Chapter 20
CHAPTER 20
Georgia
The sputtering of Georgia’s van was often a dead giveaway of her whereabouts, but Georgia was grateful that her faithful van had made a miraculous recovery, practically coming back from the dead. After dropping out of college, and nearly three years on the road, pinballing between the coasts, Georgia’s attachment to her van was beyond surface sentimental; it represented a home more stable than she’d ever known. The van offered physical shelter and protection, and hadn’t willingly abandoned her like her sisters had.
All Georgia ever had were memories of her family leaving her, one by one. First her mother, then her sisters left the house, each one determined to escape their father and their brother—none of them realizing that they had forgotten her along the way.
As the morning broke, Georgia was determined to keep track of her mother even more. She had lost Evelyn a few days ago, but Georgia managed to find her (her mother’s Vespa had dented Georgia’s van in an attempt to escape her). This time, though, Evelyn almost made it seem like she wanted to be found. She had even left Georgia a hot plate wrapped in tinfoil outside her van, and knocked a few times on her door before running away to her apartment just a few feet away. It was a plate of chicken. But it was always chicken. Maybe it was a Vietnamese mother thing, or maybe it was a southern thing. Or maybe it was just a stranger trying to remember how to be a mother again.
Georgia pulled back the curtains in her old van, allowing the southern sun to stream in as she enjoyed her mother’s chicken. The bayou, blue as ever, greeted her through the window, and she greeted it back with the same warm welcome. New Orleans was starting to grow on Georgia, in a way that no other city had before. Almost half a year into her father’s inheritance scheme, and she felt more comfortable living in her van than ever before. She was so secluded from the rest of her family, but she was in the same place as her mother, and perhaps that was all the family she needed now. It was as if she and Evelyn shared a secret that no one else knew, even if all she got was chicken.
Today, Georgia felt that, perhaps, she could find a way to break through to her mother.
I hope you find a bit of yourself, somewhere along the bayou. Just like how I did, when I was your age.
Duc’s words murmured in her ear as she put on the coffee, the familiar groaning sound of her ancient coffeepot began to drip, and Georgia set out to get the day’s affairs in order. She shoved the mattress back into its corner of the van, took out the composting toilet, refilled the water tank, and air-dried some laundry on a clothesline she had strung together on the roof. She hummed while she put away clothes, washed dishes, and reorganized her tiny spice rack. Everything that Georgia had ever needed was inside that Sprinter van. Though her father or her siblings couldn’t understand why she had given up everything to live her life in a van, Evelyn was the one person who hadn’t made fun of her when she discovered her youngest daughter’s lifestyle.
As the morning turned into early afternoon, Georgia began to feel sleepy. The sun was different here than it was in Houston; a temptress, it was practically urging her to take a nap. Georgia threw a cursory glance outside Evelyn’s humble ground-floor apartment and saw that her mother’s curtains were still drawn tightly. They’d been drawn for a good few days, ever since their last explosive fight, and her mother hadn’t left her complex. Georgia peeked at where her mother’s Vespa was parked, double-checking that it was still there. True enough, there it was, rusted, yet sturdy and unmoving. Satisfied, Georgia unrolled her mattress pad and laid her head down, allowing herself to rest, with only the hum of the radio station in the background and the faint chirping of cardinals in the distance. Her mother wasn’t going anywhere; Georgia would make sure of it.
But as Georgia let herself go deeper, dreaming of alternate realities and undiscovered poetry books, she failed to see her mother tumbling out onto her patio, complete with a backpack, sunglasses, and a hat. At her age, somehow still spry, Evelyn managed to crawl over the concrete barrier between the porch and the parking lot. She tiptoed toward her Vespa, and wheeled it out into the dirt road before starting it up. She almost threw a fit as the Vespa made a few groaning noises, attempting to quiet it down, until it finally came to life with a roar. She quickly hopped on the bike and snapped on her helmet.
