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impassive, dignified expression, his hands folded neatly in front of him.
     Agnes thought Lily’s smile belonged on the face of a porcelain doll. Her hair was cut in short, fashionable waves and seemed
     ridiculously lustrous for someone her age. Dyed, no doubt. Neither of them understood what the justice was saying, and Agnes
     had to prompt them when it was time to exchange rings. When the justice pronounced them husband and wife, her father looked
     around the room, smiling good-naturedly. He thanked the justice with a bow of his head and took Lily gently by the elbow.
    Her father visited less often after he was married. The few times he took the subway to Dunn Loring, he did not bring Lily
     with him. Agnes once asked him why, and he said Lily was quite popular at Evergreen House. “People are always inviting her
     out to restaurants,”he said. “Or she goes over to other ladies’ apartments, and they watch the latest Hong Kong melodramas.
     What sentimental drivel! But she enjoys it, she can’t get enough of it. . .”He told Agnes that one day Lily wanted to eat
     dan dan noodles and nothing but dan dan noodles. “There is a restaurant we know, but the owners were away on vacation. Qiulian
     suggested another restaurant, but when we got there, it wasn’t on the menu and she refused to go inside. She dragged me from
     one place to another, but none of them served dan dan noodles. I was so hungry by this time, I insisted we go into the next
     restaurant we saw. But she said she wouldn’t eat at all if she couldn’t have her dan dan noodles. So we ended up going home,
     and I had to eat leftovers.”Her father shook his head, though he was clearly delighted by Lily’s caprice.
    From her father, Agnes learned that Lily had studied Chinese history at the prestigious Zhejiang University. She liked to
     take baths over showers, used Pond’s cream on her face at night, and sipped chrysanthemum tea in bed. She rarely bought herself
     anything, and when she did, the things she chose were charming and fairly priced. Her father gave Lily a monthly allowance
     of five hundred dollars, which was half the income he received from Agnes and her brother as well as from the federal government.
     Lily, in turn, sent money to her son, a book vendor, and to her daughter, a truck driver in Guangzhou.
    More than a year passed, and Agnes never saw her.
    In December, she walked by Lily almost without recognizing her. She had stopped in Chinatown to buy duck for a New Year’s
     Eve party, and a small group of older women approached her on the street. She would not have paid them any attention if the
     woman in the gray raincoat had not paused to stare in the middle of readjusting a silk scarf around her head. It took Agnesa
     moment to realize it was Lily. By that time, the women had passed, heading south in the direction of Evergreen House.
    Agnes stood on the sidewalk, gazing absently at a faded brick building, its pink paint flaking off to reveal dark red patches.
     Even in the winter, the streets smelled of grease and the hot air blown out of ventilators. Behind a row of buildings, two
     looming cranes crisscrossed the sky. It was odd to think of someone like Lily living here. Agnes went inside the restaurant
     to get her duck, and by the time she stepped outside again, tiny flakes of snow were falling. She did not go back to her car
     but instead turned in the direction of her father’s apartment.
    Outside his door, she heard shrill voices and laughter, the noisy clacking of tiles being swirled along a table. The mahjong
     ladies, Agnes thought. Lily answered the door, her mild, empty eyes widening slightly. Her mass of glossy black hair was perfectly
     coiffed, and only her wrinkled neck betrayed her age.
    “I saw you on the street,”Agnes said. “Didn’t you see me?”
    “Yes,”Lily said, pausing. “But I wasn’t sure it was you until we had passed each other.”
    “The same with me.”Agnes pulled off her coat and