Granny Ng learned that people had come to the tent village for different reasons. Some had lost their homes during the last financial crisis. Many of the men in their late forties and fifties were construction workers who’d been laid off and couldn’t find steady work.

Miss Kwan was one of the newer residents. She’d lost her sales job at a securities firm three months before, though she’d been able to keep the news from her parents, who had emigrated to Canada several years prior. For the past three months, on the last Thursday of each month, Miss Kwan would put on her old work suit and walk over to the other side of the park for a standing lunch date with an old classmate. Her friend, who managed a cosmetics store, would be waiting on a bench by the koi pond. She and her friend took turns treating each other. Miss Kwan had to save for three weeks in order to buy two rice box lunches from their favorite restaurant. She’d never finish her meal, claiming she was full, or that she was trying to lose weight, but the truth was that she was keeping half of her lunch box for her evening meal. Afterwards, she would return to her tent, slip her work suit into its plastic cover, and put it carefully away until the next time.

Granny Ng got the scoop on her neighbors from Kitty, who happily volunteered details of their life stories, though she would get vague when it came to Uncle Chow.

“He lost his job at a hotel, a good one I think, but no one really knows the details. He makes a bit here and there nowadays by repairing electrical items—radios, lamps, clocks, that kind of thing. We’re not even sure how long he’s been here. Find the oldest, longest-standing resident and they’ll tell you Uncle Chow was already here and running things when they arrived.”

Granny Ng found it odd that Kitty knew so little about her friend. Then again, despite several weeks of confidences, Kitty had yet to tell Granny Ng her own story of coming to live in the tent village. She’d once mentioned a husband, but Granny Ng sensed her reluctance to elaborate. And while she tried to ignore the casual gossip from some of her fellow villagers—the husband was a drinker, a gambler, a wife-beater—she couldn’t help but invest in a version of Kitty’s past, one filled with adversity, suffering, and courage. This led to a newfound appreciation of her friend’s cheerful efficiency and eagerness to help, which at first, she had to admit, she had rather taken for granted and at times even found a little intrusive. Whatever the case, it seemed to Granny Ng that Kitty was content there, and this inspired in her the possibility that she could be, too.