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You do not have the same drifting as your father.

In truth, during that meeting, I did not understand her words well at all, even after they were translated into English.

But afterward, looking through my translation history again, I understand.

Both my father and Louise had gone to Meng.

In them, Meng saw people unmoored.

Grandmother had been unable to offer Meng a home, to give my father the care he needed.

But she had given me a cohesive story, something that made me firm in who I am.

I am her granddaughter, and I come from a long line of pencil makers.

She is the most resilient person I’ve ever known.

I can only hope I learned that from her, too.

Then, to my surprise, Meng grabbed my wrist.

I let her turn it and roll up my sleeve.

She traced my phoenix, dark from where Louise’s pencil heart still ran through my blood.

She rolled up her sleeve and showed me her scar.

It was even more defined than grandmother’s.

She tapped my phoenix’s head with a questioning look.

“It’s Louise’s pencil,” I said.

“She told me you gave her the pencil.”

She nodded, pleased.

Then she tapped at her own wrist.

“Have you ever wondered why there are two phases to Reforging? Two chances to understand another’s heart?” She spoke the question to her phone.

I took my time translating it on mine.

“I haven’t,” I admitted.

“The first time is for the Reforger,” she said, articulating clearly.

“The Reforger then has a chance to decide—should this

story be shared? They can bleed it out and share it widely. Or they can keep it just for themselves.”

She tapped again at my wrist.

“What have you decided?”

I looked down at her hand on mine.

“I’m going to keep it near my heart,” I said.

“I want her words to be only for me.”

She nodded approvingly.

“It is interesting when a Reforger gives another Reforger a story though,” she continued, holding grandmother’s pencil before

her.

“She knows she has given me a choice. Just as I gave her a choice, when I sent her my pencil.”

“A choice?”

She took a knife out of her purse and began to sharpen grandmother’s pencil.

“Here?” I asked, glancing around the park.

It was chilly, though still comfortable.

There were a few others around.

I had

expected she would take the pencil home and Reforge it when she was ready, as grandmother had.

“No sense in delaying,” she said.

She handed the pencil to me.

“Reforge it,” she said.

“Hurry up, now.”

“Me? But she meant it for you.”

“And I want you to Reforge it.”

“But—”

She pushed the pencil into my hand.

“You have not had your last conversation with her yet,” she said.

I took the pencil.

If she had not been watching me so expectantly, I would have delayed.

I would have held on to the pencil until I felt like

I needed to hear grandmother’s voice.

But she was right.

There was no sense in delaying.

I pushed it into my wrist.

The park faded, Meng faded, and it was just me and grandmother, her calm presence, confusion interspersed, but above all,

her love, strong and unwavering.

Her life scrolled before me—ten years old, bullying Meng.

Fourteen years old, finally learning

to Reforge, the joy of understanding her family.

Nineteen, emotions high, one war leading into another and the beginning of

a rift.

A cruel separation, the dark times in Taiwan, the darker times in California.

It was too much; I had to bend over.

I felt Meng’s arm around me as it continued.

Grandmother meeting grandfather again in Boston.

Creating a pencil that could

not be Reforged.

Meeting Louise, seeing us together, the happiness—

As the scenes faded, I returned to myself, crying into Meng as she rubbed my back gently.

“I didn’t know,” I whispered.

I saw once again, grandmother spending all that time writing her story.

Writing for us.

“I didn’t

know how much someone could suffer.”

“It is good you did not know,” Meng said.

“Your life has been a happy one.”

“And I didn’t know... how much she could love.”

Meng’s expression softened.

Then she held my wrist.

The phoenix glowed, grandmother’s and Louise’s hearts coursing through

me.

“And what will you do with your grandmother’s words?” she asked.

Keep them close to my heart, was my first thought.

But then I saw the knife she had used to sharpen the pencil, and I knew

what I had to do.

Grandmother had not wanted me to Reforge in any way other than through pleasure.

But that was not realistic.

Stories can bring

both pleasure and pain.

Somewhere along the way, I had learned how to handle it.

Meng did not protest when I took the knife from her, as if she knew I would all along.

I’ve always been a coward about physical

pain, but in that moment, having just felt how much grandmother had gone through, I sliced through my skin easily.

I bled into the notebook I had bought at the convenience store.

Meng helped me, holding my arm steady, flipping the pages

as needed.

Grandmother had not been succinct.

I felt her presence again between us, lived her life all over again, here in

this park in Shanghai.

This time, it was a hum, a comfort.

When I began to feel Louise’s note begin, I nodded at Meng.

She pulled the notebook away and made a clenching motion with

her hand.

I copied it.

Louise’s note sank back into my arm, and only a few regular drops of blood dripped from my cut.

Meng rummaged in her purse and pulled out a roll of bandages.

“Some things you always carry with you,” she chuckled as she bandaged my wrist.

I watched grandmother’s characters rematerialize in the notebook.

I missed her deeply then.

“That’s for you,” I said, pointing to the notebook we had left open to dry in the sun.

She bowed her head deeply.

“I will cherish it,” she said.

I was able to understand her better at that point, more used to the deviations Shanghainese would take, or maybe she was adding more Mandarin.

“This story she wrote... I am very glad to have it. But I have a feeling it was never meant for me. That’s why I wanted you to Reforge it.” She touched the notebook lightly and smiled.

“We used to write stories for each other, did she mention that? But this time... somehow, we both ended up writing for you.”

