I held Mother’s hand and looked at Hilary. Her hair was long like mine but cut just below her shoulders. It was jet black, slightly darker than mine. We were the same height, our foreheads and eyes meeting perfectly. She was wearing a purple T-shirt that read Coconut Joe and a pair of jean shorts with Keds sneakers. I was wearing a white T-shirt that said Mountain View and khaki shorts with flip-flops. She eyed me the same way I looked at her, with awe. It was like looking into a mirror. I had never felt this way before. There were a few other Asian girls in town, but most of them were younger than me. I didn’t have any friends at school.

I once had a friend named Caroline Anderson, from grade one until grade three. The other girls teased her, calling her “old man” because her hair was short and so blond it looked white. Caroline didn’t care what people thought of her. That was what I liked about her the most. And she didn’t care that I was Chinese. I wished I could have been more like Caroline, but the things people said and did stuck to me like glue. I could still feel the stickiness, like unwanted tree sap that I couldn’t get off my skin or clothes.

Caroline lived next door to us in Sparwood Heights. She taught me how to skip rope and play hopscotch, and she had so many board games that we never grew bored. Caroline only had a dad and never once mentioned her mother. There was one picture of her in Caroline’s house. She was in a swimsuit, sitting on a large rock at the edge of a river, holding baby Caroline in her arms. The picture was in a frame on the mantel.

Because Mr Anderson had to work different shifts, some days there was a teenage babysitter named Wendy at the house. On those days, Wendy would drive us to the rec centre and get us in for free because she was a lifeguard there. She always winked at the boys at the front counter. When her babysitter wasn’t available, Caroline ended up at our place. Her father would buy us a few groceries on his day off to say thank you. My parents thought he was a kind man, even though he brought strange things we didn’t eat, like Pop-Tarts and Eggo waffles. Mother started eating Eggos a lot after Mr Anderson brought them for us.

Caroline was one of the few non-Asian people to eat dinner with us. She loved our food, which pleased my mother. Sometimes Caroline would bring leftovers for her dad, but he never ate them, and she never told Mother. Caroline said it was better this way because she got to eat all the leftovers herself.

One day, Caroline told me that her father got a new job in Penticton, where her aunt lived. She was moving. She explained that her father wanted to live closer to his sister, who offered to help out with Caroline. We promised to write to one another, and our families pledged to make trips to Penticton and Sparwood. We wrote a few letters back and forth, and Caroline sent me a friendship bracelet she’d made with glass seed beads. I treasured that bracelet, wore it often, and kept it in my ballerina jewellery box. Over time, the letters started coming less frequently.