Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Three
Sabrina
The light over the city took on an astonishing pink that Sabrina had never seen before.
Everything before the moment she arrived in Saigon suddenly seemed muted, and now she was seeing in Technicolor.
She drank everything in. The buildings rose up before her, and cranes interrupted the horizon, but beyond that, she could still see the green land, palms, and a jungle.
There was a quiet beauty in the veins that ran through the city, slow-moving motorbikes all finding their own ways, splitting, adapting, giving way.
The city was a living, pulsing beast that grew higher and broader overnight.
The vista of this city could have been her home.
She watched figures walking along the streets, hawkers pulling their carts, and she tried to imagine their lives.
How do they greet their children when they return from work?
What do they talk about? Do they hold each other?
Her phone pinged in her hand.
DAVE: You arrived? How is it?
She turned off her phone and put it in her backpack.
She had read on a travel blog that this was the best time of day.
Dusk in Vietnam was the magic hour. It filled her with joy, the familiar joy she’d felt when she walked along the country club at the end of her shift in summer, as the skies burst with colors they’d been hiding all day long, the light giving up one last fight before the darkness came.
But here, she didn’t know what lay ahead of her. She could only see the possibility.
···
Later, when Sabrina looked back on the months before she decided to visit Mimi, she would remember very little.
The distance grew between her and Kit after college began.
In truth, she hadn’t tried very hard to hold on to the friendship, and eventually Kit’s messages went from daily to weekly to one every couple of weeks or more.
She could see from Kit’s Instagram that she was doing what all freshmen at college do, going to parties and joining societies at Penn.
She was happy for her friend—this part she did remember.
And one day she looked at Kit’s most recent story and saw a blond boy she was snuggled up to in the picture.
They held each other; he wore a cap backward and she wore a beanie, and she recognized the backdrop of the Snak’s Coffee House in Mount Airy.
Drinking in that hot chocolate goodness with my love on the first day of winter , read the caption.
She thought about the last time she had seen Kit. They met downtown, across the street from Kit’s dorm at Penn during Kit’s midterm break. They were only an hour apart, but it was the first time they had seen each other since college had started.
“You look so different, Rina,” Kit said they sat in the diner on Vine Street.
“Well, I cut my hair?” Sabrina offered, pulling at the ends of her blunt shoulder-length cut.
She still felt a brief pang of surprise when she saw the flicker of blond at the tips.
Lee Lee would have hated it. You look like a punk girl, drug addict, rock ’n’ roller , she would have tutted.
But she knew that Kit wasn’t talking about her hair.
“It looks good.”
“How’s school?”
“Yeah, it’s good…Ryo and I are taking a break.” Kit said the last part fast.
Sabrina listened and waited. Kit’s fingernails were short and raw. They looked as though they had been bitten recently.
“You want to talk about it?” Sabrina asked finally.
“Not really. Tell me your news.”
Sabrina waited, because when Kit said she didn’t want to talk about things, she often didn’t mean it.
Finally, Kit sat back and took a deep breath.
“I don’t know what it was, I think we were just kind of drunk on Tokyo and that final summer before college.
When he started at Berkeley, and we started this whole traveling back and forth to see each other, all the FaceTime calls, the messages, it just…
I don’t know…we were so different. Like, he is so so outgoing.
And yeah, I know, I’m kind of sociable too, but I don’t want to join all the societies or go to every party and I’m not even sure I want to be part of that whole sorority, fraternity scene, which I guess he’s into.
He wants to be part of everything and be active and involved all the time, like all these groups in college.
He goes to these rallies, and he’s always trying to enlist new members.
He’s always like, participating , that’s what he calls it .
I get it. I’m part of that too, but you know how I am, I’m not a joiner, we always used to say that, remember?
” She half smiled at Sabrina, waiting for acknowledgment.
“And I know I have a responsibility to my fellow mixed-race, ha-fu students. Like getting rid of the labels of being half, it kind of implies we’re not enough, and how we’re seen in Japanese society too.
