When I was alone, I turned off the lights and fell back onto my bed, staring up at the ceiling where the glow-in-the-dark stars grandfather had helped me arrange years ago no longer glowed. They were just pale bumps against white paint. I felt like a lost network packet. I’m on my way from one server to another carrying my little bit of precious information, then suddenly the path is severed, perhaps by a bad internet connection, and I’m left floating, my destination once so well defined, gone. No one thinks about these lost network packets because it’s easy to replace them, to send another identical packet out until the server on the other end replies, yes, Monica packet received, we’ve got her information. I never thought about them before either. But that’s what I felt like now with the world continuing on as I drifted through cyberspace.

I thought about how difficult their summer must have been. How grandfather had gone through it alone, one small human, and how grandmother—

But I could not let myself think about what grandmother might be thinking, what she must be going through, how her world had become suddenly, irrevocably, disoriented.

The ceiling unblurred as I finally let the tears roll away. I was filled with a sudden aversion for myself, the kid who had spent the past few months blissfully unaware while the most important people in her life suffered.

I pulled out my phone, more out of habit than anything else. I blinked at the messages. I had forgotten I had been midconversation with Louise.

swat isnt far, maybe we can hang out again

And after a break:

hey i didnt mean to be creepy earlier! sorry if i came off that way

I tried to recall my earlier giddiness and came up empty. In the end, I went with the only thing on my mind.

sorry for the delay. my grandfather just told me my grandmother has alzheimer’s

Three small circles bubbled—her typing. I imagined the tapping of her fingers on her phone syncing with the beating of my heart.

oh fuck

I could not think of more appropriate words.

Chapter 4

From the Reforged pencil of Wong Yun

Monica has returned home. We prepared all her favorite foods: beef noodle soup, stir-fried peapod stems, soy milk, steamed shrimp, lion’s head meatballs, red braised pork with tofu. All food that is too rich for us now. It gave us somewhere to channel our anxiety. After all, she is not coming home to good news. The least we could do was provide her some comfort.

I don’t know if you ended up having children. Torou hasn’t truly talked to our son, Edward, since he left, which was over a decade ago now. Even when Edward returns, the two of them avoid each other, meeting at the dining table, passing cursory words between them. Torou hated how Edward’s leaving impacted Monica, only eight years old at the time. I did too, though not to the same extent. After all, you and I grew up largely without our fathers.