Cracked street. Blistering Taiwanese heat. The lines of my grandmother’s palm. Mottled by years of living dotted by white, yellow, and red spots, her hands were as varied in color as the flowers she kept on her rooftop garden. As always, she chided me to listen to my mom, and I took comfort in these soft-hearted scoldings that I normally heard over the phone. However, that day as we walked along cracked streets, she also thought about the inevitable....

“It’s fun to be almost grown up in some ways, but it’s not the kind of fun I expected, Marilla. There’s so much to learn and do and think that there isn’t time for big words.” Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery Green fields stretched between sections of the parking lot. Puffed dandelions dotted the hill. Crabgrass encroached onto the steps, squished by the flow of people. I looked for four leaf clovers with my...