Because every time the school asked us to fill out emergency contact cards, and I wrote Grandmother, my teachers always paused.

“Where are your parents?”

“In the city.”

“Why don’t you live with them?”

I never knew what to say.

Eventually, I learned a better answer.

“They travel for work.”

They travel for work.

Busy enough that in twenty years, I could count the number of times they visited me on one hand.

When I was seven, the school held a Mid-Autumn drawing contest with the theme My Home.

Other kids drew themselves holding hands with their mother and father.

I drew Grandma Rose and me.

Two people.

One persimmon tree.

My teacher looked at my picture for a long time before saying, “It’s beautiful.”

She never asked why there were only two people in it.

But I noticed her eyes looked a little wet.

I kept that drawing for years.

Then lost it in a move later.

2

That same year, I thought I might get to go home for Christmas.

Grandma called my mother.

I stood beside her and heard everything through the speaker.

“Maybe not this year,” my mother said. “The house is too crowded. Evan just got a new bed. There’s nowhere for her to sleep.”

Nowhere for me to sleep.

My brother got a new bed.

And I didn’t even have an old one.

Grandma hung up and rubbed my head gently.

“We’ll spend Christmas together,” she said. “I’ll make dumplings for you.”

That year she made thirty dumplings.

She ate five.

Left twenty-five for me.

I ate until my stomach hurt, and she smiled and said, “Slow down. No one’s going to take them from you.”

Later, I found out my parents had hosted two large family dinners in the city that same Christmas.

One table was filled with all of Evan’s favorite food.

The family photos were sent around to relatives.

My father was in them.

My mother was in them.

My brother was in them.

I wasn’t.

Years later, I heard Aunt Diane telling someone, “Richard only has the one son, and you know how precious that is.”

Someone asked, “Don’t they have a daughter too?”

Aunt Diane shrugged.

“Oh, that one? She’s out in the country with the old lady.”

That one.

Not Nina.

Not their daughter.

Just that one.

In my family’s story, I didn’t even deserve a name.

When I was nine, Grandma brought me into the city for a doctor’s appointment, and we stopped by my parents’ house afterward.

I stood in the doorway and looked inside.

My brother’s room was bright and full of toys.

There was a new computer on his desk.

A framed photo on the nightstand showed him grinning in the middle, my parents on either side, all three of them standing at an amusement park.

There was another family portrait in the living room.

My father.

My mother.

My brother.

Three people.

I counted twice.

It was still three.

Evan came out, looked at me, and frowned.

“Mom,” he said, “who is she?”

He didn’t recognize me.

My own brother didn’t recognize me.

My mother leaned out of the kitchen and glanced at me.

“She stays with Grandma,” she said. “Say hi to your sister.”

She stays with Grandma.

Not this is your sister.

Not your big sister.

Just she stays with Grandma.

Evan said, “Oh,” and went back to his room to play video games.

He didn’t say another word to me that day.

On the bus ride home, Grandma was quiet for a long time.

Then, just before we got back, she turned to me and said, “Nina.”

“Yes?”

She bent down so we were eye level.

“Remember this. You are my Nina.”

Her eyes were red.

“If nobody else wants you, I do.”

“As long as I’m alive, you’ll never be alone.”

I nodded.

That year, I was nine.

And I learned something important.

Some people are called family.

And some people are only strangers who happen to share your blood.

3

When I was twelve, I tested into junior high as the top student in town.

Grandma called my mother right away.

The call was on speaker. I heard every word.

“Laura, Nina placed first in the whole town!”

There was a two-second pause.

“Oh. That’s nice.”

“Nina wants to attend the magnet school in the city, but tuition and books will cost…”

“Mom, money’s tight right now. Evan is starting enrichment classes next semester, and we still have to pay for tutoring.”

Grandma didn’t say anything else.

She just hung up.

That year, my brother ranked near the bottom of his grade.

My parents signed him up for three tutoring programs anyway, spending about $3,300 a year.

I was the top student in town.

And not one dollar went toward me.

I stayed in the local school.

My brother went to a private academy in the city.

Years later, I found out something that made it even worse.

Every month, for twelve straight years, Grandma sent my parents $420.

In the memo line she always wrote:

Nina’s tuition.

Four hundred twenty dollars.

Twelve months.

Twelve years.

Nearly $60,000.

And not one cent of it ever reached me.

The summer I turned fifteen, Grandma took me to get glasses.

On the bus, we ran into Aunt Diane.

She looked me up and down and said, “Wow. Nina’s really grown up.”

Then she lowered her voice, but not enough for me not to hear.

“Richard and Laura really dragged this out. They said she’d stay with you for a year or two. I didn’t think it would turn into almost a decade.”

Grandma said nothing.

Aunt Diane kept going.

“Don’t invest too much in her. She’s a girl. She only needs enough education to get by. Eventually she’ll get married anyway.”

“Aunt Diane,” I said.

She looked startled.

I met her eyes.

“I’m not the kind of person who only needs enough to get by.”

Then I said, clearly, “And from now on, please use my name.”

“Nina Carter.”

Her face tightened.

Grandma patted my hand.

She said nothing.

But I saw the smallest smile at the corner of her mouth.

At eighteen, I took the college entrance exams.

I ranked twenty-third in the entire city.

I got into one of the top state universities to study law.

Grandma was so happy she barely slept that night.

The next morning, she called my mother again.

“Laura! Nina got in! A top state school!”

There was the same familiar silence.

“That’s… wonderful, Mom.”

“And the tuition—”

“Mom, Evan wants to get his driver’s license this year, and we’re already paying for—”

“I’ll handle it,” Grandma cut in.

Her voice was calm.

“Nina’s tuition is my responsibility.”

Then she hung up.

Later, she sat in the yard under the persimmon tree for a long time.

I walked over.

“Grandma, I can apply for grants. You don’t have to—”

“No,” she said.

Then she turned to me and smiled.

“I can take care of you.”

“The proudest thing I’ve ever done in my life is raise you right.”

That was the first time in twenty years I cried in front of her.

That same fall, Evan failed his college entrance exams.

He repeated a year, then got into a private for-profit college.

To celebrate, my parents bought him a car.

They spent about $25,000 on it.

Twenty-five thousand dollars for him getting into school.

Grandma spent about $10,000 total covering all four years of my tuition and living expenses.

My parents didn’t spend a single cent.

And yet in front of relatives, they still loved saying the same thing:

“We worried about both kids equally.”

Equally.

One side got a car.

The other got nothing.

That was their definition of equal.