A devout worshipper, Grandma Lanh has two altars in her home, one devoted to Lady Buddha and one devoted to Grandpa Toan and Uncle Ty. For Lady Buddha, there is an incense urn, an iron mortar and pestle, a flower vase, and a framed picture made from pieces of velvet — the goddess stands on top of a globe, hands clasped in prayer. Every night Grandma Lanh takes the iron pestle and strikes the mortar three times before planting three incense sticks in the urn. When she is done, she sidesteps to the other altar and lights more incense sticks, bowing three times before two black and white portraits. Next to each photo stands a beige plastic horse that she found in a dumpster many years prior. “Grandfather and uncle need these horses,” she always says, “for transportation.”

I remember once, my father got mad at me for praying with incense sticks before Grandpa Toan’s altar. “We’re Catholic. We don’t use incense,” he said. “What would Jesus think?” Ashamed, my heart raced. At seven, I had just offended God.

Standing by the altar this morning, I see that she has made an extra space next to Uncle Ty’s portrait.

Grandma Lanh pulls herself off the hammock in the living room and slides into the Ugg slippers I gave to her last Christmas. “The monk that your Uncle Le hired, I don’t like him,” she says. “And I don’t like Le either. My daughter was good to him and now he hires a cheap monk for her. Not old enough either.” Grandma Lanh wants someone Buddha can hear. “I found a real a monk from southern Maryland, a good chanter; he will help her reincarnate.”

“So this means we’ll have to sit through the same ritual with two different monks?” I ask.

“Hey, it wasn’t my idea,” she says.