Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Two
Mimi
Toan looked at his wife with expectation every morning.
He’s waiting for me to break down , Mimi thought to herself.
Perhaps he was. But a strange peace had come over her since she finally saw Ngan.
Now her fear was replaced by a melancholy resignation.
After everything that passed that day, she was forced to recognize that her Ngan was a woman who had grown up without her, her mother.
She was American, and things that seemed so far from the realms of possibility were within arm’s reach for her.
They lived in different worlds that might never have crossed, except for this thread that bound them together, the thread she could never let go of, that drew them back together.
Mimi had finally found her beautiful daughter, and she wept constantly afterward, but they were tears of bittersweet joy that only a parent could understand.
She ate the bitterness, so that only sweetness would await her child.
Toan, on the other hand, tiptoed around her with the same delicate care he might offer a small bird with a broken wing.
He searched her expression every morning.
She expected him to stop after the first few weeks following her return to Saigon; instead, the weeks stretched into months.
She finally found a job back on the compound with a Scandinavian family who had just arrived in Saigon.
There were two young children, but she didn’t feel the same pain around children as she had before.
And so Toan and Mimi’s existence resumed.
As Christmas drew near and the rainy season began, she thought of Ngan more and more. A message appeared on Mimi’s phone on a stormy day as she scrubbed the bathroom floors for her madame.
Mimi, it’s me, Sabrina. I wondered how you’ve been?
A small shoot of hope sprang through the dark, damp earth.
“Look at this, Toan, look what my girl sent.”
He peered into the phone and chewed his lip.
“I want to reply. Maybe she will come to visit?”
Toan returned the phone to her.
“You don’t think she will?”
“Maybe yes.” He smiled.
Mimi felt annoyed. She wanted more from him. But she didn’t ask. She knew her husband by now. His mind was somewhere else. She could see it in his eyes.
···
Mimi’s days blurred into one long stretch of waiting.
She waited for the water deliveries for her madame.
She waited for Toan to collect her from the compound on Fridays, on his motorbike.
She waited for the rains to stop so she could clear the gardens.
She waited for Sabrina to send her more messages.
And sometimes, she was rewarded for her patience.
Sabrina would message, and Mimi’s heart would soar.
···
Toan had started to act strangely. There were small signs at first. Returning home late, forgetfulness. One day he came home wearing someone else’s shoes from the driver’s room, and she knew something was wrong.
But for Mimi, his sudden lack of interest in food set off the cogs in her frontal lobe.
Instead of looking at his wife expectantly with a wry smile on his lips an hour before mealtimes, he was engrossed with his phone.
Sometimes he woke before her, and she kept her eyes closed and pretended to be asleep.
As he rolled over, she could see the faint glow of his phone in the dark room as he scrolled and tapped.
She watched him put the phone away in his pocket, the weight of it pulling down on his tracksuit.
He pulled it back out in less than a minute, checking again, scrolling.
His incessant checking increased as evening drew on.
Mimi watched him leave for work on his motorbike, and a morose dread settled like a dark rain cloud blocking the light.
She knew her husband well enough to know it would never be another woman.
Instead, she suspected he was going to ask his mother to come live with them, as so many men did as their mothers grew older.
Mother and son were plotting together. Mimi’s duty as a wife to Toan would now mean she had to look after the elderly parent.
Their time together, the two of them in their peaceful existence in her crazy Saigon was coming to an end.
There would be another body in the house, watching and criticizing all the time.
Mimi had never pictured her life being this way. She had always wanted a large family, poor but happy. She imagined her children, and they always looked just like Ngan.
One morning she woke up and had had enough.
“When are you going to tell me the truth?”
A look of surprise passed over his face.
“The truth?”
“Yes. The truth, Toan. When are you going to tell me that your mother is coming to live with us? You’re just like all the others, bringing your mother to watch over me, criticize me.”
Tears started to glisten in Mimi’s eyes. She fought them back and held her mouth in a stiff line.
“What? My mother?”
For a moment, a wave of doubt passed through her. He looked shocked, then amused at her suggestion. It suddenly occurred to her that she might be wrong. Maybe it was even worse—a sickness he was hiding from her.
“You are hiding it from me. Don’t you know I know? Tell me the truth, Toan.”
She wrenched her fingers, squeezing and twisting them as she stared into her husband’s face and willed him to confess.
“You think I’m bringing my crazy mother to live with us?”
“Well, how else do you explain your behavior? You’ve been so strange. Checking your phone all the time. Forgetful. You even lost your appetite.”
He smiled, and she felt the anger inside her rise up her throat.
“How can you laugh at me? This is cruel of you.”
He moved to sit beside her, and the chair made a loud noise as he dragged it across the floor. He reached for her hands, cupping her clenched fists in his hand.
“How could you think I would do such a thing to you? When I am the luckiest man. I am so happy in our little paradise here together. My little general.”
She snorted. “What nonsense, I’m damaged, and you took pity.”
“One day you will see what I see.”
Her tears began to fall, and her whole face was soaked in no time, a sob escaping from her mouth.
He waited for the heaving to stop and reached for the tissue box on the table.
Mimi wiped her face and patted down the wet pool of tears that had soaked her T-shirt.
“I have been speaking with Ngan, Sabrina. I never know what to call her. In my mind she is Ngan. We wanted to surprise you.”