Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13
Evelyn
I did not recognize my youngest daughter’s face.
Even though I should have recognized how the curves of Georgia’s cheekbones are shadows of mine, or guessed from the way her widow’s peak sticks out at exactly 3:00—an hour off from my own. Or from the way her big brown eyes appeared like crescent shapes when the sun hits them. You would think that any of these small vignettes would jolt me awake. They didn’t. I should have felt guilt, shame, or something, that it took a few seconds for her face to sink in. But I’d been on my own for so long and had forgotten that there were five flesh-and-blood copycats of myself roaming the earth.
I hadn’t felt guilt since the day I left Houston… the day I left them.
But now Georgia’s heart-shaped face made my own heart want to bleed. All I could see was a younger version of myself, and it frightened me to my core. It frightened me so much, I wanted to run away from her, instead of running toward her. I knew someone would find me one day; I just didn’t know it would be my youngest daughter. I assumed it would be Duc, with his pretty words, trying to placate me again, or Huey, trying to convince me to go along with the plan again. The plan. The ill-fated plan. Their soothing words that tried to convince me, for over thirty years, to go along with it—that it was the only way to protect me, to protect all of us. Thirty years of living the same lie.
I couldn’t do it anymore.
And I didn’t want to keep lying to Georgia’s face, knowing I was responsible for her loneliness, her confusion, and having to force her to grow up without memories of us, unlike the other children. What was it like, to be the youngest daughter of an immigrant mother whose mind had gone feral before her body had? What was it like, to have so many questions, piled up like bodies in a car crash, buried, waiting and waiting for someone to come save you?
My mind had deteriorated so much in those final years living in Houston. I wouldn’t have recognized Georgia’s face even if I had stayed. I was stuck inside my body; my mind was sentient but not alert. Though I could see my hands, mobile, operational, reaching for the same toothbrush in the morning, eating off the same dinner plates, pressing the same Saran-wrapped remote control, I couldn’t feel anything. Not a single emotion could jump-start me. I was comatose. Though I could feel the world around me, and every living organism that passed me by, I couldn’t participate in it. I didn’t want to participate.
This is what it felt like to play pretend. I’d been pretending for so long, I had forgotten what was real. Including how to be a mother. This was what happened when you lived a lie for so long. The lie warps your reality.
In the final week I was in Houston, I could feel the resentment and grief building inside me. It was relentless. The universe must have known something was about to erupt inside of me, because it kept sending me hints. Even the atmosphere changed, despite how stilted Houston summers were. Everything I had eaten turned sour. It was so sour it hurt the inside of my cheeks, sending a tingling sensation all the way up the sides of my brain. I had to leave. The depression was caving in, and the light was disappearing.
Duc and Huey were nothing more than men who had robbed me of a life. Men somehow keep robbing me of the many lives I could have had. And I kept having to grieve. But when I overheard them speaking that day, nearly twenty years ago, on that ordinary yet cataclysmic Tuesday, I knew, for the sake of my children, I had to leave. I knew if I had chosen to forget what I heard that day, I’d have sent myself to an early grave.
A forgotten mother was better than a dead one.
I watched Duc and Huey circle around each other out on the lawn, talking loudly, not realizing I was above them on the balcony, within earshot. Duc’s stupid Michelangelo replica statue towered over them.
I didn’t mean to listen in. I just wanted some air. Neighbors sporting polo shirts sped around the bend in their fast cars. Their golf bags stuck out so pompously, a symbol of a class that was leagues out of our own despite how much cash we had hoarded around the house. Not all the cash in the world could have given me that type of safety: the type of safety that comes with being able to play golf leisurely on Tuesdays.
I heard Duc’s booming voice, once again trying to convince Huey. For whatever reason, I kept listening, instead of ignoring them as I often did.
“Anh, just let it go,” Duc said, his voice uncaring and aloof. The sound of his voice was grating. He had an ease about himself that was off-putting to the naked eye; it was his callous way of brushing things off with a joie de vivre that implied that your pain was a nuisance. “Your guilt is starting to show.”
“People are starting to talk,” Huey shot back, his nerves giving him away once again. He ran his hand through his greasy hair, the stress over the years impacting his hairline. “All the gossip is reaching the kids. They’re starting to ask questions. People are starting to question our family dynamic, and Evelyn’s mental state isn’t the best, can’t you see?”
Duc scoffed. “She’ll be fine. Just buy her a new bag or some shoes. The kids will also be fine. Buy them some presents, too. The newest Walkman, Gameboy, or whatever the kids want these days. Hell, get a puppy for all I care.”
A puppy. The kids would love that.
“That can’t be the solution forever,” Huey said anxiously, doing his best to push back against Goliath. “Sooner or later, she’s going to find out the truth about what really happened.”
