Tracy places her hand over mine and runs both of them over her mother’s bruised wrist — a dark mound between seven gold bangles. “You feel it?” she asks.

Two hallways down from the casket room, Grandma Lanh is sitting on the rim of a blue cushioned bench and pointing her finger at my eight-year-old cousin’s face. She is lecturing him about something and he, looking straight at her, seems especially attentive. After a few nods, he runs toward me.

“Grandma wants to go home,” he says. He slaps the bill onto my right palm. “Says she can pay more if twenty isn’t enough.”

I walk down the hall to where the old woman sits. “The first monk hasn’t even arrived yet, Grandma.”

“I can’t stay,” she says. “They don’t want me here. And the energy in this place is not good.”

“It’s a funeral home,” I say.

“In Vietnam, people used to ask me for help. They needed me.”

“Everyone’s upset.” I say. “Auntie Men just passed away.”

She looks up at me. “I thought I was doing good with the jade. I thought I was helping.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t,” she says. “You of all people should know. But you don’t.”

As children, every time my cousins and I heard strange noises at night, we’d crawl under a blanket and lock fingers, and then, I would recite the Lord’s Prayer. After, I would say, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to leave!” And if that didn’t calm our nerves, I’d add, “The power of Christ compels you, the power of Christ compels you!” just like Father Damian did in The Exorcist.

Besides exorcisms, I got all kinds of requests from aunts and uncles.