Light-years away. This is what she tells herself.

She still showed everyone her uncle’s address. No one knew of it. One kind man even searched a map of the city. Perhaps the street name had been changed. “To fit the regime, you know,” he explained. “It’s all changed.”

And there was kindness. Daily the flower keeper’s husband said, “Did you eat yet today?” He slipped her a piece of fruit, and down the street a grocer always gave her a hard-boiled egg. And the woman florist herself sometimes, in spite of herself, slipped her ginger candy, the woman with the square, angular jawbone, arranging the purple orchids, the flowers and green leaves, hurrying from the refrigerator to the ribbon, looking up as if she couldn’t be too careful of the “new regime,” even though the orders now were to renew their businesses. Most things that even hinted of the West had been destroyed and forbidden. Even haircuts and clothing, until it all changed again. But bread was still there. Lin longed for rice, but she settled for anything. The old man at the tea shop on the corner still kept different kinds of breads—the Americans had liked breads—and he gave Lin some of the sweet or still-fresh leftovers. She did well, she thought, with some of the businesses now encouraged by the new regime.

One day the husband of the florist gave her rice wrapped in a leaf. “Where do you sleep?” he asked. He wore a striped short-sleeved shirt. Behind him were flowers. The room smelled of hibiscus and plumeria. She sniffed the air, her eyes closed. She smelled the rice, then ate it, at first too quickly. In her memory was home, the aroma, the glint of sun on rice fields. And her mother.

But she told no one where she slept. She didn’t want to be taken away or found in the branches of her giant tree. Even those collecting the leaves for their own memories did not see her in her nest of branches. It was her tree, singing, creaking insects and all. She climbed quickly, like a monkey could climb. Still in the worn shoes made by her mother, she prided herself on that.

She only pointed in the direction of the park. And at night she walked to the other side of the street, the long way around, so he wouldn’t know.

But he knew. He took this up with his wife.

“No,” she said, a pencil always above her ear, her hair piled high. “No one is going to live in here. We hardly have room as it is. There are kids all over the streets. We would get caught. Who knows, we could be fined or worse. Here. Forget it and get on your bike and deliver these flowers. Here’s the place.” She handed him a map and note.

He held the directions, but continued to talk about the girl. “But on this street, who would tell? We all know her. She cleans it up so pretty and even that cruel boy above the grocery, he gives her a coin some days. I see him.”