The Reeducation of Cherry Truong (46 page)

Cherry swallowed her bite of food and looked at her grandmother with dread.

“We thought you'd be different,” she continued. “You finally had everything: brains, looks, an education—and what do you do? You run away like your brother. Very disappointing.”

Cherry lowered her chopsticks. “Lum didn't run away.”

“Then where is he?” Grandmother asked. “Not one phone call to his grandmother on her birthday or for Tet celebration. He's become as disrespectful as your mother.”

“Why would he want to talk to you?”

Grandmother smiled rarely, so it startled Cherry to see her lacquered teeth. “You think you're so smart. I try to help my grandchildren, and somehow, I am the villain. Why are you blaming your cousin? You know better than that. He may be smart at medicine, but didn't this show us how inept he is at deception?”

Even in screwing up their lives, Dat somehow managed to look good.

“You should have stayed out of it, too,” Cherry said. “It's because of you that Thinh came after us. You ruined his family.” As soon as the words left her lips, Cherry felt breathless, bracing for Grandmother Vo's reaction. But what could Grandmother do? Tell on her? Let her explain to her mother.

“So melodramatic,” Grandmother sneered. “Is it my fault his father couldn't manage a business? Is it my fault that boy overreacted?”

“He took revenge on your grandchildren,” Cherry said. “You can't deny that.”

“It was unfortunate,” Grandmother admitted, her face softening. “But I've taken responsibility. Who took care of Lum's debts? Who paid the deductibles for your hospital bills and physical therapy? You think I don't care, but I have always provided for you.”

“And Lum? Did you provide for him?”

“What did he lose?” Grandmother asked. “He has a wife and a career now, two things he could never achieve with gambling.” She smirked at Cherry's look of disbelief. “Why are we talking about him? The only person I am concerned with now is you. I thought you'd recovered from your accident, that it hadn't affected your brains, but maybe not.”

“Don't worry about me, Grandma,” Cherry said.

“I worry,” she said, shaking her head. “You think acting out like Lum is going to make your mother love you more? It's not.”

“What?” Cherry cried. “That's crazy.”

“It is crazy,” Grandmother agreed, nodding adamantly. “But you see, you couldn't even rebel with any sense of conviction. Back here within months. It makes you look insincere.”

“That's not why I left,” Cherry said.

“Are you sure?” Grandmother asked. “You've done everything you can to be an obedient daughter to your mother. Best grades, best behavior. Yet, she devoted all her love to the boy who only gave his family grief. Why shouldn't you try and see if acting badly could work for you?”

“My mother loves both of us,” she said. “She's not like you.”

Grandmother laughed. “That is a child's perspective. Some day, Cherry, when you are a mother, you will realize. Motherhood does not turn you into some benevolent goddess. We have the same flaws we were born with. The difference between your mother and me? At least I can admit my faults.”

Grandmother had tired of talking. She needed a nap. While she snoozed on Uncle Bao's recliner in the living room, Cherry approached the task of her closet. After three hours of sorting through yards of untouched mothball-pungent
ao dais
and fabric, Cherry found three thick wads of letters buried deep in one of her trunks, underneath a pile of decade-old Vietnamese newspapers. They were all from Cherry's mother, written to her grandmother when she was still in Vietnam and the refugee camp, sealed shut, never opened. She didn't know if Grandmother Vo had any idea these letters still existed—she had instructed Cherry to throw away any contents she couldn't sell to the consignment shop. So Cherry stuffed the letters in her tote bag, making sure to dust and polish the trunk before Grandmother woke up and walked into her bedroom to check on her progress.

After leaving Grandmother's, Cherry drove to a tree-shaded spot in the nearby park and rolled down her window. After gently unsealing the earliest postmarked envelope, she unfolded the aged letter. For the next hour, she did this for every envelope; unfolding, reading, rereading, refolding, until they once again sat in collated piles in the passenger seat, as if no one had ever read them. But she had. She had read, effectively memorized, every letter.