What on earth were they so worried about? Gossip had been following us for years, from one neighborhood to the next, the more we upgraded ourselves in the small village that was Houston. I wanted to throw something off the balcony and hit the back of Duc’s head, but I kept quiet.
“Today’s his anniversary, you know, the day he died,” Huey said, his words much softer than before. “Should we do something? Go to the temple and light incense for him? I was going to bring Evelyn there later.”
I was struck momentarily by Huey’s kindness and empathy toward me. Here he was, still willing to honor someone long after their death day. My heart melted for a second, being pulled back in by Huey’s gravitational sphere. Was I so angry for nothing? Duc and Huey meant well; they always have, haven’t they? In my depressive haze, the gaslighting I had done to myself didn’t allow me to see a clear picture.
“Let the dead lay in peace, along with our past,” Duc said, his voice getting angry, proving me wrong. He inhaled his cigarette, then spat out the smoke. “I told you that your guilt will kill you one day, and everyone else will be a casualty of our shrapnel.”
Huey began to protest, and I lost sight of what he had said, barely making out the rest of their conversation, as another neighbor, whose sports car could be heard from miles away, zipped past us. The roar of the horse engine overpowering the men’s voices. I could make out Duc cursing at the neighbor, calling him and his car tactless.
“But it’s our fault, isn’t it?” Huey asked, his voice clear again. “We killed him, didn’t we? All those years ago?”
I froze.
For the first time in ages, I could feel something twitch inside me. I must have been mistaken. What did he just say? I went out as far as I could go on the balcony without being seen.
I’ve always had my suspicions, but like everyone else during that time, I kept quiet. Quiet was good. Quiet was survival.
“Stop saying that,” Duc hissed. “We didn’t kill him. It can’t be traced back to us. It was his fault. Stick to the story: The man was attacked. He’s a martyr. That’s always been our story. Why change it now?”
Story? What was the real story, then? My heart began to sink even lower, along with my body, down to the floor, as my fingers turned white, gripping the metal railing.
“Anh, we can’t keep lying,” Huey said sadly, shaking his head. “We just can’t.”
“At what point do we tell Evelyn the truth?” I could hear Huey still protesting, but his resolve was becoming weaker.
“Are you stupid? Never. We never tell her the truth,” Duc sniped back, lighting up another cigarette. “Look how far we’ve come. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Look at how she’s rotting away. You think telling the truth now about how he died will make her get better? Look at how happy the children are. Look where we ended up. You think telling her now will make a difference? Look at our riches, and remember what we have to protect.”
Huey’s protests died altogether, and the men changed topics, walking away from where I was hidden. I watched Duc blow another long, billowy plume of cigarette smoke from his mouth and walk toward his car, Huey, a stray dog at his side, following loyally. They walked around in a crop circle pattern, hands behind their backs. Scheming. Always scheming.
I leaned back and watched the two men finally get into the car and drive off over the horizon, almost colliding with another rich neighbor’s brand-new Porsche.
I grew past the point of anger. I just felt numb. Men. Men. Men. I suddenly began to see more clearly than I had the past decade. The loss of Vietnam, the loss of memories of him , the loss of a free life, without the lies. Will my children ever know the truth? Will Jude ever know? Where was the little girl I once was? She died the day he had died.
I drew the curtains closed, grabbed a suitcase, any suitcase that was close by, anything that could hold what meager possessions I had chosen at random, and I began to pack. I ignored my children’s cries from their rooms, and prepared to leave this life behind.
But decades later, life had finally caught up to me. Here was Georgia, my youngest daughter, standing in front of me. A grown woman in her own right. And here I was, still lying to her. A brutal, endless cycle. Perhaps that is the ouroboros of life, the secrets mothers carry to protect their own, and the questions that children have.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that Georgia would be the one to find me. It was always the youngest that is left in the dark. A dangerous and vulnerable position to be in a family. I would know. I am the youngest of four sisters, who were all left behind in Vietnam. I knew Georgia must have made up grand scenarios about me, believing that I’d be back one day, that I had simply “gotten lost,” or perhaps I was just in a treatment facility. I knew she believed that I was doing everything I could to go back to her, even when every Christmas or Lunar New Year passed by without my presence. But even if I had stayed, and told her the truth, would she be willing to accept it? Would any of them? That I had to walk away from being a mother because I was afraid that if I didn’t, it’d have killed me in the end?
What surprised me was that she called me “Má.” Can you believe it? Even after everything that happened, she was still calling me her mother when she found me.
What gutted me was the hope that came into her eyes when she called me Má, as if I would call her con again.
So, I did what any mother would do. It was like remembering how to ride a bike again. Just because I had left didn’t mean that motherhood had left me. I looked my youngest daughter in the eye and asked if she had eaten yet.