That was when she agreed to go back to Tak-Wing, who was still living by himself in the Tai Hang house. This would have been around 1954. Though they were together again, the relationship was completely changed, as if it were a relationship between two different people. Their hearts were broken in so many places that they could do nothing but bicker and fight. They threw things at each other—dishes, toys, books, clocks—anything within reach when their mutual uncontrolled rage took hold of them. Their second child, a girl, died of cholera, and after that, they moved into separate rooms. Still, they tried for more children, wanting a son to remind them of Tak-Tam, and to help them forget Raymond. But this was not a gift the universe was willing to bestow. They had five more children, all girls, including your mother.

Macy worked with Ting-Yan to keep Dream Horse afloat, and in the early 1960s, Ting-Yan officially made her president of the company. By then the big money to be made in antibiotics had already been made by other people. But Macy was not daunted. She changed the name of the company from Dream Horse to Strong Horse. She made Strong Horse profitable by dumping the morphine-based products and focusing instead on some of the newer antibiotics and other innovative medicines like diazepam and thalidomide. I never said the new products were better than the old, Feelie! All they were was more modern. With the profits, she started an artificial-flower factory, then built a couple of casinos, then got into real estate. As you know, she became a rich lady, which is how Ting-Yan and I managed to afford that nice flat in the Mid-Levels after we sold the Stable for the land value. You’re in no place to look Strong Horse in the teeth! It’s how you have your False Creek condo in Vancouver.

Horace, along with his hero, W.E.B. Du Bois, recognized that he’d been wrong about Japan, and that Asians, especially the Chinese and Japanese, are as capable of vicious imperialism as any Western nation. In the sixties, he got deep into the civil rights movement and did support work for Black war vets on leave in Hong Kong from the war in Vietnam. He became less idealistic and more attuned to the messiness of life, and in that attunement, he grew more committed than ever to the work of building a better world. He married a woman from Tai Kang and built a headquarters for Screech Owl in Hong Kong. With backing from one of the Witt-Weatherall subsidiaries, he made a good living selling rum until he retired. His son runs it now, and brings us a bottle from time to time. Screech Owl rum is still our drink of choice. You want to try some? I know this restaurant stocks it. It’s nice in a Cuba libre, especially with a good squeeze of lime.