Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the source text’s depiction of anti-Asian discrimination and hate crimes.

When Joan considers people, she thinks about size, about how much space they take up in a room. Joan herself is diminutive in stature at just under five feet tall. A recent patient at the hospital where Joan works told her that she looked like a mouse and questioned her medical credentials. Wryly, Joan replied that her diplomas are large and framed and, as such, are not portable. Joan added that the man was welcome to leave and return later, but she would probably still be on shift.

Joan’s father has just died. A workaholic who owned his own construction firm, he suffered a fatal stroke while in a meeting at work. He’d recently complained of headaches and eye pressure, but although Joan had encouraged him to see a doctor about his symptoms, she knew that he would not. At the very end, after he’d lost consciousness, Joan’s mother had called her and put the phone up to his ear, which let Joan briefly speak to her father before he died. Joan had known as she spoke that hearing is the last sense to go and that her father’s death was imminent.