“Do they know you’re here?” the young lady asked gently.
“Pui Ee,” she said, “my eldest daughter.” She didn’t mention the rest of her daughters, who had progressively left home once they had reached the age at which they could fend for themselves. She no longer had any contact with them, for they had all been determined to cut her out from their lives. She didn’t blame them. She also omitted to mention her only son, who was no longer living in Singapore.
The young lady began to speak, softly, wanting to know why she was sleeping there.
She paused for a long while—unsure how much to reveal, unsure where to even begin. Should she tell them about the day her son had brought home a green-eyed girlfriend, about the meal for which she had spent days preparing, on which two weeks’ worth of grocery money had been splurged, for her husband had insisted that they couldn’t let their only son lose face? Should she tell them about how that flaxen-haired woman had wrinkled her thin, hooked nose at the sight of her son’s favourite dishes, had taken only two mouthfuls of food throughout the entire dinner? Should she tell them about how her son had hardly touched his chopsticks, preferring instead to caress the bare arm of the curvy blonde, whom he announced, at the end of the meal, he was going to make his wife? Should she tell them about how they had relocated to America just a month later, and how, until earlier that evening, she hadn’t seen them again?
Or perhaps, she should begin later—tell them about how, a week after their son’s departure, her husband had emptied whatever was left of their joint retirement fund to bring his middle-aged mistress back to the flat that was no longer overcrowded with children. How that brazen woman with her jarring accent had treated the place as her rightful home, and her lover’s wife as their maid. How, in the end, it wasn’t the empty box from which her thin gold wedding band was missing but the stained, scarlet thong on the dining table that had led her to pack her belongings in a black canvas bag and forever leave a life of waiting on others.
“Madam Lim?”
The tender voice of the young lady roused her from her thoughts. “Could you tell us why you’re sleeping here?” she repeated.
On hearing those words, Lim Bee Geok found herself unable to keep from smiling. She gazed at the stranger, felt the warmth in her eyes.
“Because,” Bee Geok finally said, “this is my home.”
UNDER THE SAME SKY
1.
PAUSING BEFORE THE pedestrian crossing from Lau Pa Sat to Hong Leong Building, Yan Ling peers at the invitation on her phone. She wonders if Cherie is also frowning, this very moment, at the garish choice of colour and font bearing the words: 10th Anniversary Celebration. They would have exchanged glances, perhaps even created an inside joke out of it, back in those days of yore. But the blazing sun, directly overhead, reminds her that it’s only midday in Singapore—which means halfway across the world, under the same sky, Cherie is probably still asleep.
Perspiration gathers under Yan Ling’s arms, in the backs of her knees. She imagines Cherie in a warm bed, safe from the winter chill in New York City. At least, according to Cherie’s Instagram account, she appears to be still living there with her husband Michael and their two cats, Plato and Ollie. Cherie hasn’t posted anything in two months, but who can blame her? That dazzling world in which Cherie lives seems light years away from her own.
A long-haired woman in a mustard yellow dress walks into Yan Ling just then, breaking into her thoughts. Without glancing back, the woman mutters something under her breath and continues on her way. Yan Ling grimaces as she rubs her arm. At least her ban mian hasn’t spilled. She glances up and realises that the green pedestrian light is blinking. Remembering the balance sheets she has to reconcile by the end of the day, she puts away her phone and hurries across the street.
Yan Ling feels the relief of air conditioning the moment she steps into One Raffles Quay. As she joins the cluster of office workers waiting in the lift lobby, she wonders if Cherie will attend the reunion. It’s scheduled to take place in July, which is when Cherie occasionally returns home. An odd glimmer of hope blooms in Yan Ling’s chest. A lift door opens. She squeezes in. As the lift brings her up to her balance sheets, she wonders if she herself should accept the invitation. 2.
The first time Yan Ling met Cherie was over two decades ago, on her first day of primary school. Two and a half centimetres taller than Cherie, Yan Ling was standing directly behind her in a wriggling queue of schoolchildren waiting to make their way from the parade square to the classroom. They were all strangers at that point, each brimming with anticipation of their new lives, yet to be written.
To distract herself from her nervousness, Yan Ling stared at the back of Cherie’s head. In contrast to her own hair—short and coarse, barely covering the nape of her neck—smooth, silky strands streamed down Cherie’s shoulders in two neat braids, fastened with navy blue ribbons that perfectly matched the shade of their pinafores. Gazing at the ribbons, Yan Ling wondered what it would be like to live in a home where her mother tied her hair with colour-coordinated ribbons for school. But her daydream lasted only briefly, for someone tapped her on the shoulder, gesturing for her to move forward.
