Free Listen, Slowly by Thanhha Lai Page A

to wait. What can I do but wait? Things will happen in Laguna whether I stress or not. I wish I could force myself to stop thinking about HIM or Montana or the beach until I’m actually home. I hate waiting. Who wouldn’t? Especially when I have no idea how long the wait is. Is it still around two weeks? The detective coming here, twisty-browed and whispery, cannot be a good sign. That’s the worst part, not knowing. I don’t even know how to find out because I bet nobody knows. The only person who can wait for decades in absolute stillness is Bà.
    She pushes her bowl away and asks if I’d like a story. When I was little, she’d tell me a story when I was sad. I’ve always loved her stories, even if they’re sadder than anything I could be feeling. I love the way she pulls words into a tight embrace.
    “They came in white uniforms, the same crisp pants and hard-brimmed hat that Ông had always worn. The men came and stood hats in hands, eyes in the distance. They had to wrestle words from clogged throats. I heard clearly: ‘is now recorded as missing in action.’
    “That day was the tenth in April, year of the horse 1966 .
    “Later, when we fled war and country, I needed a birth day and month to request refuge. Your father and aunts and uncles knew their dates of birth, having grown up when the world tilted toward the West. I had remained planted in the East where the lunar year and the exact hour of entrance into this world marked a person’s fate .
    “No one could enter the United States without a date of birth, a space for that was reserved on every single form. There were endless forms. I was not the only one to stare at the blank spaces. Someone advised us to choose a date readily remembered .
    “The tenth day in each April .
    “The date stabbed me every time I was required to record it. This guaranteed continued remembrance. I didn’t choose the last day I saw him. That day remains solely mine .
    “I had reached out, just as Ông was leaving, to align the rim of his straw hat. He was not in uniform that day but dressed as a casual traveler. As if a change of clothes could camouflage fate. That day he went on a mission on Route 1, straight toward the claws of the Communists .
    “When I reached out I might have grazed my palm against his cheek. Our last touch. I’m no longer certain if we indeed met skin to skin those many years ago, and despite the years I have not been able to release the possibility .
    “I did not borrow a date of birth from your father or his siblings. Seven of them. Whose date would be best? To confess, the exact birth day and month of each child have never attached to my memories, though the year and hour of each have long become a part of my breaths .
    “Ông named each child after the closing line he wrote in every letter home. Written in the years when he was in a French school while I was being tutored at home. In the years before the Việt Minh turned its head and revealed the tail of the Việt Cộng while I was a youthful mother. In the year when the navy trained him in San Di-e-go while I managed our house and brood .
    “Always his letters closed with Mong Nhớ Em Ðếm Từng Hạt Mưa. This line was written in his very first letter home in the voice of a lonely boy sent to the city, a boy who stared at the spring rain as he longed for his bride-in-waiting .
    “The names embarrassed our children, your father especially. How could we have named a boy after drops the shape of tears, he argued? I had offered alternatives after each birth, but Ông clung to these names like roots to the earth. He wanted to look at his children and be struck by the core of his feelings in our times apart.”
    I’ve always laughed at the names of Ông Bà’s children. Mong Nhớ Em Ðếm Từng Hạt Mưa means Longing Missing You Counting Each Drop of Rain. C’mon, who names their children after a sappy line in a letter? It’s romantic and all, but death on playgrounds. It’s