I curled up into my bed, hugging my pillow. I told myself I deserved it. Even so, I cried. I could have lived through any war as long as you were there with me. But for you to bury a knife so deeply into my heart with your words? That was unbearable.

Two major events prevented you from cutting me off completely.

The first, at the start of the new year, my grandmother died. She did so peacefully, in her sleep. It was a small blessing, really, that she died before the civil war took a turn for the worse.

We burned folded paper for her, sent her messages that she had left the world at a good time, as one war ended and before the next had displaced us. It was the five of us—me and my parents, you, and your mother, all circled around the little metal cylinder where our fire roared. I folded a paper car for her. I thought she would have liked having a car so she would not have to burden her feet so much. The fire ate it hungrily.

“She likes it,” my father said, placing a hand on my shoulder.

Mother tossed a whole pencil into the flame. The flame chewed through it slowly. I wondered what she had written with it, what sorts of things she wanted to say to the mother-in-law who had been a controlling force all her married life. But that was a secret the pencil carried into the flame.

You and your mother burned paper, too, though you did not have to. She was not your grandmother, and she had not been particularly kind to either of you. All the same, you went through the motions, bowed when appropriate, helped us light incense and wash the fruit.

“Thank you.” My father bowed to you both, a small smoothing over of tensions.

I caught your eye, and you gave me a small nod.

Without my grandmother around, my father gained full control of the house. I like to think for the most part he was kind. Your mother, who had, since my father’s return, either been staying with us in our room or with Mr. Gao, took my grandmother’s old room. Our mothers continued running the pencil company. Even the Americans enjoyed our pencils, though business faltered. Our main source of income was the Nationalists who continued using them for their messages. My father met with Mr. Gao often, smoking in the courtyard, talking Nationalist strategy. By then, Mr. Gao knew all the women in the family could Reforge. We would work in the factory, bleeding out our arms, while they talked in low voices and hypotheticals.

And the second event, at the end of that same year, was when my father announced over dinner that we would be leaving for Taiwan.

“Taiwan?” you and I blurted at the same time.

“It is safe there.”