At first, I emailed him every day, and he always replied. As I grew older, I found I had less to say, and slowly not even the magic of technology could mask my growing resentment. He came home only twice—for my elementary and middle school graduations. After my middle school one, I told him he had missed my last five birthdays. The bouquet of flowers trembled in his hands as he cried. He made no promises about future birthdays. Mostly, we never talked about him at all. Grandmother stored her sewing machine in his seat at the dining room table, the three of us eating around her threads and fabrics.

I had not spoken to him since I applied to college and needed his signature on the financial aid forms. Now I needed to send him another email. It felt entirely different than it did when I was eight. There is no magic in email anymore. I asked if he knew about grandmother’s illness and hit send.

dude if you want to talk lemme know

I blinked. For a long moment I thought my father had considerably changed his style of writing. Then I smiled when I saw Louise’s name there, infinitely preferable.

I started to reply with a no, I was fine, I would figure it out, but that I appreciated her thoughtfulness, when my fingers paused, as if they could sense the lies in the words and refused to type them. I put my phone away.

Instead, I focused on my most immediate problem. Grandmother was sick and grandfather elderly. He would not be able to take care of her by himself. My father was in Shanghai and could not be relied upon. My mother was long gone and had no love for my grandparents. How could I return to school and leave them like this?

The answer was obvious: I couldn’t. And in that realization, I found I could suddenly breathe more easily, like the task no longer seemed so insurmountable. I would stay home for the semester, longer if needed. They wouldn’t be happy about it. But it was for the best. School was important, though surely not more important than family.

Then I thought of all the progress I had made with EMBRS. How much I had learned about technology, how excited I had been to feel that magic again. To build tech that connected people, no matter how far apart they were.

I told myself it was only a pause. It would not be a larger sacrifice than that. It hardly mattered, really. I had made up my mind.

That morning, I made a list of everything I wanted to learn from grandmother—how to make shaobing, how to cut garlic really thin, that kind of thing. And to ask about the happiest days of her life? The saddest? I had no intention of wasting any of the time we had left together.