ONE SUMMER MORNING, SING receives a visitor at the house. He greets her, “Big Sister Fong,” then remains standing until she’s seated. He offers her tea, which she accepts.

The living room is dim in the mornings. A lazy fly darts off the dining table. Fong sits in silence, waiting until the flask and cups have been set out. She notices the cups are cracked with use; strings of etched ghost leaves cling to their sides. She remembers these were a common design when she was a girl. At one point she’d had a set of six herself, but her husband had managed to break too many of them over the years. She must have replaced them. There is something touching and pitiful, she decides, about the way Sing hasn’t thought to buy new ones.

“Ah Sing,” she says, “this house must be a lot of work for one person. How do you find the time?”

Sing smiles a little. “Aside from letters and fishes, Big Sister Fong, I have little else to distract me.”

He pours tea into his visitor’s cup, then into his own. Steam ribbons upwards. Fong casts her gaze around the dark room, at the heavy, carved armchairs and the cabinets crammed with books and newspapers. It feels to her like a mausoleum.

“I’m sure your father would be touched that you’ve kept up the house so…faithfully,” she says.

“Thank you.”

“Most people expected you to run for election after he passed. He was a good village chief, but we all know how much you helped him.”

Sing lays a finger on the rim of his cup. Fong brushes her fingertips against hers. “Ah! Ah!” she says, blowing on her hand.

“I’m sorry,” says Sing. “I didn’t think it would be too hot.”

“Really,” she says. She blows into the top of her cup and tries another sip. Still too hot. She smiles at her host.

“Let us talk frankly,” she says. “You know my cousin has come back.

“I do.”

“Three days now.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you want to see her? To know how she is?”

“It’s been years.”

“Exactly. Sing, let the past be past. For both your sakes.”

There is something like a sudden deflation of the air between them.

“She’s barely left the house since she returned.” Fong’s voice is softer now. “She recognizes her mistakes. If you want her, you may come by this evening for dinner. Make your intentions known then. There is no risk of disappointment, I can assure you.”

A ring has been placed on the table between the two cups. It is gold, with a thick band of diamonds in the middle. Fong extends her finger and nudges it towards him.