“Okay, yeah, I get what you’re saying. Luck had a lot to do with it, but you had to be a strong violinist in order to make success out of the opportunity. Not everyone could have done that,” I say, hoping cool logic will help her feel better. “And I don’t know anyone else who would have spoken to that music stand. That’s all you.”

She makes a half-laughing, half-sobbing sound. “That’s my true claim to fame—talking to things that aren’t alive.” Pushing away from me, she wipes a sleeve across her face. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess. This can’t be fun for you.” She takes a breath and puts on a smile that’s bright and happy. It’s so convincing that I can’t tell it’s fake, and that’s kind of terrifying.

“I didn’t come here to have fun. I just wanted to be with you,” I tell her. “I don’t need you to pretend to be anything other than what you are, even if you’re sad.”

Her smile immediately fades, but she takes my hand in hers and holds it to her chest, over her heart, as fresh tears track down her face and her chin wobbles. She doesn’t say anything, but I understand what she means.

I kiss her temple and her cheek, wipe her tears away with my fingers, trying to comfort her, trying to let her know that I care. She turns toward me so our lips meet, and the kiss is slow and aches with feeling. It says the things I didn’t say earlier.

You’re a big deal—to me. You’re amazing—to me.

This yearning for her, this craving, it’s sunk so deep into me that it’s part of me now. This is how Quan is now. He’s crazy about this one girl.

There’s a loud clanging as something hits the floor, and we both turn toward the sound. Anna’s mom stares at us in her floral-print old-lady pajamas, her short hair standing up all over like she just rolled out of bed. On the floor, sitting on its side in a small pool of water, is a large metal cup, the insulated kind that keeps things hot or cold for hours.

“Hi, Ma,” Anna says before she rushes to get a towel and clean up the mess while her mom watches without moving. “You’re up early.”

I smile at Anna’s mom like I wasn’t just caught kissing her daughter and kind of bow my head without saying anything. I don’t know how to address her. “Mrs. Sun” feels too formal, but even if I knew her name—which I don’t—I wouldn’t feel comfortable using it. She’s at the same level as my mom, and calling my mom by her name is the kind of disrespectful thing that would get me smacked in the mouth.

“Are you hungry? Quan brought food from his mom’s restaurant. I’ll heat it up for you,” Anna says quickly.

“Not yet.” Her mom finally moves and walks over to the island by the fridges and peeks inside the boxes. “From your mom?” she asks me in surprise.

“Yeah, the wontons freeze really well,” I say. “When you want to eat them, you just boil them until they float.”

“Tell her thank you for us, please,” Anna’s mom says, looking genuinely touched.

“Sure, she’ll—”

A shout from the other side of the house interrupts me. “Anna, I need help pulling Dad up.”

Anna sets her mom’s freshly washed metal cup on the table and hurries off. “Be right back.”

I can’t stand around doing nothing, so I start sorting through the food that didn’t make it into the fridges. “Priscilla said there’s another fridge in the garage. I’ll take this out there if you show me the way.”

“No, no, leave it there. I’ll take care of it.” Anna’s mom shoos me away from the boxes with her hands. Giving me a considering look, she asks, “Quan. How do you spell that?”

Immediately, I know she’s not asking because she wants to write me a letter someday. She wants to know where my parents came from and thinks she can guess it from the spelling of my name.

“Q-U-A-N. It’s Vietnamese,” I say, making it easy for her, and though she nods and smiles, I can tell that wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear. I’m the wrong variety of Asian for her daughter. We’re really not all the same.

Anna returns to the kitchen. “Priscilla wants to give my dad a bath, and I should help.”

“I’ll get going, then,” I say. I’ve only been here about an hour and it took just as long to get here, but I know when I shouldn’t hang around.

Her forehead wrinkles with worry. “Are you sure—”

“It’s no problem.” I squeeze her hand once so she knows I mean it, but when I sense her mom is watching us closely, and disapproving, I let her go.

“It was good to see you,” I tell her mom before Anna walks me back to the front door, where we stand in the doorway, not ready to part yet.

“Text me when you get home?” she says.

That makes me smile. “Yeah, okay.”

“Is that a clingy-girlfriend kind of thing to ask?”

“I don’t think so, but maybe I like clingy girlfriends,” I say. Whatever kind of girlfriend Anna is, that’s the kind I like. “Good night.” I kiss her mouth once, just once, and words—I don’t know where they came from—catch in my mouth, wanting to be freed. I don’t let them go, though. They’re scary.

“Drive safe.” She touches my face wistfully, and I leave the house and return to my car.

Once I start the engine, I sit there a moment, thinking about the words that I almost said. I’m glad I held them back, but not because I don’t feel them. I do feel them. I just don’t think Anna is ready to hear them.

I need to win her family over first.

TWENTY-THREE

Anna

AS PRISCILLA SCRUBS OUR DAD’S FEET WITH A SOAPY WASH cloth, I shave the shady-looking mustache and beard from his face with an electric razor. I’m not good at this. I keep worrying he’ll breathe in his shavings, so I wipe his mouth repeatedly. I can tell he doesn’t like it. He keeps grimacing and trying to turn away from me, and it feels like I’m torturing him.

“Are you sure we need to do this?” I ask.

“Yes,” Priscilla says in the brusque, annoyed tone that she often uses with me. “Stop being a baby and get it done. He hates it because you take too long.”

“Sorry, Daddy,” I whisper as I shave the last bit of hair from his upper lip and then wipe it away.

Our mom enters the room, her favorite cup in hand, steam rising from the hot tea, and sits on the sofa close to our dad’s bed.

“What happened to Julian?” she asks.

Before I can answer, Priscilla does—in Cantonese, so I have no idea what she’s saying. Judging by our mom’s face as she absorbs the information and the tone of her voice as she replies, she doesn’t like what she heard.

“It’s an open relationship, Ma. People are doing it these days,” Priscilla says, switching to English for my benefit.

“Julian wanted this? An … open relationship?” our mom asks in disbelief.

I nod and quietly finish shaving our dad’s chin.

“And what does this Quan do for work?” she asks.

“He started an apparel company with his cousin.”