Chapter 23: The Last Petal

The ninety thousand yuan arrived in her account at eleven the next morning, with a note from the finance clerk that said only: Sorry it took so long.

Wanning looked at it for a minute and then put the phone in a drawer.

That evening Ji Suwen came up the stairs of Building Six with a sewing basket on one arm and her glasses on a cord.

"Bring the cloth down," she said. "Not far. Over the back of the couch."

"Auntie, it's tacked to the wall."

"Then bring the tacks as well."

Hanzhou took the four brass tacks out one by one with his fingertips.

He laid the red silk over the arm of the couch where the lamp fell.

The two ducks swam under the lotus. In the corner, the last petal was still bare red cloth.

Ji Suwen opened her basket and laid out a hank of thread.

It was old silk thread, gone soft, the colour of a ripe persimmon.

"Your grandmother's is gone," she said. "This is from my mother's trunk. It is close."

Wanning picked up the needle.

Her hand was not quite steady.

"I've never embroidered anything," she said. "I watched her do it for four winters. I never once asked her to teach me."

"Then she was waiting to be asked. Thread it."

She threaded it on the third try.

She put the needle through the silk where her grandmother's last stitch ended, a small gold knot of thread in the corner.

It went in cleanly.

It came out where it should have.

"Again," said Ji Suwen, sitting beside her with her own needle and a spare piece of cloth. "Short stitches. Don't rush the curve."

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