As far as Peixuan was concerned, I was a member of Grandpa’s family, and therefore she had a duty to keep me from drifting away. Our only real contact in all this time was five years ago, when she phoned me late at night from the States, crying so hard I could barely understand her. Grandma was dead, she said. She was coming back for the funeral—would I go too? But I refused. After that, her emails went back to just the facts: she’d finished her PhD, now she was teaching. Same closing line as before, minus and Grandma. Then this summer, she emailed to say she was coming back to Beijing for a while.

We met at a café in the city center. She had a gym-honed body and her skin was as pale as ever, almost inhuman. I was shocked to see how prominent the scar on her face was—I hadn’t seen her since her injury. I’d heard she’d had a fall. It was hard to believe—I’d always been the one getting scraped knees and lacerated arms. Remember how she was always scared of heights? When we were playing and she came to make us come home, all we had to do was climb the wall around Dead Man’s Tower, and there was no way she could follow.

The scar extended a full five centimeters, from the right side of her mouth down to her jawbone. It dozed when she was silent, then as soon as she started speaking, it came to life and wiggled like a centipede. I felt for her. She’d always been so certain of her path, this must have been the only thing in her life that hadn’t gone to plan.

Peixuan told me a TV station was producing a documentary about Grandpa’s life, and she was back in the country to help with the research, contacting and interviewing people who knew him. She hoped that, as his other granddaughter, I would take part too.

“Just talk a little about living with him as a child. Nothing difficult.”

“I don’t remember anything,” I said.

“You must! Think about it.”

“Nope. Nothing.”

“Is this about your dad? That wasn’t all Grandpa’s fault …”

“No, that’s not why.”

“He wasn’t perfect, but …”

“I have to go.”

She sighed and signaled for the bill.

Afterwards, she kept phoning. I’d just broken up with some guy I hadn’t been seeing for long, and needed to move out of his house urgently. When I told Peixuan I was looking for a place, she suggested I share the service apartment she’d rented for a couple of months. I said yes because I needed somewhere to be, but also there were things I needed to tell her.