Mom placed more shrimp on my plate, then added water spinach, telling me I needed to eat some vegetables. Another steamer basket was delivered, this one filled with shrimp-and-chive dumplings, the green flecks visible through the translucent wrapper. Mom dipped the dumplings in chili oil and ate them delicately.

I remembered going to dim sum with her in New York. I remembered huge, loud restaurants packed with Chinese diners, and the carts pushed between tables by old Chinese women, steam rising when they opened the lids on their stacks of bamboo baskets. Mom always ordered shrimp dumplings for her and pork buns for me.

Her ring sparkled as she lifted her teacup and took another sip. As she put it down, she said, without looking at me, “I should have been there for you when you had that situation with your boyfriend.”

I was disoriented by the change of subject. And then I realized she meant Jacob. “He wasn’t my boyfriend,” I said.

She looked at me sharply. “He wasn’t?”

I shouldn’t have said that. “It doesn’t matter. It’s fine.”

She laid her chopsticks across the rim of her plate. “Who was he?” she demanded.

This tone I understood. We were back on familiar ground. “It doesn’t matter,” I repeated crisply. I gave up on my chopsticks and picked up the fork.

She shook her head. “I should have taught you better. I’ve been too busy with my own life. Were you trying to get my attention? You can’t do that with strange boys—”

“I didn’t do it to get your attention! And he wasn’t a stranger. I didn’t think he would do what he did.”

“That’s your biggest mistake—you didn’t think! You need to think before you act.”

“It’s not my fault,” I snapped.

I had said the same thing to her over the phone on the morning of graduation. She’d called while Dad and I were driving to the high school, and just when I thought she was going to express regret over missing my graduation, she said, “You need to be on your best behavior today. Don’t give them anything else to talk about.”

After I told her it wasn’t my fault, I hung up on her. She hadn’t called back.

“You chose to be with that boy,” she said now. “What made you trust him? You need to learn some judgment. You should be with someone who appreciates you for your mind, not your body.”

I stabbed one of the shrimp dumplings with my fork, but I couldn’t bring myself to take a bite. “You don’t understand,” I muttered.