I know what you are thinking. I can see you narrowing your eyes. You knew how infatuated I was with your mother, the striking image of her on Mr. Gao’s arm, how elegant they were, as if from another time entirely. You think I wanted myself in that picture, that I would stoop so low as to seduce the man your mother once loved. The thought occurred to me, I must admit. But I did not think I could compare to your mother. My self-esteem was terribly low at the time. The only thing I was confident in was my Reforging.

I volunteered to walk Mr. Gao to the train station when he left to return south. He offered me his arm, and I took it.

“Work must be difficult for you these days,” I said. The Nationalists had been all but driven out of China.

“Yes,” he answered. “We are unfortunately reliant on the Americans.”

“What can we do to get them to support us?”

“Madame Chiang is doing everything she can. It is difficult to know what the Americans are thinking. It is too much for a young woman like you to worry about.”

I ignored his condescending tone.

“But I do worry about it. I want Mother and Father to retire at home, in Shanghai. I want to see my family again.” I paused, then took a breath. “Send me to America.”

“You?”

“Yes,” I said. “Let me start a pencil company there. Mother can handle everything here. You said it was difficult to know what the Americans are thinking. I could tell you. I could share the truth with the Americans, stories of people like us who have lost our homes and the people we love.”

For a long time, he did not reply. We continued our walk. His arm was tense.

By the time we arrived, he still had not spoken.

“You have grown so much,” he murmured, more to himself than me. His gaze lingered on me yet again, and I did not shrink from it.

“Let me consider it,” he said, finally.

“Thank you.” I spoke calmly, though my heart pounded.

And then he smiled, some of the handsomeness from his Shanghai years returning.

“And if you could go anywhere in America, where would you go?”

I hardly knew the names of any cities or states in America.

“Where is MIT?” I asked.

“The university?”

“Yes.”

“Massachusetts, then.” He fixed the collar of his coat and readjusted his hat. “I’ll see what I can do.”

When I summoned the courage to tell Mother what I had done, she was not furious as I thought she would be. She only looked tired.

“I was hoping to spare you from this life,” she said. “But maybe it isn’t time. Maybe, if you have a daughter someday, she can be spared.”