I began to cry again.

It’s so embarrassing, thinking about it now, how much I cried in front of this woman I hardly knew,

who I could barely understand.

I’m going to lose grandmother.

I know I am.

I have no greater certainty.

I’m going to lose

the woman who raised me, the one who built me a home that I never once resented.

But with Meng’s words, I felt as if grandmother

were there with us, that these two women trusted me with their stories, and it would be the honor of my life to carry them

on.

I asked if I could see her again, maybe with my father, or Louise.

She said she would have to check her mahjong calendar.

Then she winked and said of course.

I rolled my eyes.

She had the same sense of humor as grandmother.

I asked if I could escort

her home.

She said it would be a waste of my train fare.

“My train fare is free,” she cackled.

I hugged her, suddenly and tightly.

I watched her walk away, carrying the notebook.

At night, I finally met up with Louise.

We met at the Bund, what was once the International Settlement.

The city lights reflected

across the water of the bay.

She stood out, a head above everybody else.

We hugged.

It was a relief to speak English again, to have someone who understood exactly what I was saying.

I pulled a scarf out of my backpack.

It was Princeton orange and black and had a few small holes in it, even a section that

was narrower than the rest of it, misshapen from when grandmother’s memory faltered as she knitted.

“A Christmas gift from grandmother,” I said, and threw the scarf around her neck.

“Really?” she asked with huge eyes.

“Yeah. I kept telling her she didn’t have to push herself, but she really wanted to knit a scarf for you. Knitting is one

of the few things she can still do on her own. I think she really enjoyed making it.”

She wrapped the scarf tightly around her neck and beamed.

“Can I take a picture of you to send to grandmother?” I asked.

“Only if you’re in it too.”

We found a spot with a good view of the water and the city.

“Here, you have longer arms,” I said, and passed my phone to her.

She held the phone in front of us, and we smiled as she took the photo.

I sent it to both grandmother and Meng.

There are moments when I feel so lucky, feel like I am exactly where I should be, like I would not trade a single thing.

We

walked along the land our families had resided upon for generations.

We had ended up so far away and this was not our home,

not anymore, but there was a feeling to it, like it could come close to being a home.

Like if grandmother and her mother,

her father, her aunt, her grandmother, and everyone before them could see us, they would be happy, and maybe my happiness

would infect them too, and make up even a little bit for the hardship they had to experience to see me to where I am now.

We sat down on a bench overlooking the water.

It was like we were in Cambridge again, at the river.

Though this one was so

much bigger.

People milling all around, stopping for pictures of the flashing tower across the way, the holiday lights.

Nobody

paid any attention to us.

It was perfect.

“What are you going to do now?” she asked.

“Once you’re back in school?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“Maybe I’ll change majors too. Something more in line with data policy or privacy—”

“Yes!” she exclaimed.

“Join the social sciences. That reminds me, I brought you a gift.”

She gave me a card.

I had to hold it up, angling it toward the streetlight to see what it said.

It was a string of letters and numbers.

“It’s an account number,” she explained.

“For one of those things where you can securely connect to a machine without being

spied on.” She began to speak much faster.

“I know you probably already have one. But I figured it’d be really useful for

you to get past sites that are blocked here. And you probably got a cheap one and hacked together your own thing to enhance

it, so I ordered you the most expensive one I could find. They don’t even have your email—that account number is all they

have, so you can be truly anonymous. Something about how long it is makes it safe? You would know more about that than I would.

The app has all sorts of buzzwords I’m sure you’d understand. End-to-end encryption, no logs, split tunneling? I don’t know

what that is, but—”

“Stop,” I laughed.

“No need for all this jargon. You’ve already seduced me.”

I was stupidly pleased when she blushed, stupidly pleased that she had gotten me a gift so strange yet so perfect.

“You’re only here for a week, right?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I sighed.

“Okay. They actually have a thirty-day free trial. So I’m not really paying anything. But I want you to know that I absolutely

would.”

I laughed again.

“Grandmother would approve. Thank you. I love it.”

I still send grandmother messages even though she doesn’t reply anymore.

Whether she has forgotten I am away, or how to type

Chinese on the keyboard, or how to use her phone, I don’t know.

But I send them anyway, a sort of comfort to myself.

When I took out my phone to look at my one-sided conversation with grandmother, Louise noticed.

She squeezed my hand.

I rested

my head on her shoulder and let out a shaky sigh.

“You know what she would say,” Louise assured me.

“How proud she is of you. How much she loves you.”

I nodded.

After Reforging grandmother’s pencil, I knew her better than I ever thought possible, all her faults and mistakes, also her resilience and her love.

And I knew that if her memory were not failing her, she would have had something fun to say, some funny emojis to send, probably two girls and a city skyline and a heart, for she had always been the greatest supporter of our relationship.

She’d probably add something else, too, something in Chinese, a sly reminder not to forget that no matter how much Louise might like me, she would always be the one who loved me the most.

I sent her a message, continuing our one-sided conversation.

永遠不會忘記妳的愛 ???

Louise squeezed my hand again.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

I put my phone away, and for a moment we sat there, my head on her shoulder, her hand in mine, enjoying the city.

Then I turned

to her and kissed her.

“Finally.” She smiled and kissed me back.

She said more than that, words that made my head light and my heart soar.

But those words—

I think I will keep just between me and her.