Chapter 1: The Echo of a Ghost
The phone on the mahogany nightstand pulsed—a soft, steady throb that seemed, to Lucy Lawson, like a pulse.
It was 3:14 AM. The air in her modest Singapore flat was still, carrying a faint scent of cooled chamomile and the lavender essence she had dabbed on her temples in a futile bid for slumber. For three months, that vibration had been her mainstay, her signal, and her nightly plea. It was the signal from"Mark."
Mark, with the warm gaze in his display picture—a gentle hazel that appeared to crinkle with sincere warmth. He was the gentleman who recited Neruda mid-afternoon during a downpour, who sent her recordings of the heavy showers in London since he knew how much she favoured the sound of running water. He was the fellow who assured her that once his father’s"urgent procedure" and the regulatory"financial hold" on his family assets were lifted, he’d be on the earliest jet to Changi Airport to commence their shared existence. He had even forwarded her images of airfare rates. He had inquired if she preferred hydrangeas or roses for the dwelling they might eventually occupy.
With hesitant hands, Lucy slid the screen. Her eyes, crimson-edged and smarting from hours of gazing into the blackness, adjusted to the stark, sterile azure glare of the display.
Mark: Lucy, my beloved. The operation was successful, yet the clinic retains the release forms until the final $50,000 is satisfied. I am standing in this corridor, and the overhead bulbs feel as though they are searing my epidermis. If I fail to remit payment by sunrise, they will relocate him to a public facility. He is frail, Lucy. He won't last the night there. I am embarrassed to request this. You have given so much. You have been my anchor. But you are the sole person globally whom I trust. I implore you. For our tomorrows. For him.
Lucy sensed a chilling sensation traverse her spine, an instinctual, primitive caution she had been holding back for weeks. It was a tactile tingle at the nape of her neck, the kind one feels upon recognizing a stranger has trailed you for several blocks.
$50,000.
It was precisely the remaining sum in her"New Residence" savings—the inheritance her late mother bequeathed after an arduous struggle with sickness. Her mother’s final utterances had been a faint aspiration for Lucy to finally"cease renting and establish firm footing," to possess a space where no landlord could mandate her departure. It was more than capital; it was her mother’s ultimate safeguard.
She observed the correspondence thread, moving upward with a thumb that felt unresponsive. Thousands of messages. “Morning, darling. The world is brighter since you are in it.” “I'm picturing your smile this evening. I can almost detect your fragrance.” “Just a few more weeks, Lucy. Just a few more obstacles, and I’ll be holding your hand.”
The"odd" impression—that disquieting prickle where something lovely starts to resemble a facade, where a human likeness begins to look like varnished china—was startling her now. But affection is a potent painkiller. It dulls the reasoning circuits of the mind. It fosters a narrow focus where only the remittance of the person on the other end of the line matters.
If she withheld the funds, and his father perished, she would be a culprit in her own psyche. If she withheld the funds, the $80,000 she had already transmitted over the last couple of months—the"administrative charges" and the"initial clinic down payments"—would be wasted. Stopping now meant conceding that the gentleman she adored, the one who knew her favoured childhood novel and her preference for coffee preparation, did not exist.
