Severance

After finishing their business in Shenzhen, Blythe and Candace head to Hong Kong, where “the only things you can really do […] are eat and shop” (99). Candace shops fanatically, purchasing luxury clothing and high-end skincare. She visits a night market alone, where she is overwhelmed by nostalgia, revealing that there was a two-year gap between her parents’ emigration to America and when she joined them at age six. During those intervening years her uncle and aunt would often take her out to night markets.

Candace finds a stall selling spirit money, gold-foil imprinted bills that are burned as offerings to the dead to ensure they have what they need in the afterlife. Candace has never burned spirit money for her parents. She suddenly feels guilty thinking of them going “unhoused and hungry” (104) and purchases a stack of bills. On returning to New York, Candace burns not only the spirit money but also magazine pages depicting luxury items, wanting to give her parents “more than they knew what to do with, even in eternity” (106).

In the post-apocalypse, Candace is awake late in her tent, listening to Ashley, Evan, and Janelle talking by the fire. Although she likes them, Candace feels shut out by their closeness.