Since the fourth grade, Lan had been her family's translator. She explained letters from the gas company, argued with the automated phone menu at the bank, and once spent a whole Saturday helping her father fill out a form for a fishing license. She was good at it. Most of the time she did not even notice she was doing it.

The parent-teacher conference was different, because this time the conversation was about her. Ms. Delgado slid a progress report across the table and explained, pleasantly, that Lan's science grade had slipped because three lab reports were missing.

Her father looked at Lan, waiting. Lan looked at the progress report. "She says I am doing well in science," Lan told him in Vietnamese, "but I need to turn in a few things."

It was not a lie, exactly. It was a translation with the sharp corners sanded off. Her father nodded and smiled at Ms. Delgado, and Ms. Delgado smiled back, and for a moment everyone at the table seemed perfectly satisfied except Lan.

Walking to the car afterward, she felt the missing reports in her chest like three stones. At the curb, she stopped. "Ba," she said, "I left something out." This time she translated every word, including the ones she wished were different. Her father listened without interrupting. Then he unlocked the car and said, "Tonight we will sit at the kitchen table, and you will show me the first one."