Before she took off, she gave a sad glance at the yellow van that had been parked outside her apartment for days—the van that had been watching her steadily and carefully, that had followed her around for months, trying to get to know her from a distance; the yellow van that had given her a ride home from the grocery store when her Vespa had broken down; the yellow van that housed her youngest daughter, who was so desperate for answers about life, lineage, and for a lost language she would never understand; the yellow van that had been her shadow ever since it arrived in New Orleans. She stared forlornly, wondering if she was making another mistake, or perhaps running away was all she knew. But she could no longer look at Georgia’s face without being reminded of her past, of the lies, of Duc, of Huey, of it all. It reminded her too much of a life that had been a house of cards.
Before Evelyn could second-guess herself or dwell any longer, she pulled up the kickstand and sped away from her youngest daughter, and from all the hurt memories that Georgia had brought with her.
By the time Georgia woke up, she knew her mother was long gone.
The surrounding woods felt dark, colder than usual, and empty. Her mother had proven everyone in her family right: She simply didn’t care about anyone but herself.
How could she?
How could she do this again ?
Georgia was heartbroken, exhausted, numb. She didn’t know why she had slept long after the sun had gone down and through several alarms. The coffee had gone icy and thin, the outside laundry had crinkled and turned stiff, and when she opened up her mini fridge, she saw that there was no food left.
Her mother had disappeared without leaving any food for her, after dangling it in front of her earlier. Georgia felt the pain of abandonment again, and the yearning for a stable mother who actually liked motherhood. The little girl in her curled into a fetal position, too afraid to do anything again out of fear and too hungry to want to do anything.
But Georgia, an eternal hopeless romantic, slid the door wide open and stepped out into the evening, still hopeful that she could be proven wrong. There it was, just a hint of May rose, jasmine, and bourbon vanilla, then it disappeared. Her nose confirmed that her mother was gone, and her eyes confirmed that her mother’s curtains were all drawn open, revealing how dark and sparse her home was. Her green Vespa was absent. Evelyn had left no trace behind.
Georgia’s fist curled up, and she could feel the tears forming at the corners of her eyes.
“Fuck you,” Georgia whispered, barely allowing herself to say the words out loud. Was she being disrespectful? She didn’t know. She barely knew the woman, how could it have been disrespectful? Evelyn was a stranger, undeserving of her patience, time, or empathy. “Fuck you .” She said it louder this time, unafraid. “FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” She stared down the empty dirt road, daring her mother to show up again to face her. All along the apartment complex row, one by one, lights began turning on as they heard Georgia’s scream of anguish, of a young woman trying to understand and make sense of a world with and without her mother.
“Shut up!” someone yelled from the other side of the building. Georgia didn’t have the strength to yell back at the stranger, because in that moment, her stomach grumbled loudly, reminding her that she also had to take care of herself, that her body shouldn’t be forgotten, either. She gripped her stomach, and slid down, defeated, on the dirt road, wondering what to do next. Should she call Jane and confess? Hell, should she tell Duc? Would anyone believe that she had found their mother? Worse: Would anyone even care? Surely, her sisters would care at least? Maybe they would even fly out to help Georgia look for her. There was still hope. But something in the back of her mind kept nagging at her, telling her that nobody cared at all.
And maybe her mother knew it, too.
Ngày nào tao c?ng mu?n ch?t.
Each time her mother and Georgia got into a fight for the past several months, her mother would shout this at her. Their fights remained the same, but escalated in volume: Tell me why you left us. Tell the truth . All Georgia could do was memorize the tones each time, hoping to find someone to translate it for her.
Suddenly, the apartment next to her mother’s lit up, and the back screen door slid away to reveal a small, middle-aged Vietnamese woman, staring curiously at Georgia. Without saying a word, she gestured for Georgia to come inside. Georgia, polite till the end, smiled awkwardly, and gestured no thanks . But the woman was relentless, beckoning at her aggressively. Reluctantly, Georgia did what any dutiful, young woman was taught to—she listened to her elder. She got up off the dirt road and made her way toward her mother’s apartment complex, and into the neighbor’s apartment.
