But this did not help. I paid the diviner and from Snow Flower’s lattice window watched as he got into his pony-drawn cart and trotted off down the road. I vowed that from here on I would use diviners only to find propitious dates.
Plum Blossom, the third and youngest of the sworn sisters, came to stand next to me. “Snow Flower is doing everything you ask of her. But I hope you see, Lady Lu, that she only does these things for you. This torment has gone on too long. If she were a dog, would you keep her suffering so?”
Pain exists at many levels: the physical agony that Snow Flower endured, the sorrow at seeing her suffer and believing that I couldn’t bear another moment, the torturous regret I felt for the things I had said to her eight years ago—and to what purpose? To be respected by the women of my village? To hurt Snow Flower as she had hurt me? Or had it come down to my pride—that if she wouldn’t be with me, she shouldn’t be with anyone? I’d been wrong on every count, including the last one, because during those long days I saw the solace that the other women brought to Snow Flower. They had not come to her just at this final moment as I had; they had watched over her for many years. Their generosity—in the form of little bags of rice, cut vegetables, and gathered firewood—had kept her alive. Now they came every day, neglecting their duties at home. They did not crowd in on our special relationship. Instead, they hovered like benign spirits, praying, continuing to light fires to scare away ghosts eager for Snow Flower, but always leaving us to ourselves.
I must have slept, but I don’t remember it. When I wasn’t attending to Snow Flower, I was making burial shoes for her. I chose colors I knew she would love. I threaded my needle and embroidered one shoe with a lotus blossom for continual and a ladder for climbing to suggest that Snow Flower was on a continual climb to heaven. On the other, I embroidered tiny deer and curly-winged bats, symbols that meant long life—the same ones that you see on wedding garments and hang as celebratory notices at birthdays—to let Snow Flower know that, even after her death, her blood would continue through her son and her daughter.
Snow Flower deteriorated. When I had first arrived and washed and rewrapped her feet, I saw that her curled toes had already turned dark purple. As the doctor said it would, that horrible death color crept up to her calves. I tried to make Snow Flower fight the disease. In the early days I begged her to call on her horse nature to kick away those spirits who wanted to claim her. Now, I knew, all that was left was to ease her way to the afterworld as best we could.
Yonggang saw all this when she came to see me each morning, bringing fresh eggs, clean clothes, and messages from my husband. She had been obedient and loyal to me for many years, but at this time I discovered that she had once broken faith with me in a way for which I will be forever grateful. Three days before Snow Flower died, Yonggang arrived for one of her early morning visits, knelt before me, and laid a basket at my feet.
“I saw you, Lady, many years ago,” she said, her voice cracking in fear. “I knew you couldn’t mean what you were doing.”
I didn’t know what she was talking about or why she had chosen this moment to confess. Then she pulled the cloth from the top of the basket, reached in, and took out letters, handkerchiefs, embroideries, and Snow Flower and my secret fan. These were things I’d looked for when I was burning our past, but this servant had risked being thrown into the street to save them, during those days of Cutting a Disease from My Heart, and then kept them protected all these years.
Seeing this, Spring Moon and the sworn sisters scurried around the room, digging into Snow Flower’s embroidery basket, rifling through drawers, and reaching under the bed to find secret hiding places. Soon I had before me all the letters I had ever written Snow Flower and everything I had ever made for her. In the end, everything—except what I had once destroyed—was there.
For the last days of Snow Flower’s life, I took us on a journey through our lives together. We had both memorized so much that we could recite whole passages, but she weakened quickly and spent the rest of the time just holding my hand and listening.
At night, in bed together under the lattice window, the moonlight bathing us, we were transported back to our hair-pinning days. I wrote nu shu characters on her palm. The bed is lit by moonlight. . . .
“What did I write?” I asked. “Tell me the characters.”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I can’t tell. . . .”
So I recited the poem and watched as tears dripped from the edges of Snow Flower’s eyes, ran down her temples, and lost themselves in her ears.
During the last conversation we had, she asked, “Could you do one thing for me?”
“Anything,” I said, and I meant it.
“Please be an aunt to my children.”
I promised that I would.
Nothing helped or relieved Snow Flower’s suffering. In the final hours, I read her our contract, reminding her how we had gone to the Temple of Gupo and bought the red paper, sat down together, and composed the words. I read again the letters we had sent each other. I read happy parts from our fan. I hummed old melodies from our childhood. I told her how much I loved her and said I hoped she would be waiting for me in the afterworld. I talked her all the way to the edge of the sky, not wanting her to go yet yearning to release her into the clouds.
Snow Flower’s skin went from ghostly white to golden. A lifetime of worries melted from her face. The sworn sisters, Spring Moon, Madame Wang, and I listened to Snow Flower’s breathing: an inhale, an exhale, then nothing. Seconds passed; then an inhale, an exhale, then nothing. More excruciating seconds, then an inhale, an exhale, then nothing. The whole time I kept my hand on Snow Flower’s cheek, as she had done for me throughout our entire lives together, letting her know that her laotong was there until that final inhale, exhale, and then truly nothing.
SO MUCH OF what happened reminded me of the didactic story that Aunt used to chant about the girl who had three brothers. I now understand that we learned those songs and stories not just to teach us how to behave but because we would be living out variations of them over and over again throughout our lives.
Snow Flower was carried down to the main room. I washed her and dressed her in her eternity clothes—all of them ragged and faded, but in patterns I remembered from our childhood. The oldest sworn sister combed Snow Flower’s hair. The middle sworn sister patted Snow Flower’s face with powder and painted her lips. The youngest sworn sister decorated her hair with flowers. Snow Flower’s body was placed in a coffin. A small band came to play mourning music as we sat next to her in the main room. The oldest sworn sister had enough money to buy incense to burn. The middle sworn sister had enough money to buy paper to burn. The youngest sworn sister had no money for incense or paper, but she did a very good job crying.
Three days later, the butcher, his son, and the husbands and sons of the sworn sisters carried the coffin to the grave site. They walked very fast, as if they were flying across the ground. I took almost all of Snow Flower’s nu shu writing, including much of what I had sent her, and burned it so she would have our words in the afterworld.