That was when everything caught up to me. A nurse will be coming by for the next few weeks to aid grandmother in her recovery. It felt like the last day it would be only us. I had wanted it to be special. But the weight of the previous weeks, Meng’s letter, grandmother’s fall, confronting Prof. Logan, Louise’s betrayal, and now grandmother, home but barely remembering, all came crashing down. I hung my head and tried not to let them see. But of course, they noticed.

“Oh, it’s okay to cry, 寶貝,” grandfather said immediately. He rested his hands on my shoulders, and we sat with grandmother on the bed. “It has been such a hard semester for you, hasn’t it? But you have been so strong and good.”

Grandmother nodded. She wasn’t fully present, I knew, but even this version of herself that could not remember where she was, or maybe even who I was, still frowned, a pained arch to her eyebrow, as she saw my tears.

I swallowed.

“What hurts?” she asked.

Everything hurts, I thought. I wanted, more than anything, someone to talk to, someone other than them, someone who would listen to the highs and lows of my day and help me process this slow, cruel loss.

“What about that girl?” grandmother suddenly asked. “You were so happy when that girl was here. Invite her back.”

I managed a shaky laugh. I tried to catch grandfather’s eye, to have a moment where we could agree she was talking nonsense. Instead, he looked as sincere as she did.

“You don’t remember how she hurt you?” I asked.

Grandmother shrugged.

“I forgive,” she said, as if it were the simplest thing to do.

And maybe it was, for her. She, who had wanted Meng’s forgiveness for so long and who now finally had it.

“Grandmother and I talked earlier today,” grandfather said, “and we want you to go to Shanghai.”

“Shanghai? But I can’t leave you two here.”

“We’ll have the nurse. And it might only get harder for you to leave us. Grandmother wants to give her pencil to Meng. She wants you to meet her.”

“Are you done writing?” I asked grandmother.

She picked a pencil up from her bedside table. It was always with her, the one possession she never forgot. She held it out on the palms of her hands. I took it gingerly.

At night, I found a box to store it. I wondered about the story inside and how it ended. What kind of ending would grandmother write for herself?

I closed the box and tucked it in my suitcase. I drafted a message I knew I would not send:

😄: grandmother is finally home!