Do Not Say We Have Nothing

Marie sold the apartment she grew up in, bought a “dilapidated apartment” by a shipping port in Vancouver, and gave herself over to studying mathematics (191) to finish her PhD. After several job offers, she chose to teach in Vancouver, obsessing over the loss of her mother and Ai-Ming.

Two years later, at 27, Marie visited Hong Kong for the first time. She spent all her time partying, living a life she had long forsaken for study. On the last day, she sought out the apartment window her father had jumped from, but couldn’t bring herself to ask the current tenants to let her in. She then tried to access her father’s official file, but found it would take weeks to retrieve it. After that, she tried to find his cemetery plot but that was another dead end. Marie left Hong Kong feeling completely out of sorts in her own life.

A month later, back in Canada, Marie received all her father’s official documents and leftover belongings. She read the letters, the autopsy, and a piece of music Sparrow had composed for him. After a while, Marie asked a trusted colleague, Yasunari, to arrange for her to hear the music Sparrow wrote for her father.