Shrimp Boy emerges from beneath his table, locks eyes with me, and flees.

Sometimes she would forget about her son, for a few minutes or a few hours, and then all at once she would remember. She’d spot a newborn, or she’d meet someone else with the surname Lo. She avoided the neighborhood where they lived, but as his first birthday approached, she could resist no longer.

If he were superstitious, he would have blamed the monks for cursing him.