Kelly is an instructor of creative writing and English literature. In the following essay, he looks at how this story, which seems to be about three people’s bonds, is actually about how much easier it is to face loss when one has less to lose.

In his short story “The Price of Eggs in China,” Don Lee presents a relationship triangle formed by Dean Kaneshiro, Caroline Yip, and Marcella Ahn, three artists who live in a fictional California coastal town and whose lives are connected, although the story never really makes clear if their connection is the result of fate or of cunning. They are undeniably bound to each other, though. Dean has been hired to build a chair for Marcella, and even though she hired him years earlier, a contract is an unbreakable vow to him. He goes to great trouble to...