It worked like this—we would sell our pencils, sometimes even give them away for free. We had what we called a recycling program. If someone brought their used pencils back to us, we would sell them new ones, heavily discounted. My father came up with the idea of crafting some with broken hearts inside. It would start off working fine, then suddenly there would be a gap in the heart, and the customer would return, complaining about their purchase. We’d take it back, replace it for free, and even throw in another one.

All the used pencils were Reforged. No matter the content, the Reforged text was passed on to my father’s colleagues. Most of it was not incriminating, at least I did not think so. I did not know what became of the ones that criticized the government. I could only hope we were doing the right thing, that my father was right, and we needed a strong government to bring about stability, to muster a force large enough to take China back from the Communists and to take us home to Shanghai.

The days blurred even more than before. We were so tired, working the pencil company in the morning and Reforging at night. Mother often spent all day Reforging, as if she preferred the memories of strangers over her own. Despite the Taiwan heat, she was cold most of the time. She insisted it had nothing to do with the volume of Reforging she was doing, even as she rubbed her scars.

“Let me take on more of them,” I said. “I’m not a child anymore.”

“No.” She wrapped a blanket around herself. “You know I hate working the storefront. Please just handle that.”

“You’re hurting yourself—”

“You should go make friends here,” she interrupted. “Do not stay in this job long.”

“What do you mean?” All my life, the only thing I had known for certain was that I would take over the Phoenix Pencil Company.

She looked down at her bleeding hand resting on a notebook.

“Don’t rely on your Reforging skills. Or at least do not share them the way I have. Your grandmother was not wrong when she did not want me to teach you. It is a dangerous thing. If you can, find a different way to live.”

She sliced her arm open once again.

I missed your mother the most then. She was the only one who could convince Mother to unburden herself. I wondered if Mother missed her the same way I missed you—in fleeting, biting moments, always with the undercurrent of dread that none of us would voice.