The Ledger of Lost Things

The air inside the funeral parlor was a physical weight, thick with the cloying, medicinal heat of sandalwood incense and the damp, metallic rot of old paper. Elaine Chen pulled her blazer tighter, the sharp, synthetic fabric of her corporate attire feeling like a costume in a play she had spent a decade trying to quit. Around her, the room was a gallery of averted eyes and hushed, rapid-fire Cantonese that died the moment she moved. She didn’t belong in these pews, and the neighborhood knew it. To them, she was the daughter who had traded the family’s shipping ledgers for a glass-walled office in Midtown—the outsider who had finally come home, but only to strip the bones clean.

“You are late,” a voice clipped, cutting through the low murmu

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