Meanwhile, the world was changing all around us, but we were too focused on Reforging to grasp everything that was happening. What should have been a remarkable event—the British, American, and French renouncing their rights to Shanghai, where they had partied and gambled and prospered for one hundred and one years—became another piece of background noise. The Westerners had finally been expelled, as my father and the Nationalists wanted all along, except it was the Japanese who had done it and whose occupation remained ever present.

When we were seventeen, we received word that your father had died in a battle defending a railroad down south in Hunan, so far away from us. Mother told me to give you space to process.

By then I understood that your father and my father had joined different factions of the Chinese army. My father fought with the Nationalists. More than anything he wanted a strong China. The Nationalists were the stronger party at the time with a pipeline from the military academy straight into their ranks. Your father joined the Communists, who were propped up by the USSR. He also wanted a strong China, as your mother said, but believed we should follow the model of the Bolsheviks, the common people first. The two parties had once fought each other over China’s future. Now they were united against Japan.

“Are you alright?” I whispered, ignoring Mother’s request.

You nodded.

“I really didn’t know him. Even before the war, he wasn’t around much. My mother, though . . .”

Your mother continued her tasks, maintained her usual demeanor for the few customers who came to the store. For the first time, though, I saw her stumble over her words, select the wrong sample pencil hearts, speak brusquely instead of with her usual soft charm. It was as if I was watching her fade before my eyes.

The next time Mr. Gao came for dinner, your mother burst into tears. My mother reached for her, but she had already latched on to him, crying into his chest as he wrapped his arms around her. Mother ushered us to our room. Even my grandmother left the table, clicking her tongue, but leaving them alone all the same. Mother joined us in our room that night, sharing my small bed. You rolled yourself up into your blanket, your back to us, as close to the wall as you could get, as if you wanted to become a part of it. Mr. Gao stayed the night.

Mostly I remember the next morning, when your mother hugged you and promised she would never leave you, scattered your head with kisses and gripped the back of your shirt so tight the wrinkles stayed long after she released you. There was a light in her eyes I had not seen in years.