The Family Recipe

Chapter 40

CHAPTER 40

Everyone and More Shadowy Figures

“Okay, so it’s almost six hours by bus to Sa Pa. I suggest we leave on the midnight bus and arrive in the morning,” Jane said, studying the bus timetable. All around her, people were milling about, lugging suitcases, and shoving giant cardboard boxes full of dried food, fruits, and vegetables, taped up haphazardly with duct tape. “It’s a sleeper bus, so we’ll be able to stretch our legs for the duration.”

“Are we sure we trust Georgia’s information? Is Duc really in Sa Pa?” Bingo asked nonchalantly, her eyes shifting unexpectedly. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Georgia responded.

“What choice do we have? All we know is that Duc is living in a monastery, in the mountains, somewhere in the north. The locals in New Orleans confirmed it. All roads lead to Sa Pa,” Paulina said. “It’s our only shot.”

“Sounds like he gave us video game directions,” Jude said suspiciously.

“Forget the directions, the real question we need to ask ourselves is, are we chasing a ghost who doesn’t want to be found?” Jane mumbled under her breath.

Nobody responded, in part because no one knew what to say. Perhaps it was two separate things or the same thing. Duc had become a ghost who didn’t want to be found.

“Well, we have a full day in Hà N?i left until we get on the bus then,” Georgia broached nervously. She adjusted her bucket hat and shifted her body. “Should we at least try to do some sightseeing? Instead of just staying inside the hotel?”

Everyone else looked at each other, too defeated to stamp out Georgia’s optimism, energy, and eternal fountain of youth.

“Please…?” Georgia begged, her littlest-sister’s voice whining. Groans were let out. Despite how angry they all were with each other and with their father, something about the baby sister begging was always gutting.

“Sure, fine,” Jane said, sighing heavily. “You win. Where should we go?”

“But try not to have that stupid smile on your face all day,” Bingo growled. “At least pretend for our sake that you’re not having a good time.”

Excitedly, with the face of someone who had struck gold, Georgia whipped out her notebook and a map of Hà N?i. “Well, I was thinking we first start with a walk along the lake Ho-on Ke—wait, how do you pronounce this lake’s name?” she said.

“It’s pronounced Hoàn Ki?m ,” Jude said gently, correcting her.

Georgia repeated it back slowly, and Jude took the time to explain which parts she needed to enunciate more. Jane looked at their brother in surprise. Georgia repeated it a few more times until she got it perfect, and Jude approved.

“To Hoàn Ki?m Lake we go!” Georgia exclaimed, and began to follow the map, leading the charge. Bingo and Paulina shrugged at each other and began to follow closely behind, Paulina’s giant sun hat nearly knocking into the surrounding people.

Jane looked at Jude curiously as they fell behind the group. “Why did you do that?” she asked, her voice neutral for once. There didn’t seem to be a hint of anger directed at Jude, just mostly confusion. Even a tone of respect.

“Do what?”

“Help Georgia with her Vietnamese like that. I’ve never once heard you ever try to correct anyone’s Vietnamese, nor have I seen you actually try to help anyone in our family.”

Jude shrugged and brushed past her, the tips of his ears turning a soft pink. “Why do you have to turn everything I do into a big thing? It’s not that serious, Jane. She… she wants to learn, and you and I are the most fluent, so we might as well teach her. Right?”

Jane watched as Jude jogged to catch up to the others. Did she just witness Jude do something nice? For someone other than himself? She began to walk toward her siblings, her shoulders loose for the first time since landing in Vietnam, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw a familiarlooking woman whose face was also half-covered by a sun hat. Almost like the woman she saw on the plane coming into Vietnam.

Jane blinked twice, and looked again, but no sooner had she opened her eyes than the mysterious woman was gone into the crowd, as an onslaught of tourists and tour buses filled in the empty space.

The siblings didn’t bicker or try to outshine each other. They just stepped back, allowing Georgia to fulfill her fantasies of traveling to Vietnam, and they did all the tourist things that one did when visiting Hà N?i. Together, they walked the cobblestones of the Old Quarter, ate northern-style ph?, drank egg coffee, walked alongside the hidden alley where a train ran through, sat underneath centuries-old banyan trees, and as night fell, they decided to get some beers together before boarding the sleeper bus to the mountainous region of Sa Pa.

They walked into a wooden shack with vines draped all over. The bar was crowded with a mix of tourists, locals, and expats, all elbowing to try to find an available plastic stool to sit on. A server walked past, carrying an ice bucket full of Bia Saigon, and Jude managed to grab five bottles.

“Am I allowed to say I love Vietnam?” Georgia asked tentatively as she opened her beer, turning 360 degrees, taking everything in.

“Look, Georgia,” Jane said slowly, trying to rein her back in.

“Okay, sorry, forget I said anything. I know I shouldn’t be so excited—” Georgia interjected.

“No, Georgia—”

“I just have always wanted to come here—”

“Georgia—”

“—and I was always so jealous that you all got to come here—”

“Chrissakes, Georgia,” Jane yelled. “I’m trying to apologize to you!”

In any ordinary bar back in America, Jane would have gotten looks and stares from fellow patrons, but here, not one single person batted an eye at her outburst.

“Apologize?” Georgia asked meekly.

“ Apologize? ” Bingo gasped. “You?”

“Don’t get used to it,” Jane said sarcastically. “I—I shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss what you wanted to do during the short time that we’re here. I often forget you’ve never been here, and that Duc never took you along on one of his business trips. You were always too…”

“Young.” Georgia finished the sentence. “I know.”