But I just…I don’t know, it’s kinda a lot with him.
And sometimes I felt like judged by him or something for not being more vocal about my beliefs.
And I don’t know if I felt good with him.
And to be honest, I don’t know what I do feel about everything because I still don’t exactly know who I am and stuff.
Because I’m kind of confused and I need to figure myself out a bit too.
I don’t know that we really belonged together, you know? ”
Sabrina tried to think of any moment that Kit took responsibility for anything.
Kit’s eyes were bloodshot, her face drawn, and her skin had lost its golden glow after the summer. Sabrina suspected it was a combination of late nights, drinking, and whatever had passed between her and Ryo.
“Are you guys still friends?”
“Yeah, sure. I mean we kinda message sometimes. But less and less. I think he’s met someone new, you know? How could he not, right? Look at him. And I’ve been hanging out with some of the guys from high school. Nothing serious.”
Sabrina took a sip from her Sprite and studied Kit’s face.
“Did you find a way to contact your birth mother in the end?” Sabrina asked, knowing the answer already.
Kit looked away from her friend and Sabrina could see the thoughts churning in her mind before she opened her mouth.
“Mom and I are still talking about it. I’m thinking about getting an intermediary, to see if I can reach her that way.
I guess it was such a long time ago she gave me up, right?
So I guess I need to think on that and decide.
It’s a big decision, and I’m not sure yet…
I mean, she probably has this life now and all.
But you know, what if it’s this big anticlimax and it just causes these problems between Mom and me?
I mean, it was a closed adoption for a reason.
And so, I don’t know, I’m trying to think before I act on this one.
For once in my life…” She laughed. Sabrina could hear the words that Sally Herzog would have said to her daughter, but beneath it all was a fear that she had not seen in Kit before.
“That’s tough. I’m sorry. But it sounds like you’re being really smart about how you’re taking this forward.
Like, you know what you want to do, and you’re thinking about all your options.
” Sabrina said this because she knew it was what Kit would want to hear and what she needed to hear from her friend, the same blind support Sabrina always gave her.
Kit smiled and said nothing, and finally asked about Dave.
Sabrina explained that they were still in touch, that the friendship withstood everything, but to her surprise Kit didn’t look annoyed. She had expected her to be, but maybe her friend was letting her have this, after everything.
“It’s kind of funny you guys ended up getting so close.”
“I know, right? I never expected it,” Sabrina replied.
Kit smiled, but there was no malice. “You know, I think before everything I would have felt kind of pissed that he chose to be your friend over me. But I mean this totally, hand on heart, I don’t feel pissed at all…
in case you thought I was. And it kind of makes sense you guys being close.
There’s something that just fits better, even as friends.
You guys like the same stuff, those old bands you love. You’re both kinda quiet.”
“That’s nice, Kit. I’m happy to hear it. As long as you’re happy. I’m sure you have guys lining up for you.”
There was another silence, they came more often now, and Sabrina felt the space between them expand again.
“What about you? What are your plans?” Kit asked, straightening in her chair.
“Well, quite a few things are happening, I guess. I’m finishing up my jobs soon.
I accepted my place at Princeton last week.
So yeah, this year is my year off, I guess.
” Sabrina finally added, “After everything with my mom and Mimi, Eva helped me with the legalities of staying here in the United States, keeping my place at Princeton. She also made me realize that maybe I need to try to understand things a little better. Get to know my birth mother. And in time, I’ll go and visit Lee Lee.
It’s weird calling her that because she’s still my mom.
We’re in touch now. I couldn’t talk to her for a while but we’re working through that now.
It’s just, I have to adapt to how things turned out, you know? ”
“Is it weird? Knowing everything you do now about your mom, well, not your mom, but you know…”
“Of course. I feel like I might have always suspected something…or maybe that’s just the power of seeing things in retrospect. I keep calling her Mom—Lee Lee, I mean. Because she was my mom, she is my mom…but how I see everything now is different.”
“Kinda…but not really.”