Now, as Keung drove us back towards Kowloon, Vivienne admitted tearfully to me that she felt responsible for my father’s ulcer, and the ulcer before that. I said nothing to reassure her. She was in one of those moods where she wanted to indulge in her guilt. However, I knew that my father would never in fact give her full credit for the ulcer, would likely attribute it instead to the general stress of having to yell at his employees every day. He was a yeller, my father. He yelled at people’s foolishness, at their lack of initiative, their blazing incompetence. He yelled when he didn’t get his way. Nagging women, a badly made chair—these things also made him yell. But he never yelled at me.

Although the store was overwhelmed with Christmas shoppers, the young male clerk remained in sole attendance to us—to her—pulling out trays of gold, silver, diamonds. Vivienne stood tall and erect, a red cashmere shawl draped over her elegant cream suit. She frowned and shook her head at the clerk’s offerings, an unhappy queen. Now and then I wandered off into the crowd or to different parts of the store in an attempt to alleviate my boredom (and to make my boredom known to Vivienne). But before too long I would be on tiptoe, peering over shoulders to see if she needed me.

Unlike most of the girls I knew, I took an odd sort of pride in making myself look as basic and graceless as possible. (That morning I’d slouched down the stairs in a wrinkled Clash t-shirt and a grubby pair of jeans. Vivienne had pressed her lips together and exhaled thinly before summoning herself to a state of acceptance. “Are you sure you’ll be warm enough?” was all she would say.) I didn’t care for pretty things, but there was something about the diamond swans in one of the display cabinets in the store. I pressed my fingertips against the glass and watched the cluster of cygnets turning slowly on the carousel. I fixed on their hard, diamond bodies, trying to push my gaze to their center, but they were too densely cut, their infinite passages and dispersions of light too complex for the human eye. I was jealous of light.

“AUDREY! AUDREY MA! OVER HERE!”

Heads turned, startled smiles. Vivienne had a penetrating soprano voice that had once filled opera houses. In a past life she had been a Musetta, a Cio-Cio San, and a Turandot. Now she was just Vivienne. Head low, frowning, I walked over to her with my hands shoved into my pockets.

“Audrey, you have a good eye. Tell me what you think of these.”