Nelson’s hair now reached his shoulders in wild, thick waves. His cheekbones had sharpened, and his skin was several shades darker—the kind of leathery, rawboned tan that came from working or sleeping outdoors. He was, however, still handsome enough to stir some light envy in Mayling. When they would visit relatives in Hong Kong, their parents would often joke, “Mayling got the meat and potatoes. Nelson got the gravy,” meaning that Mayling had brains and common sense while her brother had the looks and charm. But he had more than that. Mayling used to think of him as a magician, able to alchemize the sad, angry air around the dinner table into embarrassed smiles or eruptions of unexpected laughter in a way that she never could. She knew she didn’t have the imagination or the courage for it. When they were children, Mayling, three years older, was regularly tasked with tracking down her brother, who had a habit of tottering off in department stores with gaggles of cooing teenage girls. Come dinner time, he was often nowhere to be found. No amount of scolding or explaining could convince Nelson that it wasn’t all a game of hide-and-seek to which Mayling was a willing accomplice. Once she spent almost an hour searching the neighborhood before finding him napping in a neighbor’s tree house. Mayling had slung Nelson over her back like a sack of coal and carried him home, not minding too much his small fist pulling the neck of her t-shirt out of shape or the cold, spreading drool patch on her shoulder.

They were not that close as they grew older. Mayling excelled academically and eventually earned a scholarship to law school. Nelson sailed through high school with a freewheeling, kamikaze agility, delighting in finding common ground with the most fearsome jocks, the most misunderstood loners, and almost everyone else in between. Nelson had been voted class president without having actually run two years in a row; on both occasions, he graciously declined. He finished senior year with his own fan club, a group of besotted sophomore girls who called themselves “the Chanatics” and left pot cookies, love letters, and underwear in his locker. He took the cookies and left the underwear and the letters.