Page 26

CHAPTER 26 VI?T

The humid air clung to Viet as he unlocked the front door and slipped through. It was a change from the last time when his body felt heavy with the foreboding news. Now there were different sensations: his cheeks were sore after constantly smiling throughout dinner, his fullness from all that delicious food. The warmth of Evie when he’d hugged her.

He quietly entered his house, unsure if his mother was asleep. Then he saw her. Sitting at their kitchen table. He’d always been so close to his mom. And wondered if that sadness she carried, the one he carried as well and was now getting better at confronting and overcoming, with the help of his friends, if that sadness inside them was what connected them. Staring at her now, he imagined that in between the silence of their phone calls, this is what she must have looked like. Guilt compounded—for not trying to fill that silence, that he’d let her sit like this, until it had gotten to this point.

She’d taken all that sadness and knew it was getting her nowhere. So she did something about it. Despite divorce being a Vietnamese social taboo, despite what she was probably brought up to think, despite the gossip that would ensue, she made a decision. For that, he could only see her as brave.

“Hi, M?.”

His words brought her away from her phone. Shocked that he was suddenly there. Or that he’d spoken to her. Not so sure. “Hi, con. ?n gì—”

“Yeah, I just ate.”

A pause before she gave him a small smile. “How’d you know?”

“Because it’s you. When haven’t you asked if I ate yet?” He lowered himself in the chair. Accepted his mother’s silent offering of a triangle of pineapple, one tip dusted with mu?i ?t. The fruit’s prickly peelings littered a newspaper before her. The chef hadn’t offered dessert, but maybe he hadn’t because, somehow in that disorganized brain of his, he knew this was what Viet would be coming home to.

“Who were you texting?”

A deep sigh. “Your father. He is talking about some paperwork.”

“And he asked for your help?”

“No, he didn’t ask. But he’ll need help. He’s very useless.”

A laugh escaped him. It seemed ridiculous—that they were texting, as if all their yearlong fights never happened, that she seemed almost… nonchalant that this was the way things would be going forward. No matter what, he’d never understand their relationship.

She peered at him over her glasses. “M? kh?ng ghét Ba.”

“I know you don’t.” That was the truth. He never thought his parents hated each other. It was too strong of a word. Frustrated, annoyed, tired—these words felt more fitting.

“As long as you understand. We wouldn’t have been together this long if all I ever did was hate him,” she added.

Viet forced out the words, “How did you—I mean, when did you decide you were going to do it?” They both were so close to touching that word, the elephant in the room. He might as well close the distance now. “I never thought it would happen.”

“The solution only became clear after you left,” she said in Vietnamese. “A month after you left for school, I came home after work. My bones were aching. My head, throbbing from a headache. But my heart felt so heavy because the whole day your father and I were arguing. It wouldn’t stop. I realized we both needed to stop all the hurt. That’s why.”

“What if I hadn’t gone to school? Do you think you’d still be together?”

She shook her head. “I remember thinking that I was glad you weren’t home, to see us like this. Then I realized you probably saw it all before. So many years of it—all the yelling and fighting,” his mother added, her tone tinged with wonder. Her hand went over his. “And maybe that is why you are such a quiet boy. So much noise in this house, there is no room for you to speak up.”

Even in the middle of her own pain, she was thinking of him. He never expected her to acknowledge what it was like to live with the two of them—what it cost him. Her words didn’t give him any satisfaction because, in all the times he listened to their arguments, he only wished for them to stop.

“I saw Bao,” he said, flipping his hand so that he was holding hers now. “He knows. Heard it from people talking at the restaurant. Like, Bà Nhi.”

His mother scoffed at the mention of the women in their enclave. “?? ngu. She and her followers are the same. They feed on other people’s struggles. They think they are strong, so they call others weak. They talk bad about others because they can’t talk bad about themselves,” his mother said.

“Imagine their shock when I announced it,” she added.

His hand froze mid-reach for his mug. “You did?” His mother was never this bold in public.

“Yes, I did. So what? What can they do? Rather than them talking about the divorce, why can’t I say the truth, what I am feeling?”

“I wish I could have seen their faces,” Viet said. “After all the bullshit they pull.” Even though she scolded him for cursing, she looked a tiny bit pleased.

A tremble started in his hands. Viet felt his heart beat louder and louder. “I wish… I was more like you. Just say things like that, say how I really feel,” he said.

“You are every bit like me,” she said matter-of-factly.

“No, I’m not,” he answered immediately. “Honestly… I’m not like you. I’m no good. I can’t say it like that. What I feel.”

“What do you feel?” she asked him.

“I’m not fine.”

“Because of Ba M??”

At first, that may have been the lighter to his down spiral. Definitely a part of it. But it was other things too. These last few weeks, stewing in his head, being alone, not being able to say what he felt. It was inevitable. If not divorce, maybe something else at school. Another Big Life moment.

“I guess it was a shock. Half of me thought about it all the time when I was a kid—what it’d be like for you to divorce.” He glanced guiltily at his mother, but her expression remained unchanged. “So when it happened, I didn’t really know what to think.” He thought of his discussion with Ali. “I didn’t know how to act. But there were other times, when I felt sad.”

“What do you mean?” She looked more alarmed than anything. “Sad?”

“You tell me all the time. Don’t be sad. Don’t be bu?n. But I am—bu?n. Seems like all the time.” He was rushing his words, but he couldn’t help it. They needed to get out. “I mean at school, I get into these… moods. Comes and goes, and I manage to get out of it, sometimes more quickly than others. But I know I shouldn’t be this way. I know you tell me not to be bu?n, but sometimes I can’t help it.”

Whatever bolstered his need to explain himself receded just as quickly. He tapped his fingers along the mug’s rim.

“ Don’t be bu?n.” She clicked her tongue. “Sad is bad, a sentence from an English lesson. M? còn nh? because it rhymed. But saying that is not true. Nothing bad about feeling sad. But I am afraid to be sad, and I think that is why I told you not to be. M? ?au mu?n th?y con bu?n.

“It’s okay to be sad. How you eventually get past that matters the most.” His mother’s eyes roamed every inch of his face. “Tonight, you seem a bit better.”

“Yeah, tonight was what I needed.”

“S?ng có khúc, ng??i có lúc,” she whispered, almost to herself.

In his mind’s eye, he pictured the words as note cards and flipped to the English side: river, piece, people, time . But perhaps tired as he was, he was unable to put it all together so that it’d make sense.

“A river is never straight. It turns here and there.” She showed the motion with her hands, like how she’d mime a swimming fish when he was just learning his words. “Same as our lives. It’s never a straight line.”

Viet decided that he liked that imagery.

“Con… is every bit of me,” M? repeated purposefully. “In the best way possible. And today we will be sad. But ngày mai—” Tomorrow…

“… we’ll be happy?”

She straightened her back. “Yes, eventually. But tomorrow we’ll be strong.” She reached out, cupped his cheek. “Okay, con?”

He smiled, his cheeks widening to meet the warmth of her palm. “Okay.”