“There’s some happier news,” Shao said. “My father is giving Sparrow a dowry and Second Aunt is doing the matchmaking. She lives for this sort of thing, my second aunt.”

Sparrow poured the tea, seemingly unperturbed and oblivious to Lian’s gaping open mouth. After they left, Lian went to the bedroom to check on her mother. But for the first time in days, it wasn’t her mother’s health that preoccupied her.

Sparrow, married.

LIAN COULD TELL her mother was still afraid. How long would it take for all those years of mistrust to let go? Even in the flat, with just the two of them, her mother still clung to old habits. She looked out of windows from behind the drapes and paused the conversation if she heard voices coming up the staircase. If only her mother could enjoy their reunion, which for Lian was like a dream after so many months of worry. A dream where she and her mother lived in a beautiful flat. Where they spent hours each night talking until her mother laughingly and reluctantly told her it was time for bed, as though she were a little girl again. Where they slept in the same room, Lian on a layer of quilts on the floor, her mother on the bed with a pillow propped under her plaster-casted leg.

Lian woke to the fragrance of steaming rice and the sounds of crockery being set out. She dressed and hurried out to help but breakfast was already waiting on the table. Congee the way Lian remembered it, with salted duck egg crumbled on top of the soupy mix, a small dish of sliced cucumber and radishes pickled in soy and vinegar for sharing. Her mother moved around on crutches but always made their meals. It was a pleasure to be cooking for two again, she’d insisted.

Dr. Mao had urged her to eat as much as she could. Her body and bones were mending and she needed food. In the few weeks they’d been together, her mother’s cheeks had plumped up and the shadows under her eyes were all but gone. Her face was more lined, her hair streaked with gray, but her hands moved gracefully as she poured hot tea for Lian. She listened with her head slightly tilted to one side. Lian’s father used to say she reminded him of a blossom on its stem. Lian’s mother did this because she was hard of hearing in one ear. But unless you knew this, it appeared merely a charming trait, one that suited her mother’s name. Beihua, Northern Flower.