At age ten, Chen was riding the subway home from the Bronx Zoo with his popo when he saw a group of teenagers board the train dressed in crisp white shirts and navy cardigans in a style like the ones his grandfather had once worn. They were incongruous with the brightly patterned backpacks slung over their shoulders. These kids formed a small circle by themselves, speaking of nothing Jack could ascertain. One boy pulled out a bouquet of rock candy lollipops and passed them around to his friends. They sucked as if not tasting the sweetness at all, which somehow made the candy seem more rarified. The teenagers all had clear skin, their hair ranging from dark blond to tawny brown, a kind of lightness and softness that caught the afternoon light as easily as the candy they were holding.

“Who were those kids?” he asked Popo after the group got off at 81st Street.

“Private school students.”

“What’s private school?”

“It’s for rich people.”

The image of these students lingered in his mind, and after that, he began to look for private school students the way boys his age who grew up in the suburbs might look for warblers and blue jays. Each time he saw school uniforms on the train, excitement came over him. These kids were treasures in the wild, a completely different species than he, with the ability to flit between his habitat and their own.

In the eighth grade, his counselor told him that his grades were impressive and suggested that he apply to magnet schools. Despite the lack of uniforms on the kids pictured in the brochures, he liked the idea of being accepted somewhere exclusive. It was about as close to those private school students as he could ever hope to get. When he was admitted to Townsend Harris High, his parents lit up with unexpected hope. It was the first time they approached Jack’s prospects with any long-term consideration. Their younger son, Ivan, had Down syndrome, and required the majority of their parental attention and care. To keep their older son fed and clothed was enough, but now they saw him as someone who could not only fit into the world of their catering business but move beyond it. Jack happily took up this mantle of hope.

At Townsend Harris, there were computer labs and art rooms stocked with boxes of oil pastels that were not missing any of their colors. Best of all, he took a computer science class, where he fell in love with the kind of language he must have spoken in another life. To create something out of nothing with just strings of letters and numbers made him feel like anything was possible. When he stared at that dark screen and filled it with code, it was like he’d gone deep into space, where nothing — not even gravity — could hold him.

As a junior, he decided he wanted to go to Columbia University and attached to it the same glamor that he once had to private high schools. His counselor thought he stood a good chance; all he needed was to ace his boards, which his grades showed him completely capable of doing. But the SAT wasn’t like any test he’d ever taken. He found himself distracted by word problems (What was a regatta and what did it have to do with the speed of a boat?) and unable to concentrate on reading comprehension, confusing the names of European cities and cheeses in an essay about dairy farming. His score, after multiple attempts, was middling.

And so came Jack Chen’s initial splitting of self, his first true act of shape-shifting. He felt himself divide into two: the person he aspired to be and the person he was. With his scores, he knew that Columbia was far out of reach. Besides the disappointment of his eventual rejection was a shaking of the core belief shared by his family that Jack was brilliant. Here was incontrovertible proof that he was not. But how do you break that news to your loved ones, who have staked their hopes on you?

The answer was you became a performer. When your rejection came from Columbia University, you told them you got in, and the smiles on their faces made you feel as if you had gotten in, a lie — a life! — that felt so real to you, you almost let it go on forever. But you didn’t get carried away, you pulled back from the edge just in time. After a week of celebrations with them, you put on a sad smile and showed them the acceptance letter from CCNY with the full scholarship. You told them that you had to be practical and take the entire picture into consideration. You couldn’t justify paying full price for Columbia when four years at City College were being offered to you for free. You were not going to let yourself be saddled with debt, or make your parents spend any more money on you than they already had. Everything they made was going straight into retirement. And the more you spoke, the more you knew you meant it. Your mother’s hands were raw and scarred from handling hot food; your father had a bad back and needed a new bed. They were forty-nine going on a hundred and two. They were not under any circumstances to think about providing for you.

Growing up, Jack hadn’t always been the most dutiful son and brother. Sometimes he liked to go missing. He slipped away in crowded streets and at neighborhood functions, where he mingled with strangers or walked silently by himself, pretending to be someone else — someone who was part of a different family. After school, rather than joining Popo and Ivan where they waited for him by the gate, he lingered behind the big metal doors, watching them and considering his options. He might board a bus into Manhattan, or escape to Steve’s house for N64. He might go to Dintai’s to pet the new litter of puppies, try to offload them in the park for cash. When Popo grew visibly impatient, he continued to wait. It was Ivan’s expression he was watching for: that moment when his brother’s un-ease would turn to panic. Only then would Jack emerge.

“Here I am!” he’d say as he ran up to them, and watch Ivan break into a grin that turned Jack’s insides to honey.

Jack might never be able to command his parents’ full attention, but he was certain he was the center of Ivan’s world. This feeling of indispensability was the only thing better than freedom. When Jack was around Ivan, the world seemed simpler, and it was much clearer what his priorities were, what he should do. In these moments he felt least like a shape-shifter. Around Ivan, he could feel himself becoming solid.