Photo by Emily Chow / North by Northwestern.

Teresa rolled up her sleeves so she wouldn’t get any ink on them and thoughtfully swirled the brush in the black pot. Resting her left elbow on the wood block to hold it still, she carefully painted the characters for “mother.” Well, that was a start. Her mother was on the phone right now managing the business. She was steady as a cruise liner on the open water while Teresa often felt like a dinghy in a hurricane — directionless and about to wreck.

Teresa bit her lip. This was a prayer block. What could she pray for her mother?

The business. Teresa’s father and mother had run their own business for years, but ever since Teresa’s father had passed away a few months ago, her mother was on her own. There were debts to be repaid, employees who wanted their paychecks, pending bills…money trickled away like water in their hands.

She wrote the characters meticulously, letting her mind wander. Her mother had always remained calm, even after her father’s death, when Teresa had been such a shipwreck. There had been days when she could barely get out of bed. It had been Teresa’s depression that had moved her mother to buy the plane tickets to Taiwan in the hope that it would raise Teresa’s spirits.

“But Mom, we can’t afford it,” Teresa had protested.

“It’s necessary,” her mother had replied firmly. “Taking care of the family home, visiting Grandma. It’s our duty.”

But Teresa knew better.

And here she was now, biting her lip while her mother was trying to make ends meet, pressured from all sides and yet so calm, emerging from the storm unscathed —

No. That wasn’t right.

She didn’t show it like Teresa did, but Teresa’s father’s death had affected her. Of course it had. Teresa thought of the deep parentheses that had appeared around her mother’s mouth, the continual wrinkling of her brow as she carried their shattered world like Atlas had carried the world on his shoulders.

Teresa was partly to blame for it, she knew. Her grief was her mother’s grief. She wished she could take it back, the concern she had caused, the lines on her mother’s face that she had deepened.

She regarded the block. She dipped the brush in the inkpot and bit her lip again, searching for the right words. Rejuvenation? Youth?

“Teresa,” her mother called. “Finish your prayer so we can go to Grandma’s — ”

She was cut off by her cell phone ringing. Teresa sighed as she stepped out of the room to answer it and began speaking in rapid Mandarin.

Perhaps youth wasn’t the right word. After all, she wasn’t praying for her mother to be 20-years-old again, just for her to be…less stressed out. More carefree. Carefree as she had been when she was twenty and had first married Teresa’s father, when she had had so many hopes for their lives together.

She inked the characters swiftly on the board. A prayer for her mother’s happiness, the kind she had had years ago.

“Teresa!” her mother called again.

“Coming!” Teresa yelled, hurriedly replacing the ink and brush. She blew frantically on the ink to dry it and placed it at a shrine, uttering a quick prayer before racing to where her mother was waiting.

“Ready to go to Grandma’s?” she said.

Teresa nodded.