Georgia took off her shoes and gingerly crossed into the woman’s apartment. The woman, frantic, began scuttling around, cleaning up as she went. Towels were bundled up quickly, stacks of fading newspapers were thrown behind a cabinet, the woman apologized in Vietnamese, and Georgia could only surmise she was apologizing for the mess. But the words came out like a gargle, like any time she heard the language.
“I don’t speak Vietnamese,” Georgia said, shaking her head. “Sorry, but I can’t understand you.”
The woman gave a pained look, unsure of what to do next. She quickly grabbed her purse and pulled out her wallet, sliding her driver’s license to Georgia. Anne Chau . Anne.
“Anne,” Georgia said out loud. “Your name is Anne.”
She nodded.
“Anne, do you know where the woman who lives next door went?” Georgia asked. “She must have disappeared sometime in the early afternoon. Drives a green Vespa? Kinda has crazy eyes? Maybe is kind of crazy? Not maybe. She is crazy.”
Anne, whose black hair was riddled with strands of soft gray, put on her reading glasses and gestured awkwardly for Georgia to sit down. She muttered a few words in Vietnamese again and tried her best to use her hands to talk to Georgia. She mimed drinking. Georgia nodded. The woman disappeared into the kitchen, her head bowing on the way out. The clanging of pots and pans, a cabinet door opening and closing, and the steam of a kettle could be heard in the background.
Georgia took a moment to look around the apartment, trying to surmise who this woman was or how she knew Evelyn. As her eyes roamed, she took note of the yellow-stained ceilings, the orchid plants still wrapped in plastic that lined the patio windowsill, and the many small piles of clutter that crowded the already small apartment. The older woman had wrapped her couch in plastic, recycled every plastic container and used them as storage bins, and saved every newspaper that had ever existed. Georgia felt at home in Anne’s apartment. There was a hoarder quality to it, and the inability to keep the dust out—every surface had a layer of film of some kind. To the untrained eye, an outsider would have classified this home as filthy, messy, dirty, dark, crowded, almost depressing. But Georgia knew this home very well; it reminded her of her father’s home. She had grown up in this home.
This home belonged to an immigrant refugee woman who was afraid of tossing anything because she had come with nothing.
Anne was a woman who was familiar to her.
And here she was, emerging with a tray of tea and a giant brown bag. She put the bag at Georgia’s feet and the familiar smell of homemade Vietnamese dishes curled toward her. There was container after container of food. But it wasn’t the type of smells she intimately knew; it was a forgotten childhood smell that evoked old traumas from having grown up without her mother in the house. Duc’s cooking was not like Evelyn’s cooking; though they used the same ingredients, the outcome was always different. The smell of lemongrass and pork belly—the dish’s name a blur in her mind—elicited another stomach rumble from Georgia, and Anne silently handed her some chopsticks and a bowl. Without arguing, Georgia went on autopilot, immediately opened a container, and began to push food into her mouth. She shoveled food until the hunger pain turned into the pain of acid reflux from eating too fast.
Anne just sat back, quietly sipping on her tea.
“Thank you,” Georgia said as she finally came up for air, and set the chopsticks down. “I was so hungry. This is delicious; your cooking is so wonderful.”
Anne shook her head. “Not me. Your mom. Good cook.”
Georgia eyed the bag of crowded food containers suspiciously. “My mom made all of this? You mean the woman who lives next to you? Evelyn Lê?”
Anne nodded, satisfied that they were overcoming their language barrier. “She make. For you. Told me to give to you before she left. Said you are too skinny. Need to eat more.”
“Skinny?” Georgia repeated hollowly. “Where did she go?”
Anne shook her head. “Your mom sad. Needed to go away for some time.”
“My mom has been sad her entire life,” Georgia said, getting angrier. “Why does she get to leave whenever she’s sad? She won’t talk to me. Do you understand what it’s like to have a mother who won’t talk? Who won’t explain anything? That everything just needs to be accepted. Doesn’t she know that I’ve been sad, too?
“I’ve been sad since the day she left. And all I’ve been able to do is drive around aimlessly, wandering forever in my shit van, looking for a reason to keep going.”
