It’s been a relaxed exis­tence here. Aside from spend­ing time with my grand­ma when she’s awake, mak­ing sure she eats through­out the day, and the occa­sion­al vis­it to the hos­pi­tal, there’s no set sched­ule for any­thing. I’ve only been to this house a hand­ful of times in my life, but I feel remark­ably com­fort­able. There’s no for­mal need to sit at the din­ner table until every­one is fin­ished eat­ing. There’s no oblig­a­tion to talk to some­one. No one feels the need to enter­tain me. I can nap when I want. I can raid one of the three fridges when I wake up at night and can’t fall asleep. I can walk around in my paja­mas all day. I can dis­ap­pear for hours to write. Like we’re actu­al­ly fam­i­ly, even though I bare­ly see these peo­ple.

My grand­ma tells me feel at home because we’re “our own peo­ple” as it’s said in Chinese. Even though I always under­stood the expres­sion, I’ve nev­er real­ly felt it until now.