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matter?
    “We’ve heard you are a teacher. What do you teach? Mathematics? Economics?”
    “I teach art,” Di answered.
    “People go to school to learn art? Why?”
    “The same reason as here — to bring beauty into the world and to help people express themselves.”
    In the movies, Binh had seen art — pictures in frames — hanging in American houses.
    “But do people make money with such skills?” asked Third Aunt, fanning herself.
    Di spread her hands wide. “Sometimes money isn’t everything.”
    “Only someone rich would say that,” Cuc whispered.
    Binh had never been so close to a real teacher. She wondered if, like the teachers in the village, Di wore a beautiful, silky outfit when she taught. And then, remembering school, she dropped her gaze.
    Third Aunt handed the purple fan to Di. “Cool yourself down, dear.”
    Di moved the fan slowly back and forth, as though to wave away the questions.

F or Binh, there was something even worse than Di having no husband and no children, or being a teacher of a useless subject. “There’s nothing in the truck but her suitcase,” she whispered to Anh Hai.
    “I know. She didn’t bring anything else. Ba and I kept standing by the place where the luggage comes out of the airplane. Finally, she asked us what we were waiting for. We were embarrassed.”
    “With only that little suitcase, there was plenty of room in the truck for me. I could have gone with you.” Binh scuffed the dirt with the toe of her sandal.
    Anh Hai was about to answer when Ba gestured to him. He pointed to the truck and moved his arm as though he was lifting something.
    “She must want her things now,” Anh Hai said.
    Word spread through the crowd. The children pushed to get close to the table where Di Thao sat. Even the dogs stopped scrounging.
    Anh Hai carried the suitcase to Di and laid it flat on the chair beside her.
    Everyone hushed, listening to the sound of the zipper as Di opened the side pocket.
    Binh inched closer.
    Di took out a small cloth bag, reached inside and brought out something wrapped in thin paper. The object fit in the palm of her hand. She handed the package across the table to Ba Ngoai. “For you, Ma.”
    Binh had been right. Di had brought tiny, important gifts.
    Ba Ngoai loosened the paper and held up a pink stone shaped like a heart.
    Everyone stared.
    Binh narrowed her eyes to see better.
    As though trying to make out something written on the stone, Ba Ngoai leaned close.
    Di laid her hand over Ba Ngoai’s. “I’m sorry it’s in English. It says
Love.
”
    “Thank you,
con.
” Ba Ngoai pinched her eyebrows close together as she studied her gift.
    Di handed another pink heart to Ma. “For you, Van. This one says
Imagination.
”
    Ma turned the stone over and over.
    Binh smiled. How had Di Thao known that they’d all been imagining many things for the last week?
    Then Di glanced around. “I am looking for my little niece.”
    Binh stepped forward.
    “This one is for you.” She took Binh’s hand, uncurled the fingers, and placed a small blue heart in her open palm. “This word says
Wonder.
”
    Small light veins ran through the blue stone, slippery as water in Binh’s hand.
    As she looked down at the rock, her lower lip pushed forward. A stone wasn’t something she’d been expecting or wanting.
    Di reached into the suitcase again and brought out two large items, wrapped not in newspaper, but in a cloud of green. “For my brother-in-law and for my nephew,” she said, standing up, balancing one object in each hand.
    Binh peeked sideways. Maybe Di Thao had brought good gifts only for the men.
    Ba and Anh Hai stepped forward.
    The relatives leaned in.
    Ba slowly unwrapped his present, and Anh Hai tore the pretty green paper off his. They each held up identical pink dragons carved from the same pink stone as the hearts.
    “Like what my mom sells in her shop,” Binh heard Cuc say behind her.
    “Because dragons are a symbol of Vietnam, I thought