She shook her head and changed the subject. “How are you feeling?”

“I can’t feel much of anything right now,” I said honestly.

“Do you remember why you were going down the stairs?”

It was my turn to look away. I knew I had to tell her because it was likely the next time I had an accident of this sort, I would not recover, and I would rather her find out from me than from your pencil or from her software.

“There is something I need you to know about me and Meng.” I nodded to the chair next to the bed so she would stop standing and fidgeting. Instead, she sat and fidgeted.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“I will tell you the important part.” It took me a moment to gather the words. “When she needed me most, I ignored her.” That is true, isn’t it? “Because I wanted to move on from our past, even if it meant moving on from her.” In that moment, I could almost see you there in the room with us, how you were when I left, when we thought we would only be separated a few months, only to have it turn into the rest of our lives. You were a ghost, floating by the door, lying down, chin propped up in your hands, the same as you were when we wrote our story at night. I could never tell, back then, if you enjoyed my additions, your face a mask of concentration. It was the same as I explained myself to Monica. I could not tell if you would forgive me.

I told her about the letter you sent, the first one I had received from you since I arrived in America. By then Torou and I were married. It was my fourth year in this country, eight since I left Shanghai. And I was, this is important, carrying Edward. I need you to know this because it is the only bit of information that might excuse my actions. You sent a pencil, no other note, and I told myself it would be too dangerous to Reforge it with Edward growing inside of me. Our mothers had never told us if that was the case. I did not want to risk his little life, even though I knew you would only write to me if you desperately needed help. There was nobody else who could Reforge it, so I kept your pencil locked away until Edward was born.