Although Cherry recognized her mother's controlled, precise language, she did not sound like herself. Instead, she came off simpering, self-pitying, phony. The first batch of letters chronicled her years in the refugee camps, her complaints of the living quarters, the food, her in-laws, her husband. The first mention of Cherry came in the form of a sick stomach and burdensome fatigue, and Tuyet's dread of a possible pregnancy. The second and third batches of letters were from America. The contents were not surprising. She tried to remind herself of this. Still.

Cherry supposed her mother was being completely honest. The papers felt flimsy, crushable, between Cherry's fingers. She could easily crumple up her mother's unfair opinions, these impossible expectations. Looking at the dates of the letters, Cherry couldn't have been more than two or three years old, barely speaking age, yet her mother already expressed how Cherry disappointed her, how she aggravated her.

A good daughter would return these letters to her mother, but then again her mother probably would have been angry with Cherry for taking them. And Cherry wanted to keep them. After digesting these words—feeling how they scratched at her pride, her heart—Cherry realized that they no longer belonged to her mother.

Cherry pulled up in the driveway of her parents' house and sat there for several minutes, the engine still running. Her father finally came out the front door, waved, and went back inside. Cherry stashed the bundle of letters under her seat, making sure to lock all the doors.

Her parents sat in the dining room, balancing their checkbook, the bills and checks spread across the table. This ritual occurred every month, on one of the rare afternoons her parents were both at home. Cherry had many memories of walking in on her parents arguing over one of her mother's impulsive Nordstrom purchases or the insufficiency of her father's paycheck. Most of the time, Cherry would walk straight past the dining room to reach the stairs for her bedroom, but this afternoon, she stood in front of the table of bills, waiting for her mother to look up.

“How was Grandmother?” her mother asked, tearing open one of the envelopes with her index nail.

“She's fine,” Cherry said. “Her closets were a mess.”

Her mother finally glanced up, her eyes impatient, shameless. “That's it?” she asked.

“What else?”

“Don't play coy,” she said, pushing back her hair, recently trimmed and colored by Auntie Tri. “Since you won't listen to your own parents, we were hoping she'd talk some sense into you.”

“I guess I'm more difficult than you thought.”

“Cherry,” her father said, a warning in his voice.

“What was she supposed to convince me about?” Cherry asked, her gaze on her mother unflinching. “That wasn't clear.”

“We want you to stop wasting your life,” her mother said. “You spend every day watching TV or going to the beach with your cousins. Do you think your father and I are going to support you forever?”

“I said I was going back to school next year.”

“Why should we believe you? I've seen this happen to my clients' children. We are trying to protect you—”

“Right,” Cherry said, laughing.

Her mother's eyes flashed, her chin rising, and Cherry fell silent. She knew what the look meant.

“There is nothing worse,” her mother said, her voice still calm, but tightly controlled, “than carrying regret. It weighs on you for a very long time.”

“What do you regret?” Cherry asked. “What did you do that makes you hate your life so much?”

“I don't hate my life.”

“You're lying.” Cherry stomped her sandaled foot on the tiled floor, the clack echoing throughout the house. She didn't care if she looked like a petulant child. “I know you,” she continued, her voice trembling. She needed to sound strong at this moment. She needed to believe in her words. “I know how you really feel.”

“Cherry!” her father cried, standing between the two women, even though her mother still sat at the table. Perhaps it was enough that he blocked their view of each other. “What is the matter with you? Your mother and I are concerned. You've been so depressed.”

“I will not feel sorry for her anymore,” Cherry's mother seethed, wiping tears from her eyes. “She has had every opportunity a child could want. I never imagined she could turn out to be so selfish and spoiled—”

“Maybe you should have sent me away instead,” Cherry said.

“I knew she would be like this,” her mother said, looking at Sanh. “Just like your father! He never cared who he hurt, and neither does she.”

“Stop blaming them,” Cherry said. “It's always someone else's fault, isn't it? It's never you. You never do anything wrong.”

