“Thank you,” she said breathlessly. She ran her finger down the page, where the characters lined up in neat columns. “Oh, thank you, thank you.”

You smiled. You rarely smiled. That night you did, though, as this woman thanked you profusely, as she took your hands in hers and shook them, practically crying into them.

“He will live on, thanks to you.” She bowed deeply.

She had to leave in a hurry, thanking you even as she bundled up the notebook, even as she closed the door behind her and left the three of us in the pencil company.

You looked at my grandmother again, that same wary look. You flinched when she spoke, as if she would kick you out of the house, right then and there. She sounded so tired.

“We are going to wait for your mothers to return,” she said. “We will need to explain what has happened.”

We nodded. Neither of us wanted to anger her any further than we already had. We resumed our pencil boxing. By the time we were finished, our mothers still had not returned.

At some point, we both dozed off at the counter, graphite on our fingertips. When we woke, it was to the sound of the door opening, and my grandmother’s gruff “Finally.”

“What is going on?” Mother asked, looking around the room, her hair in its neat updo. She and your mother seemed out of place, their Shanghai elegance against a backdrop of graphite and your bandaged arm. “Is everyone okay?”

Your mother rushed to your side, examining your arm even as you rubbed the sleep from your eyes.

My grandmother gave a spare account of the evening’s events—a desperate woman showed up, asking for Mother, begging us to take her late husband’s pencils, how we couldn’t get her to leave, how you stepped in and granted her wish, and she finally went away.

“Meng,” your mother said, slowly. She had looked radiant when they came through the door, probably high off a mahjong win. Now she paled. She was eyeing my grandmother. “I told you that you couldn’t—”

My grandmother waved a hand in dismissal.

“The woman said her husband was a friend of Kangshen’s,” she said. Her voice shook when she said my father’s name. “She said they worked in the same division. She said her husband was caught and killed.”

Mother frowned.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything for Kangshen,” she said, always the rational one. “His division is sent all over the place, mostly on individual assignments.”

“I know.”

Mother’s frown deepened. I glanced between them. My grandmother was not angry that Meng had used whatever power she had to help the woman. Nor was she worried about my father’s safety. Then what could she be pressing on about?