it had happened.
***
Beatrice thought a lot about her grandmother while she was at the convent.
Sometimes she’ll say a prayer in her name at night or mention her during her morning devotions. The rosary she had received when she first joined the OCS smelled like her: roses and incense. The medal on her neck was still the same as her grandmother’s: St. Cecilia, patron of musicians, even if she didn’t feel any connection with music anymore. She was everywhere, and that haunted Beatrice, for the best and worst. Because if her presence followed her, so did the questions.
How much can love really handle?
How much can one fail a person until love runs out?
At least Beatrice wouldn’t have to find out with her, right? Beatrice could easily choose to never question it again, but of course her brain didn’t work like that. The nights she had lied awake wondering how she would have told her, if she’d had even done it, the countless prayers she had started in her name and stopped because she was too afraid to voice the thoughts…
Nainai was love, and warmth. Home and safety. But for how long?
Over the years (mostly after leaving the OCS, and not without a long process of deep research and a lot of work on herself) Beatrice had learnt of people who had changed after learning secrets like this, entire families even – both for the better and the worse. She didn’t really want to discover which one her grandmother could've been.
Schrödinger's cat, wasn’t it? The cat could be dead, or alive, but you would never know if you didn’t open the box, and opening the box would kill the cat.
***
Eventually, Beatrice killed the cat.
Well, the closest thing to that given the circumstances.
Beatrice didn’t have a long, heart-to-heart conversation with her grandmother, of course. She didn’t get to hear her answer, or learn if she accepted her. Simply, Beatrice made peace with herself, in a way. Given that she didn’t have an official story, she could build her own.
It wasn’t like this was solely her idea. After all, creating positive imaginary narratives wasn’t her specialty but, as many changes in her life, this has been a little push from Ava.
“She loved you before knowing this. People who are worth it don’t get to decide which parts of you they love.”
Conditional love isn’t love worth keeping . That one was courtesy of her therapist, but still. She and Ava worked as a team to bring Beatrice a little closer to acceptance, and she was getting there, one day at a time.
And like this Beatrice was now walking down the cobbled path of Kensal Green Cemetery looking for the Yang’s mausoleum. She was holding the bouquet tightly, surely wrinkling the paper in her efforts to conceal the nerves, but her steps were still firm and determined.
The grave wasn’t hard to find. Black marble and gold traditional Chinese characters, nothing eccentric but surely not frugal. It took her a few minutes of deep breathing, but Beatrice finally kneeled in front of it.
“Hi, Nainai ,” she started, almost whispering despite the surroundings being empty except for Ava a few metres behind. “This took me way too long, and I would say I’m sorry but you would scold me for that so… ” Beatrice let out a wet chuckle and took a deep breath before continuing. “Anything you would have needed to know I have already told you. So I don’t know if you still want to listen to me, but I hope you do. I miss you.”
The numbers on the tombstone read 27th April 2014 . Three months before Beatrice graduated from boarding school.
“You will notice that I’m still not wearing earrings,” she joked, and then held her left hand up “but I’m wearing a ring now. And I am happy, Nainai . Very happy. So I hope you are also happy to see me like this.”
And then she said the hardest part of the speech, the one she had rehearsed countless times in her mind.
“But it is okay if you aren’t. I will be okay. And I still love you.”
Beatrice rearranged the paper around the bouquet a little, and then carefully placed it in front of the tombstone. She took a last look at it before standing again, at the contrast between the dark marble and the soil, and the colours of the flowers.
She had researched which flowers to put on it before assembling the whole thing, careful not to secretly insult her– Chinese grandmothers used to England’s aristocracy were like that; but the colours, those were all her choice.
It was mostly baby’s breath, creating a white cloud with a single red English Legend rose at the centre, her grandmother's favourite. Surrounding it were three gerberas: orange, pink, and purple. It had been a bold move in Beatrice’s opinion. A brave one, in Ava’s words.
Beatrice crossed herself before taking a last look at the grave, and then walked away.
Chances were her parents would see the flowers the next time they came to visit, and they would probably know. But the difference now, compared to fifteen years ago, was that Beatrice didn’t care.