June is the last of her name—Lam. Not that, as a female, she is responsible for preserving the name, and not that she’d ever got much use out of it. She’s always just been “Jun-Jun.” At home, or the farm, or later at the factory. When she’d worked on construction sites, men had called her other names, and she’d responded by pounding slabs of concrete into rubble at a faster pace, going home with a few more mun in her pocket. At the hair salon, the other hairdressers called her “Jun Je Je,” Big Sister Jun. The waiters at the restaurant call her that, too, which somehow seems more respectful than the more formal “Mrs. Leung.” Her English neighbors call her “June,” though it still takes her a moment to realize she’s the one being addressed.

Names don’t really matter, she thinks, as she snips away, releasing small tufts of her husband’s hair to the floor. And although she’d be fine with having a boy, she secretly decides that namelines don’t matter to her, either. What good is preservation, after all? Only survival matters.

ENGLAND, 1983

Karen spends her evenings and weekends re-watching episodes from her favorite mou hap videotapes: The Return of the Condor Heroes; The Legend of the Condor Heroes (a prequel), and The New Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre. She also pores over the original novels that her father delightedly fetches for her from his bookshelf. She daydreams about being a noble warrior and flying over trees, blades flashing, transcending laws of gravity, utterly unburdened by daily oppressions. Her favourite mou hap heroes are those who come from humble origins and acquire mastery through diligent practice. She finds comfort in the reliable simplicity of their stories: they suffer tragedies, they meet their sifu (sometimes the first of many), and their journey of transformation begins.

Each night before bed, Karen goes to the window and peers behind the curtain down at the street. Ever since the attack, Ricky Stokes has taken up a nightly spot by the lamppost outside her house. He nurses one cigarette for as long as he can, and when he’s finished with it, he stuffs his hands in his pockets and paces back and forth along the curb in an aimless fashion. Anyone would think he was waiting for a bus. Now and then his broad, bony face tilts up towards her window, his sunken eyes cast in shadow and his pale skin rendered a yellow-green hue by the tungsten glow of the lamp.

Karen tightens the handles on the windows before she gets into bed. Ricky Stokes could easily climb up the drainpipe to her room, but he hasn’t, not yet. She tries to imagine another version of herself, a warrior self, one with the strength and daring to strike him down. She’d take the hammer from under her bed (her father hasn’t noticed it missing from his toolbox) and knock him on his skull, or bludgeon his fingers to make him lose his grip and fall to his death. No, too much. Just paralyzed then.