He’d loaded some of his grandmother’s porcelain in a wagon and toted it into the yard, where he set up targets on old fence posts at the edge of the property. He’d been shooting so long, his fingers were starting to lose their feeling. With every arrow, he imagined he was striking down his problems.
Snipers in Afghanistan. Smash. A teapot exploded with an arrow through the middle.
The sacrifice medal, a silver disk on a red-and-black ribbon, given for death in the line of duty, presented to Frank as if it were something important, something that made everything all right.
Thwack. A teacup spun into the woods.
The officer who came to tell him: “Your mother is a hero. Captain Emily Zhang died trying to save her comrades.”
Crack. A blue-and-white plate split into pieces.
His grandmother’s chastisement: Men do not cry. Especially Zhang men. You will endure, Fai.
No one called him Fai except his grandmother. What sort of name is Frank? she would scold. That is not a Chinese name.
I’m not Chinese, Frank thought, but he didn’t dare say that. His mother had told him years ago: There is no arguing with Grandmother. It’ll only make you suffer worse. She’d been right. And now Frank had no one except his grandmother.
Thud. A fourth arrow hit the fence post and stuck there, quivering.
“Fai,” said his grandmother.
Frank turned.
She was clutching a shoebox-sized mahogany chest that Frank had never seen before. With her high-collared black dress and severe bun of gray hair, she looked like a school teacher from the 1800s.
She surveyed the carnage: her porcelain in the wagon, the shards of her favorite tea sets scattered over the lawn, Frank’s arrows sticking out of the ground, the trees, the fence posts, and one in the head of a smiling garden gnome.

The Son of Neptune, Chapter X