T-Mart is an international supermarket downtown. It sells food and snacks from many different Asian cultures such as Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. My mom’s favorite snack growing up was Sachima, and we used to take a family trip to T-Mart every month so my mom could pick up some goodies. Now that Kylie and I are grown, we don’t make that trip anymore, so I try to stop by and get her stuff from time to time.

I don’t actually speak much Cantonese, much to Po Po’s chagrin. I love my family and I love learning about my culture. Po Po would always tell me stories about Guangzhou growing up and about her Buddhist beliefs, even though my mom and dad are both Christian. She and Mom even taught me how to make a few recipes, which I loved, but I’ve always felt more comfortable with my Black half than my Chinese half. I’m not ashamed of it by any means, but I guess I just don’t know how to embrace it fully. Maybe it’s because I look more Black or maybe it’s because the kids at school were always quicker to accept me as Black—or assume I was Hispanic—than as Chinese or even as mixed race. So, learning another language was not on the top of my priority list. I often wonder if that’s why Po Po didn’t want Mom marrying Dad in the first place, but I can’t bring myself to ask. She never pressured me to learn, but I could tell it hurt her.

“So come on, sit down. Tell me what’s up.” Dad leads me over to the same leather couch that used to drive me crazy as a kid. Do you know how hot and sticky leather couches get during the summer?

“Not much, just working.”

“Mm-hmm.”

He gives me that look that tells me he knows what’s up. “So, Kylie told you, huh?”

“The question is, why didn’t you?” Snitch.

I brush my hand through the curls on top of my head. “I don’t know. There’s nothing to say really.”

His thick eyebrow lifts in question. “Olivia Harding comes back to town to work with you and you’re living with her, but there’s nothing to say?”

“I guess I’ve just been trying to wrap my head around the fact that she’s really here.”

“More like you’ve been trying to keep her all to yourself in your own little world.”

“That too.”

He huffs out a laugh while clapping me on the shoulder. “So, how is she?”

I proceed to fill my dad in on Olivia’s progress through therapy and how I’m having a hard time getting through to her. He’s quiet throughout, nodding his head at the right moments.