“Well, let’s not be weird and sentimental, then,” Bingo said gruffly. “Let’s just drink, okay? Let’s not get all into our feelings .”

“Look, I also want to say something,” Paulina said as she stood and held up her beer.

“Oh god,” Bingo whispered, setting her beer back down. “Why is everyone acting like it’s someone’s wedding?” The bar was packed as everyone laid eyes on Paulina, whose beauty was even more exaggerated through drunken, rose-colored lenses. Tourists from Spain, Germany, and Australia looked immediately lovestruck as the whole bar went quiet to listen to her speech.

“I know I’ve been giving out weird compliments all day. About the coffee, the food, the environment, the people, whatever,” Paulina continued. “But, I have to say, this is the nicest day we’ve all had together in probably a decade. It felt like we’re… a family. Even crazier, it feels like we… like each other?”

Though Jude, Jane, and Bingo all groaned and protested, their walls had begun to soften.

“So, what I’m trying to say is… ‘to family,’?” Paulina said, though it came out as a question. As she raised her glass up high, the whole bar followed suit, cheering along.

“It does feel like we’re a family, doesn’t it?” Georgia said softly after a while, as her eyes wandered toward the crowded street. Night fell quickly, and even though the sun had disappeared, the air somehow remained the same. It was a dizzying mix of all types of people parading in and out through the streets.

Though they all shared the same thought, they were too afraid to say it out loud. Because in some weird, crazy way, Duc was responsible for bringing them all together like this, and they didn’t want to admit that maybe they were all there in Vietnam for something more than just chasing Duc, the truth, or the money. That they were here chasing something far more elusive, and that was to belong again to one another, to be able to tell strangers that they had four siblings, and that they, in their own flawed ways, loved each other.

Once everyone was settled onto the sleeper bus, and Georgia’s selfie stick was finally put away, no longer whacking every passenger in the head, everyone roughly closed their respective curtain, shutting out the world and each other. Jude, Jane, Bingo, Paulina, and Georgia lay on their backs or turned on their sides, and took out their phones, lighting up their beds. Their legs magically stretched out, despite how cramped the sleeper looked from the outside. In a lot of ways, it was roomier than a New York City studio nestled in the East Village.

They had roughly six hours to go before they reached Sa Pa, which meant six more hours of constant stewing. Inside each micro-cabin, each Tr?n privately grieved or celebrated their milestones.

In Jude’s makeshift cabin, he mourned the loss of Phoebe. In fact, he was relieved to be so far away from Houston. The glow of his screen comforted him as he scrolled through old photos of himself and Phoebe. He wanted so badly to message her, and tell her everything that had happened so far, and how strange it was that he was bonding with his baby sister, but he was too afraid to make first contact. And can you believe he was in Vietnam? With all his sisters? But all he saw instead were more and more photos of Phoebe and Paul together, at group events, restaurants, bars, concerts. He missed her, or perhaps he missed the idea of her. That maybe Duc’s letter wasn’t wrong, that Jude needed something more to live for.

In the row across from Jude, Jane was scrolling through photos of Henry. She had also accumulated hundreds of photos somehow, each square piling up on top of one another, giving a documentation of what she had built since moving back to Houston. She was haunted by her last interaction with Henry. She began to have phantom conversations with him, practicing how to say the two hardest phrases in the world: “I’m sorry” and “I love you.” Jane allowed herself to cry quietly, so no one else could hear her, thankful for how loud the engine was. Jane didn’t know how to allow someone to love her.

Underneath Jane, Paulina was huddled in a pool of her own mess. Her usual austere exterior had melted in the harsh Vietnam climate. Gone were the days of heavy makeup, the designer outfits, and blow-out hair. She was naked in more ways than she could count, open for a hit from any assassin. Paulina stalked Oliver over social media, checking all his socials to see if she could figure out where he was currently and what they meant to each other. Now that Paulina had met Esther, she felt a yearning. A draw to be part of them. Paulina looked back on old photos of the picnic they had had on her last day in the Bay Area, and she began to yearn for their time together again, to start over, and to try to build a different type of family, one that wasn’t steeped in trauma.

Meanwhile, in the next cubby over, down the world’s tiniest ladder, Bingo contemplated sending a text to Iris. But she stopped herself. What would be the point? Bingo had been observing her from afar on social media, and watching Iris slowly take over the old Duc’s Sandwiches space. There was no point in bothering her. Then Bingo sent a different text to the man she suspected was their father, to see if he had fallen for her bear trap. And he had. He’d just landed in Vietnam, and would meet them at Sa Pa. A small smile formed as she relished the fact that she was the one carrying a family secret now.

Unbeknownst to Bingo, she wasn’t the only one plotting that night. In the cubby diagonal to hers, her baby sister, Georgia, stuck her head out of the curtain, waiting for the final two passengers to get on. As two women approached, passing Jude, Jane, Bingo, and Paulina’s cubbies, they tightened their wrapped scarves around their shoulders, shoved their plastic visors even farther down, and pushed their big sunglasses up the bridge of their noses. They subtly each gave Georgia a nod before heading to the very back of the bus.

While some of the Tr?ns cried themselves to sleep that night, some stayed awake, listening to the sound of both tourists and locals snoring, or others rudely blasting YouTube videos without headphones. An Australian couple was having a heated argument about whether they should divorce or go to couples therapy. But no matter who was on that bus, everyone could feel how broken and bumpy the road was underneath their thin cotton pad. No one slept like princesses or princes that night.