In her third spring after moving to America, she had discovered she was pregnant. That night, she’d cooked a spread for dinner, setting out red candles and roses. But Glen got home so late that the food was cold and the candles almost burnt out.

He said, “Why did you get red candles? You know I don’t like that color.”

She was surprised—she’d never seen him looking so awful.

Still, she kept smiling, saying, “This is a good night for red.” Red was an auspicious color for the Chinese.

He forced a laugh. “Thank you for making dinner.”

He took a sip of wine, then asked why she wasn’t drinking.

She said sweetly, “From now on I won’t be able to touch alcohol.” She waited for him to ask why, but he just started eating and drinking in silence, as if something was on his mind. She asked if the students had annoyed him. He said there wasn’t a day when those young idiots didn’t make him angry.

She said, “Let’s have a baby.”

He didn’t even look up. “Why?”

“We ought to have a baby,” she said, her heart cooling down.

He said he couldn’t see why they “ought to.”

She said, “Isn’t it good to have a child? A family ought to have a child.”

“So whatever you do, it’s because you ‘ought to’?”

She was silent. The red candles flickered listlessly.

Right, so who got to decide what they “ought to” do? Love was no longer enough to bring together these two souls, these two bodies. They needed a child to do that. The baby would provide a new theme, filling their withering days with a new story.

Hongmei had told the secret talker frankly that before she became pregnant, she’d gone for coffee with a male classmate and then accompanied him to a concert in San Francisco. There’d even been a couple of times when they’d stopped at the lights and before driving off when he’d kissed her. He was a Northern European. At that time, Northern Europe still felt mysterious to her.