Rich People Problems-Kwan 2017 (WWT)

“Hi, Jiayi. We’d like some drinks. Can we have two vodka martinis on the rocks?”
“Extra olives, please,” Peik Lin added.
—
Nick walked down the pathway past the lily pond, entering the deepest part of the woods
in the northwest section of the property. When he was a boy, this was the area of the
estate he never dared to venture into, probably because one of the old Malay servants
from ages past had told him this was where all the tree spirits lived, and they should be
left undisturbed.
A bird high in one of the trees made a strange, piercing call that Nick had never heard
before, and he looked up into the thick foliage, trying to spot what it was. Suddenly a blur
of white flickered past his eyes, startling him for a second. Collecting himself, he saw it
again, something white and shiny on the other side of a grove of trees. He crept slowly
toward the trees, and as the bushes cleared, he saw the figure of Ah Ling facing a large
tembusu tree, clutching a few joss sticks. As she prayed and bowed from the waist
repeatedly, the smoke from the joss sticks wafted around her, and her white blouse would
shimmer as it caught the rays of sunlight filtering through the low-hanging branches.
When Ah Ling was finished with her prayers, she took the joss sticks and stuck them
inside an old Milo can that had been placed in the hollow of the bark. She turned around
and smiled when she caught sight of Nick.
“I didn’t know you came out here to pray. I always thought you did your prayers in the
garden behind the service wing,” Nick said.
“I go to different places to pray. This is my special tree, when I really want my prayers
to be answered,” Ah Ling said in Cantonese.
“If you don’t mind me asking, who do you pray to here?”
“Sometimes to ancestors, sometimes to the Monkey God, and sometimes to my
mother.”
It occurred to Nick that Ah Ling had seen her mother less than a dozen times since she
had moved to Singapore as a teenager. Suddenly the memory of one day from his
childhood came rushing back. He remembered going into Ah Ling’s bedroom and seeing
her stuff a suitcase full of things—McVitie’s Digestive Biscuits, Rowntree’s sweets, packs
of Lux soap, a few cheap plastic toys—and when he asked her what these were for, Ah
Ling told him they were gifts for her family. She was going back to China for a month to
visit them. Nick had thrown a tantrum, not wanting her to go.
Decades had passed since that day, but now Nick stood in the middle of a forest with
his nanny overwhelmed with guilt. This was a woman who had dedicated nearly her
entire life to serving his family, leaving her own parents and siblings behind in China and
only seeing them once every few years when she had saved up enough to go back. Ah
Ling, Ah Ching the head chef, Jacob the gardener, Ahmad the chauffeur, all these people
had served his family for most of their lives. This was their home, and now they were
about to lose it too. Now he was letting them all down.