In that moment, she had seen her ex-husband’s face, so boyish and yet every inch her husband. When Jianjun had seen her emerge from the abortion room, he’d scooped her up and, just like that, carried her up four flights of stairs, sobbing and cursing all the way, “Quotas, quotas—next time we’re having it, quota or no quota.”

But then Glen said, “I said I didn’t want children, but I didn’t ask you to have an abortion.”

So he knew. It turned out that Glen had intercepted her mail and seen the hospital bill for the abortion.

He said, “Now that the child was here, I’d have adjusted myself and welcomed him. Why did you have to go against destiny and kill him?”

She screamed, “You’re inhuman, inside and out!” She realized she’d started yelling in Chinese. Why was that such a relief? She went on: “Jianjun wouldn’t have treated me like this! Jianjun! I let you down!”

She was howling, the way women keened for the dead in her little village.

Glen didn’t understand any of this, just stood to one side, murmuring, “It’ll be all right, it’ll be all right.”

She shouted, “Fuck your ‘It’ll be all right’! You broke me and Jianjun apart. I must have been blind!”

He said, “Everything will be all right.”

Later that night, she had gotten up, feeling as weak as wet paper. Finding some aspirin in the medicine cabinet, she thought any pills could kill you if you took enough of them. Standing by the bed, she stared at Glen as he slumbered. She thought, At least he has no trouble sleeping. She didn’t know how long she stayed there, looking at this American man she’d given everything up to chase after. Twenty-eight years old, not even halfway through her life, and she’d always been the one doing the chasing. She’d never lied about this but would openly declare to all her female friends, “I was the one who pursued him. It wasn’t easy to tie him down!”

Look at this happiness she’d chased down.

Jianjun had had his nasty moments too, and at those times she’d also thought: Look, there’s the man I ran after.

She turned away from the bed, felt dizzy, and crashed to the floor. It was no more than nine yards from the kitchen to the bedroom, but she didn’t have the strength to make it even that far. Still clutching the aspirin bottle, she drifted off.

The next morning, she woke up and found she’d changed back to the daytime version of herself—the way others saw her: sensible, sweet-natured, decorous. Daytime her would never have gulped down ten aspirin tablets. As she pulled herself from the confusion of the overdose and returned to Glen’s side, she became a different woman.