“We made Russian soup. We’ll have some when we get home.” Though they called it Russian soup, really it was a Shanghainese adaptation of borscht. It was the only way they could get me to eat my vegetables when I was a kid.

I managed to say I was fine and obediently brought a fry to my mouth.

“Let’s go home,” grandmother said lightly. She poured the rest of the fries back into the bag they had come in. Grandfather threw the extra ketchup packets in too.

We took the train out of Boston and into Cambridge. The sight of the sailboats on the river nearly wrecked me, such a perfect summer sight, a reminder that I wasn’t there to take them kayaking for grandfather’s birthday or even to upgrade their computer’s antivirus. Grandfather noticed my mood. He has this philosophy: the best thing to do when you’re sad is to learn something. Or better yet, to teach something.

So he asked me to tell him about my favorite coding pattern that I had used over the summer. I told him about the abstract base class I implemented to work with all the different social media site integrations. He practically purred, and I really did feel better after that.

When we got home, grandfather heated up the soup. Grandmother came with me to my room, insisted on helping me unpack.

I threw my bag onto my bed. The smell of the sheets, that familiar wildflower detergent, the thought of grandmother hauling laundry up and down the stairs just so I would have a freshly made bed to come home to—no, even thinking about it now is going to make me tear up again.

I brought out my carefully bundled hoodie and unwrapped it, handing her the pencil that had traveled so far.

“I guess it’s just a pencil,” I said, hoping she would not be too disappointed.

To my surprise, she barely reacted. She set it aside, then sat down on my bed. She pulled a shirt out of my bag and began refolding it from its crumpled mess.

“What do you think the pencil means?” I attempted.

She glanced briefly at it.

“I’m not sure yet.”

“I’m sorry it isn’t anything more.”

Then she gave me this surprised look. It took her a moment to reply.

“Oh, no. It means the world to me.” She squeezed my hand but would not look me in the eyes. “Really, it does. Thank you.”