Chapter Nineteen #2
Mimi referred to all of her madames by the country they had come from.
But Madame New Zealand had been her favorite.
She had spoken to Mimi like a human being, asked about her family and her views.
She was the only one who knew about Ngan.
She had paid Mimi an entire two months’ salary when Mimi got dengue fever and ended up in the hospital for six weeks.
After the third week, Madame New Zealand came to visit her with food and offered to pay for her medical fees at a private clinic.
Mimi had refused but never forgotten it.
Then Madame New Zealand fell pregnant, and Mimi couldn’t stand the thought of caring for someone else’s baby.
So she moved on, pretending she had to go care for an elderly relative.
But not before Madame New Zealand helped her search for records of adopted children in Philadelphia who might fit Ngan’s description.
It’s a start , she had told Mimi. And for years, until she finally returned to America, Mimi treasured the yellow legal pad paper that Madame New Zealand had started for her.
It was kept in a special box beside her bed.
Every few nights she would take it out, carefully unfolding it and examining the names.
One day Toan brought a computer home, and she would look up these names, in the way that Madame New Zealand had showed her, and see the images of the girls listed after carefully typing in their names and the words Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Next was Madame Australia, who was Mimi’s first alcoholic employer.
There had been strict rules about no vacuuming when Madame Australia was asleep late into the morning, which Mimi hated because she liked her work to be done in a particular order.
Floors first, then bathrooms, laundry, and then cooking for the day.
She once tried to suggest that Madame Australia try a pho for her hangovers, but acknowledging the condition had tainted their relationship, and afterward Mimi learned to mind her own business.
Some nights, when Mimi was asked to babysit Madame Australia’s children, she would giggle into her phone to Toan as she watched Madame Australia stumble through the garden.
She wobbled and struggled to get a foothold on the uneven paving stones, faltering with her arms spread out like wings to gain balance.
But not all the jobs had been good for Mimi.
In her second position on the compound, she had ended up with a couple with no children, but their extended family often visited with babies, and she was asked to look after them.
Most of the time, these Western children looked so different from her Ngan that she could separate her missing daughter from her charges, but there were moments when their fleshy arms would reach around her, or their cheeks would press against her own, and she would close her eyes and imagine her baby.
Ngan would be a teenager now. Mimi tried to imagine Ngan’s life somewhere in America, where her house didn’t flood when it rained, where she could ride in a car with air-conditioning, somewhere without dengue-spreading mosquitoes.
To Mimi, she was always a living, thriving child, because the alternative was too horrific to bear.
She daydreamed about a privileged life for Ngan, where she might even be the daughter of a woman like one of these madames she worked for.
She might even have a helper of her own.
Still, Mimi knew how fortunate she was. And the way these foreign women had treated her in her own country was far better than what other helpers endured doing similar jobs for wealthy Vietnamese families.
The helpers knew which nationalities made the best employers.
The British were polite, and Australians and New Zealanders were relaxed with less formality.
French and Germans were clear about what they wanted, but it was hard to become accustomed to cooking their food.
She was told the Japanese could be awkward because one never knew what they wanted.
Nobody said no, and when they said sorry, they meant you are sorry .
Vietnamese women married to white men were the worst and to be avoided. Tales of a madame hitting and kicking her maids were not uncommon.
Top of the pile were the Americans. An American madame guaranteed a comfortable working life.
They were riddled with guilt for having help, and at the beginning, they spent most of their time apologizing and thanking a disproportionate amount for any menial task completed.
But no matter where the madames were from, they eventually became accustomed to having everything done for them. They were fast learners.
Mimi had been working for this particular Madame America for almost two years.
They were a kindhearted, alcoholic couple from Dallas, Texas, who lived at 18 Orchid Avenue, empty nesters who hosted brunches that continued all day long and offered Mimi hefty overtime rates for working Sundays so they could drink their jugs of cocktails and wine while Mimi ensured their house was pristine for Monday morning.
But in the same way that all her previous madames had left, she spotted the telltale signs of her employers’ relocation: posts on social media to sell items they didn’t want to take home, moving companies and their sweaty reps arriving at their doors with clipboards.
She would have to start asking around for any new families looking for a helper.
The girls at the apartments in their matching ao dai s were usually the first ones to know.
She didn’t want to leave this fancy compound yet.
Mimi was left in charge of watching over their belongings being packed up by throngs of young men, professional packers.
As she stood over Madame America’s expensive handbags during a packing day, she thought she saw a young man who looked just like Ngan’s father, Lam, though he had Americanized himself and called himself Lenny.
Lenny was just a boy she made a mistake with one night, a boy whose handsome face and pale brown eyes, sweet words, and promise of love, charmed her between shifts at Mimi’s uncle’s textile factory.
One mistake, and her sister’s big plans to start a Café Sua Da empire in downtown Philadelphia were dashed.
Within six weeks, Mimi’s complexion was green and her body shape changed dramatically.
Cam knew she was pregnant before even Mimi did and presented her with four pregnancy tests one night when they got home.
You need to know, so we can prepare ourselves.
When they saw the two lines, they knew then that they had to get home.
Lenny had disappeared when news started to spread that Mimi was expecting a baby.
Uncle Huan, who had sponsored their visas as a favor to their mother, said they were better off finding work back home, and he had done enough helping them to come to America, he wasn’t about to start offering all the factory workers at his textile business maternity pay.
Mimi couldn’t wait to get home to her Vietnam.
Now, all she wanted was to return to America.
As she watched the boxes loaded onto thirty-foot-deep containers headed for the shipping yard, she imagined herself climbing into one bound for America.
She would find her way back there and search for her daughter.
Search for this lost part of her. She spent years arguing with Toan over when they would return to Philadelphia and retrace her steps.
He was adamant that she should never return there.
That the pain of not finding Ngan would be too much to repair.
After the packers left, Mimi rode home through the wet, humid streets of Thao Dien.
A dense river of riders wore full-body ponchos branded with a logo she didn’t know.
Hers read P&G, though it never occurred to her to find out what this meant.
Hawkers cycled slowly in the same lanes wearing traditional Vietnamese hats instead of bike helmets.
When the rain came in hard, the streets overflowed with brown water, the river running through the ditches and out onto the roads.
Enormous Toyota Land Cruisers transporting expats through the city drove down the roads creating waves through the flooded streets.
Food carts were submerged, with sellers storing bags of perishables as high as possible on top of their glass shelving units that usually stored their food.
On nights when the rain came horizontally, Mimi saw rats swimming upstream, looking for anything to gorge on.
But that night, there was no river of rain, just the soft gush of moving water as motorbike wheels moved through big puddles.
Everyone rushed to get home for the family meal.
···
Earlier that day, Madame America had planted a seed of hope in Mimi’s mind.
A seed that grew quickly and powerfully.
“I would love it if you came back with us for six months, to help us get settled back into life. Troy can help with the visas. What do you think? We live on the East Coast of America, in a place called New Jersey. Of course we’d cover all the expenses and even give you a raise.
” As the roots bedded down, a tree of hope started to bloom.
Mimi knew this much. Philadelphia was next to New Jersey.