“Hi, Tsai nainai,” Louise said happily. She towered over grandmother. Her Chinese was better than mine, smooth and accentless, at least to my ears. “Thank you so much for having me.”

“Of course. Have you eaten?”

“Monica bought me some fries.”

“Sit down, sit down. Monica, come help me. Torou! Torou!”

Grandfather had not heard the doorbell, but he did hear grandmother’s call. The television switched off, and he hobbled into the kitchen.

“Oh!” He straightened. “So tall!”

“Hi, Tsai yeye.” Louise grinned, with a small bow. “Thank you so much for letting me stay here.”

“It’s the least we can do.”

“And for letting me use your senior card.”

“Of course! Monica always complains that it’s not the right thing to do. It is good you see the value in these sorts of decisions.”

“I do.”

While taking over stir-frying from grandmother, I protested that public transportation was underfunded.

“We already pay more for those cards than we get out of them,” grandfather huffed. “In Taiwan, the government would be paying me to take the train. And when I turn one hundred, they’d hand me money. Here though—”

“No need to rant about Taiwan right now, Torou,” grandmother interrupted. “Please, sit down, Louise.”

“Can I help?” she asked. “I could set the table? Wash some dishes?”

“No!” grandmother cried as if Louise had insulted her. “Torou, take her suitcase to her room.”

“I’ll take it—”

“Give it to me, I need the exercise.”

“So do I! I’ve got a big game tomorrow . . .”

They continued to argue their way up to my father’s room. Grandmother returned to my side, turning off the heat and ladling out the rice cakes.

“I can see why you and Meng took to her,” she said. “She is very charming. What a wide smile. And so tall!”

I smiled, wondering if they would ever stop commenting on her height. I hoped they wouldn’t, if only so we could continue talking about her.

Once we were stuffed full of rice cakes stir-fried with pork, cabbage, and shiitake mushrooms, Louise took out a brown bag from under the table. She must have stowed it there before grandfather helped bring her luggage up to her room.

Grandmother gasped when she saw the familiar brown bag.

“Arby’s?” she exclaimed.

Even I was shocked. Louise winked at me.

“There’s one really close to my house, so I got some before heading over. Much easier than Monica biking for hours. Don’t worry, I kept them in a cooler.” She unfurled the bag and pulled out sandwich after sandwich, stacking them into a pyramid in front of grandmother.

“I can’t believe you’d do that,” I mumbled. I’d forgotten we even talked about Arby’s.