To Yan Ling’s delight, she and Cherie were assigned as table partners. She set down her schoolbag and eagerly fished out her pencil case. It took the form of a pastel yellow rectangle with a magnetic close, adorned with images of Pompompurin—her favourite Sanrio character. It was an unusual choice, given the popularity of other characters like Hello Kitty and My Melody, but that made Yan Ling all the more proud of her taste. She had managed to convince her parents to get it for her by dint of much pleading, and spent the last days putting her stationery items in, taking them out, then putting them in again, repeating the process until she found the best possible permutation for her pencils, eraser and ruler to fit snugly inside.
Grinning, Yan Ling opened her pencil box and picked out a mechanical pencil with a small Pompompurin figure dangling from its tip. She peeked at her table partner and realised that Cherie had done the same. But what made Yan Ling gasp was the sight of the same miniature yellow puppy with its brown beret, dancing from the tip of Cherie’s pencil. When their eyes met, they exchanged a shy smile. In that moment, watching the dimples deepen in Cherie’s pink cheeks, Yan Ling knew they would become the best of friends.
As the weeks passed, the anxiousness that had accompanied Yan Ling on her first day of school slipped away. What took its place was the comfort of having found a firm friend in Cherie. They spent every recess and free period together, and still Yan Ling longed for more. When the March holidays arrived, they visited each other’s homes for the first time, marking the beginning of a routine that would continue long after the holidays ended.
Most of the time, it was Yan Ling who went over to Cherie’s place. While Yan Ling took the school bus home each day, Cherie’s mother would pick her up. On the days that Yan Ling skipped past the school bus to join Cherie in her mother’s gleaming red car, the homemade spread that greeted them when they stepped into Cherie’s bungalow would never fail to amaze her. Baked fish or chicken, roasted vegetables and, almost always, her favourite mashed potatoes. Dishes that would have been out of place on the dining table in Yan Ling’s home, for her mother’s culinary repertoire mostly comprised braised pork belly, chicken curry, steamed pomfret, stir-fried kai lan and egg tofu.
That she preferred spending time at Cherie’s place after school was something Yan Ling didn’t tell her parents. It wasn’t just the luscious sensation of buttery potatoes melting in her mouth. Cherie’s place was much more spacious. There was a garden with a flowering frangipani tree and a beautiful white swing, a collection of rooms ready for any purpose and a wooden stairway that was actually inside her house. It was also always bustling with activity. Unlike Yan Ling, who was an only child, Cherie had two younger brothers who never seemed to tire of chasing each other up and down the stairs of polished wood.
Despite their squabbles, it was clear to Yan Ling that the three siblings shared not only the same dimpled smiles and distinct double eyelids but also a close bond. This was reinforced each time Yan Ling accompanied Cherie to the school bookshop, where her friend would spend the remainder of her pocket money on country flag erasers for her brothers, while Yan Ling’s modest budget would have already been exhausted on food. Sometimes, returning to the quiet of her three-room flat at the end of the day reminded Yan Ling of her futile attempts at begging her parents for a younger sibling of her own.
Yet the more Yan Ling went to Cherie’s place, the more she began to identify a curious pattern: time seemed to flow differently there, as if it were governed by different rules. It was always meal time, bath time, homework time, followed by a break of forty-five minutes for relaxation and play—though the television was never turned on, not even during the June holidays. This tacit timetable that did not bend to mood or impulse was something Cherie never seemed to complain about. Neither did Yan Ling, who found herself finishing her homework much earlier at Cherie’s place than if she had gone back home.
By the time the September holidays arrived, their mothers had become friends too. Yan Ling and Cherie would often exchange playful glances when their mothers struggled to hold a conversation. Their conversations typically oscillated between English and Mandarin, for Yan Ling’s mother, having been educated in a Chinese-medium school growing up, had a scant English vocabulary and spoke predominantly in Mandarin, while Cherie’s mother, who came from an English-speaking background, spoke halting Mandarin. Still, with the aid of their daughters, they would manage to communicate what was essential.
