ON THE DAYS I rose before Mā did, each footstep on the stair popped the silence like a knuckle cracking. The dusky dining table looked exactly the way it did in my dreams. If I opened the window, I was sure I’d smell an ocean, and if I went outside, I would find streets that changed each time I entered them. But I just sat at the cold table, with its archaeology of receipts flattened under the glass tabletop, and waited for Windows Vista to boot up. I was writing my first novel and I was determined to get it published before I turned sixteen.

The night was just starting to tinge blue when I heard the stairs groan with new weight. It was Diē. We spoke in Mandarin. This was the natural order: Chinese in the family, English for the world outside.