But Georgia had hit the ceiling of Anne’s language capability, and she was met with nothing more than an uncertain smile. Her ears couldn’t grasp Georgia’s melancholy.
The woman got up and grabbed an old photo album off the shelf, and a sheet of dust fell in perfect unison. She flipped toward the back and handed Georgia the album. There it was. An old black-and-white photo of Anne and Evelyn, in front of what appeared to be a factory of some kind. Though the two women were smiling, they also seemed tense. Their eyes weren’t smiling back.
“When was this?” Georgia asked as she stared deep into her mother’s face.
“1981.”
Georgia flipped a few pages forward and saw another photo of her mother, and this time it looked like it had been her mother’s wedding day. Evelyn wore a loose, cheap red dress, and stood awkwardly between Duc and Mr. Ng?; the three of them had their arms pinned at their sides. Something about the photo made Georgia laugh. “I can’t believe my parents have known Mr. Ng? for so long. He even has the same energy here. He’s just so awkward. He’s just been hanging around with my dad for so long, it’s crazy.”
“Mr.…?” Anne leaned forward and pursed her lips in concentration. Georgia tapped on Mr. Ng?, who stood tall and gangly next to her mother, in another ill-fitting suit. Both of their faces unsmiling, but fierce and full of life. “That’s Huey.”
“Huey,” Georgia repeated, stamping Mr. Ng?’s first name into memory. “ Huey Ng?. The family lawyer. My father’s best friend. The uncle who isn’t really my uncle, but I have to call him uncle. You know how it is.”
“Uncle? Huey not your uncle,” Anne said, staring at Georgia strangely. Georgia couldn’t tell if she understood what she was saying or not. Georgia flipped back to the original photo of Anne and her mother.
“Of course he isn’t my ‘uncle’ uncle,” Georgia rambled. “He’s like one of those uncles you have to call your uncle, you know?”
Anne opened her mouth again, feebly trying to find the right translated words, but Georgia interrupted her. “What are you and my mother standing in front of?”
“Crab factory. Me and her, we worked,” Anne said. “Hard times. Very hard, bad times. Your father help us. He helped all of us. He’s a good man.”
“My father?” Georgia echoed softly, staring at the wedding photo again; this time, her eyes lasered in on Duc Tr?n—the father she knew on paper, the accolades he had received, the legacy he had built off Duc’s Sandwiches. Georgia stared at the larger-than-life figure, hoping that the longer she stared, the more she would be able to understand how Anne could see Duc as this incredible person. But all she saw was someone who had failed spectacularly behind closed doors. Her finger traced his outline, hoping that somehow, magically, her father’s soul would transfer to her finger, and she could walk away understanding more.
“Your father isn’t—” Anne began. But the roar of an antique-sounding Vespa interrupted both their thoughts. The sound of a dying engine curled up right outside Anne’s patio, and Georgia ran to the window, pulled aside the curtain, and saw that her mother was back. Dejected and irritated, her mother got off her Vespa, kicked it in frustration. It emitted a cloud of black smoke back into her face, causing her to cough and recoil. She gave it a final kick, her petite leg full of anger, before stomping back into her apartment. The slam of the back door rattled Anne’s conjoined wall.
“Hey, Anne,” Georgia whispered, her eyes still glued to her mother’s Vespa. “What does ngày nào tao c?ng mu?n ch?t mean? Sorry if I butchered that expression. My mother says it all the time, anytime we’ve fought, she ends it with that. But I don’t know what it means.”
Anne sighed. “Want death each day.” She thumped her heart, two, three times.
“You want death?”
“No, Evelyn. That’s what she’s saying. She wants death.”
I want to die every day , Georgia realized.
“That’s what my mother keeps saying to me?” Georgia said, shocked. “She wants to die?”
“Death is freedom,” Anne said, strained. “But we keep going, con. No choice.”
Georgia could hear her mother banging around on the other side of the thin wall, throwing things in frustration, accompanied by loud whimpers of a failed escape. She didn’t need to understand Vietnamese to understand her mother.
To understand that Evelyn wasn’t just a mother, but a woman who had been in pain for so long.