When I came out to the front step, Tak-Wing was there, back from the cricket club where he’d been helping his father cook for the Kempeitai. They were using the HKCC as their own recreation club now. He was sitting on a stool smoking a cigarette.

I gave him the evil eye and would have left without saying a word to him, but he called out to me. “Vi.”

“What do you want from me, Ah Wing?”

“Can’t you take her home?” His eyes, which usually blazed with rage these days, were sad and forlorn.

“This is her home.”

“It’s my home,” he said. “I grew up here.”

“It’s Emily’s home. If our father had not given it back, you would be living on the street. You should go to the street, where you belong.” Old Mah had indeed kept his word after the Chinese wedding and given the house to them, though with only Emily’s name on the deed.

“I don’t love her anymore,” he said. “I want to, but I can’t.”

“You have a responsibility to love her.”

“You think I don’t know that?” he said. “But hate does not know responsibility.”

“Well,” I said, “hate will have to learn. You married her three times, Ah Wing. Where did that sweet boy who married my poor innocent sister three times go?”

“That boy is long gone,” said Tak-Wing. “He died when his beautiful wife was soiled by that Japanese soldier. Please, Violet. I’m afraid of who that boy has become.” I caught a glimpse then of the Tak-Wing I knew before the invasion, the one who had given me his umbrella to jab at Queen Victoria’s feet, the one who had taken us for baked Alaska at Jimmy’s Kitchen, the one who had celebrated his registry marriage to Emily with bamboo-wrapped sticky rice and a bottle of Awakening Lion aerated lemonade on the steps of the abandoned Peak Hotel.

“Did she tell you what happened?” I asked.

“She told me enough.”

“You have a responsibility,” I repeated. “To love her and care for her and have a big Chinese family with her, for the sake of your father and mine.”