“How exactly are you related?” I asked.

“He’s a distant cousin. Eddie and his family live out by Livermore. They don’t come into the city much these days. Oh, I almost forgot—he sent me something to give to you.” She opened her purse, but soon frowned. “I must have left it in the hotel room. You’ll have to come back with me after lunch. Remember I told you one of your Chinese cousins was an engineer? He sent some photos of her.”

We crossed some cable car tracks and continued downhill toward the Transamerica building and into Chinatown. It was strange to imagine anyone from the Chinese half of my family living here. I wondered what it would have been like to grow up in Chinatown.

The driver turned left onto a block lined with streetlamps shaped like miniature pagodas. It was crowded with cars and pedestrians, and strings of red lanterns hung overhead. We passed shops selling souvenirs and cheap T-shirts, handbags by the dozen, and jewelry stores displaying gold on red velvet cushions. Finally, the car turned right and pulled over, double-parking outside the Great Eastern Restaurant.

“Here we are,” Mom said. “Eddie recommended this place.”

I climbed out, and the smell of Chinatown was so familiar: fried noodles, roast duck, and the hint of bitter herbs. All Chinatowns seemed to smell the same, whether I was in Boston or New York or here.

Mom finished paying for the Uber on her phone and headed for the restaurant. I followed her in.

We were seated at a round table for eight, but because the restaurant was only half full, we had the table to ourselves. Mom ordered chrysanthemum tea, and it appeared within seconds, along with thick vinyl menus and a long dim sum card and pencil. She reached out to pour the tea with her left hand, holding it with a kind of showy grace, and I couldn’t help but notice the giant diamond on her ring finger.

She saw my surprise, and she said, “Andrew proposed.” An uncharacteristic flash of nervousness crossed her face. “That’s part of the reason I wanted to see you in person, so that I could tell you.”

I didn’t know what to say. She’d had a string of boyfriends since she and my dad divorced, but she had never remarried. I thought she’d never marry again, but now that seemed like a childish fantasy based on romantic notions about my parents’ relationship. Andrew Leung was her most recent boyfriend; they’d been together for a little more than a year. He was a Hong Kong Chinese banker who divided his time between New York, Hong Kong, and Geneva, and I’d only met him once—last New Year’s Eve in New York. He was, as far as I knew, the first Chinese man my mother had been in a relationship with.