Chapter Sixteen: Linh

CHAPTER SIXTEEN LINH

It’s not that I didn’t know I was liar. But to hear someone else agree with that? It’s piercing. Especially coming from Bảo, because as much as I dislike the label, I know he’s right. Lying to maintain stability. Lying to make sure my parents aren’t worrying about me or nagging me because they already have to do that as parents. In a way, isn’t this saving my parents from grief? He’s doing it, too. That’s the only reason why we’re able to do this whole food beat.

But it’s never going to stop if you go on like this, says a voice unusually like Bảo’s.

I yell in frustration, glad to have the house to myself for an hour. My parents are still at the restaurant. My sketch from earlier tonight is beside me, nearly done. I just have to add more depth perception. I run my hand across its rough texture.

Bảo can’t know the pressure. From what I can tell, his parents aren’t forcing him to be something—they just want him to find his path, which he said he couldn’t see, but observing him tonight, writing seems to come naturally to him.

I force down the sudden spike of jealousy; his parents are clearly different from mine.

It felt normal in the beginning. If other people were looking in, we probably seemed like two high school students on a real date. When I’m with Ali, I can talk about a lot of things, but she can’t understand being raised the way me and Evie were. We grew up differently.

I smile at the memory of watching him try to tame his hair. He didn’t know I was there. I can’t be sure, but I feel as if his hair is the type to grow faster than it should. I like it long, better than his bowl cut—for obvious reasons. It’s the kind of hair that’d be easy to run through with your hands.

My hand. I glance down.

In my reverie, I was starting to outline the shape of his head. I rub at the image, smudging the lines.

But of course I botched the conversation. I panicked when he pressed me about lying. The moment he mentioned lying, I denied it, but I was denying the truth. I shouldn’t have shut down. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bảo told Ali the next day that he can’t work the beat anymore.

It’d be another lie to say that that wouldn’t hurt me.

“How was dinner with Ali?”

Flipping over my sketchbook, even though there’s nothing to give me away, I look up. Right: my excuse. Mẹ had come back from work at some point. I hear Ba over in their room, opening and closing drawers, getting ready for bed.

“Good. We ate ramen.”

Mẹ makes a face. She’s not a huge fan, claiming it’s too salty for her taste. As she comes over, I shove the sketchbook under my pillow.

“Mẹ missed a call from Dì Vàng. Let’s see why she called.” Mẹ sits on my bed, and scoots back so that she’s against the wall like me.

After a few rings on Viber, my aunt appears onscreen in all of her familiar late-morning, I was sculpting all last night for fun grogginess. Her large black-rimmed glasses sit at the end of her nose. She’s still in her pajamas, light green elephants printed on the sleeves. My mom has a similar set; the material is perfect for the heat here, too. Dì Vàng is in her apartment’s kitchen, a cup of cà phê đen beside her. If I strain enough I might be able to hear the motorcycles outside her window, some neighborhood women laughing, loitering on the sidewalk, or a vendor hawking fish or fresh veggies.

“Did you just wake up?” my mom asks. It’s eleven in the morning over there, too late for Mẹ’s typical wake-up time at dawn.

“Maybe.” Knew it. My aunt makes a show of yawning and stretching. “What did you eat for dinner?”

“Leftovers. And you?”

I roll my eyes. They say hi and immediately ask about food? My aunt points the phone downward to show her plate of ốp la—fried eggs, the yolk runny once pierced—with bánh mì, likely fresh from next door.

“Where’s the xì dầu?” Mẹ asks almost accusingly.

“Chị trying to diet. Less salt. It’s perfectly fine without it.”

“You sound Mỹ,” Mẹ says. I grin, thinking about how much my mom acts like the older sister even though she isn’t. My aunt knows how to take it, though, shooting back playful replies. Oh yes, I can see it.

“So, what’s happening? You don’t usually call me. It’s the other way around.”

“Did you get my vase?”

“Yes. You shouldn’t have sent it. It costs so much money to ship things over.”

“I wanted to give you something nice! But if you’re that worried about money, maybe I should just deliver my next one to you myself.” Dì Vàng leans closer, grinning now. Her eyes are alive.

Does she mean… ?

“Are you coming here?”

“Are you?” I ask, pulling the phone from Mẹ’s hand. She snatches it back.

“You’re coming here, really?” she asks again.

