The day began well: Tingting helped Tubby and Daphne play poker through Tubby's second Bio-E session, and then they did physics and precalculus. Then Tubby told the story about the night a crate of hogs had run wild at the Shilin night market, gobbling up mountains of dumplings and water ice and slashing like Mongol cavalry through the skee ball and pachinko machines. That was a good, long story, and Taisheng should have interrupted it before Daphne's grandfather faced down the boar hog with nothing but a tub of sriracha and a beer bottle—but the story ended and Taisheng did not come. So Tubby told the story about Taisheng's brief career as a child model for some brand of diaper advertised as a transition between normal diapers and underpants, but he still did not come.

Tubby's phone got a text. "It's from Mom," Daphne read. "'Tony forgot i will pick up daphne.' That's ambiguous."

"Not to me," said Tubby, too worried and confused to stop herself being grim.

Quinn arrived shortly, greeted all present, and began interrogating Daphne about her nutrition and the status of her homework. Tubby realized what she would have to do. She sucked her teeth and patiently refuted all her mind's counterarguments. At last, she made the words come.

"Quinn, I wants a moment."

Quinn blinked. "Mom?"

Tubby felt awful for hating that Quinn called her "Mom."

Daphne beamed. "A-ma, you speak English?" she said in English.

Tubby felt too uncomfortable to smile at Daphne without looking ghoulish, so she ignored her. "Is OK?" she said to Quinn.

"Of course, Mom." Tubby and Daphne said their good-byes, and Daphne sprinted out, at full speed as usual, to wait in the lobby. Quinn waited until she was gone, then sat by Tubby and put a hand on hers. "What's on your mind?"

"Taisheng is forgetting a lot of business lately?"

Quinn thought, then shrugged. "He's stressed at work, he's not sleeping so great. It was the same way when Daphne and Paul were just born. Tony'd go into the kitchen to make me an omelet, then forget what he was supposed to be doing and crack open a beer or something." She smiled the way Tubby had seen her smile at Paul when he scraped his knee. "Don't worry, Mom, I don't think you're getting a new cellmate."

"He a lot on dreamgame, though. I sink dangerous."

Tubby could see the thoughts evolve behind Quinn's eyes like the ricochets of billiard balls. Old. Superstitious. Too much time in her head. She remembered thinking the same about her own mother-in-law, who had stopped by every day in Taisheng's first month of life to drop off a tub of tongue-stripping medicinal soup and make sure Tubby hadn't showered. "Aw, Mom. Millions of people use that thing! And Tony really needs it for work. If he can solve one of those Europa proteins, it'll be so good for his career. We all want that for him, right, Mom?"

Tubby pressed her lips together. "All young men here, they use dreamgame before they come. With NM port."

"Mom," Quinn said too gently, "they probably all ate three meals a day too, but I'm not going to tell Tony to starve."

Tubby fought to keep the tears from her eyes. Tears had been her mother-in-law's ultimate weapon—and they had never, not once, gotten her anything she really wanted. Quinn squeezed Tubby's hand. "Mom, I know you miss him," she said. "I'll make sure he comes by this weekend, OK? Maybe you'll feel better if you talk to him about it."

I don't want to feel better. I want him to stop. She couldn't say it correctly, not in English, and she wouldn't say it wrong. "OK. Sank you."

"Thank you, Mom, for thinking of Tony. I think he could use all our support right now."

"Nice talking to you, Quinn," Tubby said carefully. "Stay in touch."

Quinn laughed, who knew why. She was beautiful, that laugh reminded Tubby. She had never quite known what had attracted a woman like this to Taisheng. She had neither asked nor thought about it. "I sure will, Mom," Quinn said. "You take care, now."