“She seemed fine,” came from Elliot, who’s an emergency room doctor and tends to see all emotional states less dramatic than hysteria as the same.

“She liked the garden,” said Andrew, who’d made the long trip to Flushing a couple of times during my mother’s month there.

“She hated the whole thing,” retorted Tim, who hadn’t gone but is the one my mother calls to complain about the rest of us.

“Lyd?” Andrew said. “How did she seem when you got home?”

“Like the only way to get her to move to Flushing would be to stuff her in a box and load her on a van. Look, guys, it’s good to have Ted’s apartment there, but I think it’ll be a while until we can talk her into it.”

“That okay with you?” That was also Andrew. Tim wouldn’t think to ask, and the others are afraid to, in case someday I might say, No, I’ve had it with this.

“Right now she seems intent on proving what an uninterested, privacy-cherishing housemate she is,” I said. “I can deal, for the time being.”

So we decided to do, say, and plan nothing. A classic Chin family outcome.

To stay on Sensei Chung’s good side, I went down to the dojo. When I got home, my mother was watching the news on Cantonese cable. She looked up. “Have you eaten?”

“I had some soup. Is that shrimp I see?”

“To cook with spring onion.” She added, “It was cheap.”

Uh-huh. I knew what shrimp, one of my favorite foods, was selling for. “I’ll chop the onion,” I offered. It no doubt took iron self-control, but she didn’t stop me.

Dinner conversation was mostly about my brothers, my niece and nephews, and, in expanding rings, various cousins whose exploits, troubles, or luck required discussion. After the dishes, jet lag suddenly clobbered me. I took an herb-laden bath. When I came out, barely able to keep my eyes open, I found my mother absorbed in a Hong Kong soap opera, one she’s been following since I was in first grade. It’s set in an apartment complex on Kowloon, and the cast must have changed ten times since it began. I kissed her; she kissed me back but kept an eye on a red door closing to ominous music.