“Please,” her father said. “You are both emotional right now—”

“I want to go back to Vietnam,” Cherry whispered.

“Oh, God,” her mother sounded like she was both laughing and moaning. “Well, if that's what you want, then go. You always get what you want, eventually. I'm tired of fighting you.”

“Go upstairs,” her father said to Cherry.

Cherry looked over at her father for the first time that afternoon. He'd taken off his reading glasses. His hair, gray at the temples for so many years, now appeared whiter than she remembered. In his hands, he had shredded a bill envelope into slivers of paper. His exhausted, red-rimmed eyes pleaded with her.

Imagining the letters still in her car, realizing what she knew that they didn't know, Cherry turned and walked upstairs.

S
AIGON
, 2002

In the cavernous new house, the Trans' furniture looks outdated and small. While Cam and Cherry unpack boxes around Anh's crib—another gift from the absentee grandparents—Tham and Grandaunt Tran compile a list of fabrics and shades for dressing the windows and open doorways. Lum screws lightbulbs into the fixtures and the chandelier in the atrium. Xuan and Granduncle hold the ladder.

To celebrate, Lum takes them out for a seafood dinner in the Cholon district, a restaurant he regularly frequents with his foreign clients. The server shows them to a spacious round table on the second floor beneath several ceiling fans.

Lum insists that everyone order a dish. Steamed whole catfish, giant crab legs, black bean clams, salt and pepper prawns, deep fried tofu squares, corn and coconut fritters, fragrant gingered bok choy, and garlic broccoli overfill the table until they have enough food for a party twice their size. They maneuver teacups and plates to keep dishes from falling. Tham mashes chunks of catfish into broth and rice with her chopsticks and patiently feeds it to Anh. Cherry eats more than she has in days.

After dinner, they walk to the nearby outdoor market so Grandaunt can pick up fresh vegetables for lunch and dinner tomorrow. While the rest of the family filters through the market, Lum and Cherry take Anh to a mango cart near the west entrance. Despite the gorging, Lum still needs dessert. Anh grabs a piece of fresh mango from his father's fingers, and Lum allows him a nibble. The air feels tight and smoky around them, the sky swirling sherbet pollution clouds. Across the street, a group of school children practices a marching routine. They wear identical haircuts and outfits, and Cherry can easily imagine Anh one day chanting and strutting with them.

*   *   *

On her first night back in Saigon, Cherry had shown her brother pictures of his California wedding reception, unsure if Tham should see them, if she would be offended. As he flipped through the photos, laughing, he called for Tham to come into the room, and they giggled at all the flowers and decorations for their make-believe wedding.

Cherry pulled the pictures away after Lum started mocking the MC's bouffant hair. “Mom worked really hard on this reception,” she said, holding the photographs to her chest.

Lum's forehead creased, his smile fading. “I know that. I'm not laughing at her.”

He tried to make up for it, complimenting the cake and exclaiming that he couldn't wait to read the cards from all the guests. But it was too late. He probably thought she was overreacting, and perhaps she was; this was exactly the sort of thing they would have laughed about before.

*   *   *

After they find some plastic chairs under a shaded tree on the outskirts of the market, Cherry pulls out two letters and places them on the table. Lum settles Anh into his lap and then lifts up one of the letters.

“Haven't we moved on to e-mails?” he asks.

“They're not from me.”

He opens the first one, reads a few lines and puts it down. He glances at the other letter and sets it aside as well.

“Where did you get these?” he asks.

“Grandmère gave me Grandpère's letters,” Cherry says.

“And what about Mom's?”

“I found hers in Grandmother Vo's closet a few months ago. A whole box of them. She was going to throw them away.”

“So that's what made you think you could take them?”

“Yes,” Cherry says, sitting back, frowning. “I thought you'd be happy to see them.”

Lum shakes his head. The look on his face is strange. “Why?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why are you walking around Saigon, in ninety-degree weather, carrying pounds of letters that don't belong to you?”

Cherry stares at him. “You're mad?”