My daughter chimes in from the back seat, “Brandon’s mom is very nice, Mom. She just wants to know what happened.”

In the rearview mirror, I study my daughter. When I first learned that I was having a daughter, everyone in the family was so disappointed. In China, a boy is always better, if you’re going to have one child. But me, I was secretly happy. A boy, at best, can adore his mother, but a girl can understand her. When the doctor told me it was a girl, I thought, Now I will be understood. That was my happiest moment. The idea of a daughter.

“Don’t talk to me about things you don’t understand,” I tell her now.

She blinks, doesn’t say anything. She makes herself very quiet, as she should, and gazes out the window. Good, I think. Don’t look at me.

As if by instinct, she looks up. Our eyes meet in the mirror. Then she looks away.

– Peking Duck