“I think your fourth great-uncle picked her off the streets,” Amah Fu had said. She frowned, her broad forehead wrinkled in thought. By then she was no longer his nanny but still worked in the house. She paused for a moment from folding a tablecloth, then shook her head. “I don’t know, but there was talk that Sparrow’s mother was a maidservant who died. Unmarried.”

That was all anyone could tell him about Sparrow. She never volunteered any information about herself. When asked, she’d only say she had no memory of her life before the Liu household or how she got there. Over the years, Sparrow took over from Amah Fu. In addition to her other household chores Sparrow cleaned Shao’s room, mended his clothing, and always appeared when he needed her. Sparrow was the one constant in his life, always calm, always reassuring. It wasn’t because of anything she said, it was how Sparrow made him feel. As if there was something else that mattered more, something more real than his father’s indifference, his mother’s melancholy.

His mother’s moods darkened Shao’s early childhood. That he was not the only one affected became clear one momentous day when Grandmother Liu tottered through their front door, actually making the walk from her mansion at the other end of the estate. Supported on each side by a maid, she entered the spacious foyer. Then his grandmother sat down on a small wicker chair and two burly house servants carefully lifted the chair up the circular staircase, the old woman’s tiny bound feet dangling, her two maids trailing behind.

A silent crowd gathered at the foot of the stairs, her sons and daughters-in-law, her grandchildren and an assembly of servants. At the back of the crowd, Shao clutched Amah Fu’s hand. His father waited at the top of the stairs, his handsome, square face downcast. He met his mother’s irritated glare with a look of shame. The servants set down the chair, Grandmother Liu and her maids vanished down the hallway. Shao’s father stood for a moment with slumped shoulders, then followed. Whispers drifted around Shao.

Do you remember the first time she tried to take her own life?

She doesn’t realize how lucky she is.

Too spoiled. Too educated. No wonder the master turns to other women.