Portrait of a Thief

by Grace D. Li

When one of their friends had asked what kind of project, Irene had looked up and said, unblinking, An exploration of pre-revolutionary Chinese history. It had sounded incredibly boring, even to Lily, which had definitely been the point.

I know at least a dozen people in my major alone who would be fascinated by that explanation

Twenty years, and she was used to being asked where she was from, to giving an answer that felt like a lie. She could never be Chinese enough for China. She could never be American enough for here.

All these years, and Lily had never known how to love a place and not leave it behind.

She would graduate next year, slot neatly into the workforce, not extraordinary like Irene or brilliant like Alex, and if it hadn’t been for these past few months, she might have thought it was enough.

diaspora was this, too: two cultures that could both be his, history that was waiting to be made.