Chapter 28
CHAPTER 28 Long Island, 1979
T HE ROOM THE S ISTERS PROVIDED FOR THEM WAS SPACIOUS AND contained two bunk beds. Anh had only seen beds like these once before, when she and B?o had been on the vessel that rescued them when their first boat ran out of fuel in the middle of the South China Sea. The sailors on board, most of them French, had shown B?o where they slept, and he’d been enamored with the prospect of sleeping on a bed that nearly touched the ceiling of the cabin.
Now they shared the room with another young family, a couple who had a little daughter who slept nestled against her mother while the husband slept in the bed above.
Anh spent much of each night unable to sleep. Aside from the husband’s snoring, she found herself reflecting on the newfound responsibility of taking care of her nephew who had witnessed the trauma of seeing both his parents swallowed up by the ocean. Every time she saw the scar on his wrist, it pulled her back to that terrible night. Yet she had promised herself from the moment she held B?o in her arms as he dipped in and out of consciousness, she would protect him and care for him as though he was her own.
Although she had no medical knowledge, she had cleansed his wound with salt water to stave off infection after they exhausted the betel leaves. But even with her diligent efforts, a pink scar still remained, a permanent reminder of the pain and sacrifice of their journey.
Sorrow often soaked through her bedclothes, perspiration from her sleeplessness. There were too many sounds in the communal bedroom that were hard to shut out. The couple’s little girl often cried, despite her mother’s best efforts to pacify her with lullabies that reminded Anh of what her own mother had sung to her as a child. She would also hear B?o sometimes whimpering in his sleep. She didn’t dare allow herself to contribute to this symphony of grief.
While she knew B?o had witnessed the drowning of his parents, his arm a gravestone of his father’s last moments, the nightmare of seeing Minh beaten to death also never left her.
Anh worried deeply about having abandoned him—leaving his grave untended—for it was a Vietnamese custom that a husband and wife be buried side by side so they would be reunited in the afterlife. Having left Minh behind for America, would she ever be returned to him? The thought of spending her eternity alone was even more frightening than this new life in America.
And yet, Anh recognized she was not, in fact, alone in this world. She, a childless mother, and B?o, a motherless child, were now forever entwined, and she would do her best to honor her sister’s spirit. Despite B?o’s being withdrawn and distant with her, she would try hard to find a way to build a life with him in this new, unfamiliar country.
There was an architecture to love. The first bricks of foundation were always how you honored your family.