Ping had only come back to see him burned. Dead but not gone, her father’s presence was embalmed in the house. Ba, who rubbed menthol oil hourly into his chest, had left his cool scent still touching the TV remote, the hard pillow he prayed into, the figurines in the red altar. Beginning with Guanyin, the altar’s pantheon also included Jesus, a Happy Meal collectible and a Snoopy cast in brass.
Her family preserved him, too, in the seating arrangement at the dinner table that night. His power seat was kept empty. Ping’s youngest sister, Sarai, said they’d promised Ba to take his ashes back home.