The circumstances of Denny Tran’s death were so violent that most people in Cabramatta were too spooked to attend his funeral. At least that’s how it seemed to his big sister, Ky. The funeral hall had been all but empty— her dead seventeen- year- old brother lay in the glossy closed casket; her parents and a few relatives kneeled next to a blown- up photo of a grinning Denny; and a Buddhist monk chanted prayers in exchange for lunch.
The only non- family in attendance were Denny’s high school teachers, who huddled together big- eyed and confused by the lack of seating and eulogies. At the wake, they stood in the doorway to her family’s narrow townhouse, still holding the flowers and signed cards they’d brought to the funeral (no one had told them that Vietnamese families take cash), and waved at Ky like they were getting a waiter’s attention.
“Hi, Ky!” Mr. Dickson said in a voice that was too cheerful for the occasion, his mouth stretched wide in what appeared to be an effort to correctly pronounce her name. He’d always called her Kai, even though she’d corrected him in year eight when she sat in his math class four times a week. “Keeee,” she’d said, her voice small, “like a key that unlocks a door.”
Maybe it was amnesia, but every time he read the class roster, she became Kai again, and after a third correction, she gave up. Kee. Kai. Whatever.
“Hey,” Ky said, rushing to clear a spot on the coffee table for the flowers.
She could feel the teachers’ eyes scan her parents’ living room, identifying everything that was familiar to them (Panasonic television, years- old McDonald’s Happy Meal toys on top of the VCR, Ky’s framed university degree, photos of Denny winning Highest Academic Achievement four years in a row), and everything that was unfamiliar (the ancestral altar that featured black- and- white photos of her unsmiling dead grandparents, a bright red calendar hanging above the television reminding them that 1996 was the year of the rat, a doorway full of shoes). The other teachers, whom Ky recognized as Ms. Faulkner and Ms. Buck, continued to study the room, smiling at Ky’s younger cousins, one of whom grimaced in response.
“Are your parents around?” Mr. Dickson asked.
“Mum’s in the kitchen.”
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