Beyond the amusement they afforded, these incidents reminded Yan Ling of how her parents hadn’t seen the need to give her an English name. Unlike them, Cherie’s mother had decided on her daughter’s name even before her child was conceived. Having become enamoured of a certain movie in her adolescence, she had long resolved to name her future daughter after the beautiful leading actress.
Alone in bed at night, Yan Ling would sometimes whisper her friend’s name under her breath. Cherie. How lovely it sounded, the way the delicate syllables floated effortlessly from her tongue. Her own name, by contrast, felt harsh—each word demanding a tonal precision that their form teacher Mrs Devi couldn’t seem to grasp. Each time Yan Ling responded to the call of her mispronounced name, she found herself wondering what it would be like to also possess a Christian name.
At the end of their third year of primary school, Yan Ling was thrilled to be streamed into the same EM1 class as Cherie. To begin Primary 4 in a new class with new faces wasn’t easy, but Yan Ling and Cherie took comfort in having each other’s company. They spent even more time together, having convinced their mothers to send them to the same tuition and ballet classes outside of school.
Even so, Yan Ling sometimes found herself wishing to go to Sunday school with Cherie. Her own parents were Buddhists, and by extension, on the various forms she had to fill in at school, she recorded her religion as Buddhism. Although her parents often told her that she was free to adopt whichever faith she believed in when she grew up, for now, Yan Ling joined them in their monthly visits to the temple and didn’t give the matter much thought—not until the day she picked up a book on her friend’s bedside table.
It was a Friday afternoon, and Yan Ling had gone to Cherie’s place as usual after school. They had finished lunch and Yan Ling was in the bedroom, waiting for Cherie to be done with her shower, when she spotted the hardcover book: Bible Stories for Children. Curious, she picked it up, turned to the first page and began to read. Before long, Yan Ling discovered that its pages contained wonderful, eye-opening stories. The Story of Creation. The Tower of Babel. David and Goliath. Each one was more riveting than the next.
So enraptured was Yan Ling by these stories that she failed to realise that Cherie was already done with her shower and had been calling out to her. It was then when she learnt that her friend read and discussed these stories at Sunday school, which she got to attend with her brothers every week. A knot of yearning tugged at Yan Ling’s chest, but it took four years before she stepped beyond the boundaries of her own religion to venture towards Cherie’s.
By then, having blown out one tall and four short candles on their birthday cakes, Yan Ling and Cherie had both become fully-fledged teenagers. Their comparable academic aptitude and grades, coupled with a sustained stroke of luck, had allowed them to be placed in the same secondary school, in the same class. Unlike Cherie and her brothers, who continued to follow their mother to church each week, Yan Ling no longer went to the temple with her parents as often as she did before. Still, she probably wouldn’t have considered going to church had it not been for Cherie, who suggested that Yan Ling join her and her family for a service.
The day it happened was an otherwise unremarkable one. Yan Ling and Cherie had just stepped out of a gruelling afternoon of physics tuition, feeling ravenous. Fifteen minutes later, they were seated at a corner table of a Japanese fast food restaurant that Cherie had recently taken a liking to. After interlacing her fingers and saying the requisite grace, Cherie split her wooden chopsticks apart and brought a mouthful of sliced beef, onions and rice to her lips—all with an unconcealed impatience that made Yan Ling suppress a smile. Under the table, she rubbed her chopsticks together to remove the splinters.
Glancing at Yan Ling’s still untouched salmon bowl, Cherie said, “Ling, you haven’t eaten beef before, right?”
She shook her head, feeling a flush spread across her cheeks.
“I still can’t believe you haven’t,” her friend said, chewing on the meat that had felt forbidden to Yan Ling all her life. “It’s so good, I can’t imagine living without it.”
She shrugged, having never hankered after its taste. Balancing her chopsticks in one hand, she stared at the pieces of breaded salmon in her bowl, which suddenly seemed unappealing. “Actually,” she said, “I don’t mind trying it.”
Cherie’s face lit up with impish delight. “Seriously?” she said, already piling her spoon with curled slivers of greyish brown meat. A grin dimpled her fair, flawless cheeks.
Yan Ling took the spoon from her. It was no big deal, she told herself. Her parents had said that she was free to subscribe to whichever religion she chose, so she shouldn’t feel obliged to follow their dietary restrictions too. But as she brought the curled slivers to her mouth, the thought that this was something from which she had abstained for over fourteen years, alongside her parents, made her waver.
“Are you sure it’s okay?” Cherie asked, sensing her hesitation.