“Yes, it’s been way too long. Twelve, thirteen years?”

“When are you coming?”

“Around Tết.”

“You’re leaving around Tết? But why? It’s the best holiday. Traffic will be horrible.”

Dì Vàng laughs. “Of course you’re already worrying about the travel schedule! Anyway, I’ve seen so many Tết; I live here. Plus it’s been so long! I want to see you. I want to hug Evie and Linh!”

“That can’t be the only reason.”

“I also might be visiting some artist friends on the West Coast.”

“You have friends here?” I ask, though I shouldn’t be surprised. When she visited the last time, she managed to make conversation with everyone on the floor of our old apartment building, people my parents and I never even interacted with. She even met Bác Xuân when he came by, and in no time they were trading hypotheticals on what he would do when he retired and moved closer to his adult children and their families.

“I have friends all over the place. I’m international.”

“I can’t believe you’re coming,” I say excitedly. It’ll be two artists under one roof. We’ll go to museums, I’ll show her my work. Someone who will understand my language. And support it.

“Do you have enough money to go traveling?”

Dì Vàng tuts at my mom. “Of course I do. My business is good over here; I wish you believed me.” She leans in again, seeing something in my mom’s expression that I must have missed. “I am no longer a struggling artist, as you seem to think I will always be.”

“You’ve struggled for a long time, I remember.”

“I know; I remember too. But I am fine. You shouldn’t worry too much, em.”

Mẹ holds back whatever thought she has and they move on to talking about old friends, some woman they knew who’d eloped in Hội An, then came back without the husband recently. I sit there, silent, content to listen, eyes tracking the level of my aunt’s coffee as she sips away at it. Then Mẹ notices my eyes closing slowly. The ramen is finally kicking in, lulling me to sleep.

“Okay, cho Linh đi ngủ.” They exchange goodbyes, my aunt saying she’d circle back with more info about her visit next year.

Mẹ only sighs as she maneuvers herself off my bed.

“Be happy, Mẹ!” I say, holding on to my mom’s arm before she leaves, trying to get her not to worry already. “Your sister’s coming over.” I see a hint of a smile blooming on her face, though she stops herself, shooing away my hand.

“I really don’t know what she’s thinking. She’s so unpredictable. And she shouldn’t spend her money so freely.”

“Was it really that bad? Dì Vàng and her sculpting business.”

“She’d just started it when she was seventeen right after leaving school. Then rationings were happening and the government was watching anyone who was against cộng sản very closely. They stole part of our land, leaving little to us.” My mom fiddles with the back of her phone cover. “Many times Dì Vàng would come home without making any sales.”

“So what happened?”

“Luckily, we had older aunts and uncles who would come in and out, making sure we were fed. That is the Vietnamese way. But still, Mẹ biết nghề nghiệp của Dì Vàng would not help us. Art was only for fun. And during that time, there was no time for playing.

“At the camps, when Mẹ finally made it—just mười hai tuổi—I promised I would work hard. So that we would suffer less. So that Mẹ could help your aunt back home.”

My mom was fourteen by the time they left the camps and were accepted into the United States with her cousins and two other refugees they’d grown close to. But she couldn’t depend on her cousins alone—they too were thrust into an unfamiliar place with minimal English—and finding work was hard. So, when she wasn’t studying to catch up at school, she was working odd jobs. Some of the money went to their daily expenses. Whatever was left over she’d send back to Vietnam, to help my aunt.

“Ah, Mẹ nhức đầu,” she says, massaging her temples, worries about my aunt plaguing her mind. Then she’s off to the next room, muttering about how much she’ll need to clean up to accommodate her sister coming over, despite us having plenty of time to prepare.

I still don’t understand. My aunt seems so happy, and she’s managed to get this far, and it can’t all be because she gets some money now and then from America. She’s not struggling like before, so why can’t my mom see that it all turned out okay in the end? It’s like the memories of my aunt’s struggle keep her from seeing the good sides to art.

I pull out my sketchpad from its hiding place and trace over the image of Bảo. I barely remember doing this drawing; I was just lost in the act of doing it. It’s a type of forgetting that I love, that I can’t get anywhere else. Inside my head, I can just be. My aunt must know this too.

I text Evie about our aunt coming over, and she texts back, jokingly, great, there will be two of you.