Page 63 of A Banh Mi for Two
Her lips quiver as her temple scrunches, and my heart drops at the tears forming in her eyes. “I’m not expecting you to change. I’m encouraging you to put yourself first.”
The ache in my temple pounds relentlessly and I furrow my brows, wincing at the pain. Can Vivi not understand that our lives are too different? Leaving Sài Gòn for a temporary job? That’s a year or two without me at the stall. I can’t do that to Má.
“Don’t you think that I want to? Every day I look at the tourists in the city and wish that I could be them. But I can’t,” I choke out. “I’m not you. I can’t just go to another part of the world and play tourist. This city—this life—isn’t just the idealized version you’re seeing. It’s real, and I have to live it. Those dreams about traveling outside of Sài Gòn? They are just that, dreams.”
“All this time, you really thought that I was just playing tourist?”
“That’s not what I mean—”
“I thought I felt safe with you, Lan. That for the first time ever, I found somewhere I feel like I can call home with you here. I thought, finally, someone understands me.”
“Vivi, I can’t just leave my mom! She’s all I have left. I’m not lucky like you. I don’t have both of my parents. I can’t just get on a plane and go anywhere I want like you. I can’t just lie to my parents about a study abroad program. I can’t even go where my dad is anymore. I have people to take care of here. I have a life here.”
She freezes, and I immediately regret what I just said.
“Vivi—”
She swallows, her shoulders convulsing. “No—you’re right. I don’t have a life here. I never really belonged. But I didn’t know that’s how you feel about me, too.”
The ground spins beneath me, and I know I should say something, beg her for forgiveness, apologize about what came out of me, but instead, I’m rooted to where I am.
“Lan, I need to know, please tell me if that’s what you really think of me.”
I can’t, can’t even open my mouth. Because the truth is, I do envy Vivi and her life, with both parents and traveling outside of where she grew up and everything that’s opposite of mine.
Her face searches for mine before contorting, and realization hits us both that I have nothing to say. She turns on her heel, and unlike when we first met, this time, she’s the one running away from me—tears streaming down her cheeks.
My wobbly legs will my body inside, where I slide to the floor and clutch myself in a fetal position. My heart beats wildly, my palms sweaty as my eyes sting and, zeroing in on Ba’s portrait on the altar, my mind begs him to tell me what to do.
The door slides open and Tri?t steps in. Frantic, I wipe my eyes with the sleeves of my hoodie. “Hey, why did your friend go running off like that—”
I hide my face from him, still clutching my small body together. I breathe in and out and count from one to ten. “Mind your own business, Tri?t.”
Sighing, he sets down the bag of groceries and sits next to me. He unwraps one of the bags and hands me a bar of ice cream, coconut, and scoots closer to me, unwrapping his own ice cream bar. We eat together in silence.
Finding the silence unbearable for the first time in my life, I speak up. “I didn’t win the contest. But they invited me to be a paid journalist instead. Which means… leaving.”
Tri?t exhales deeply, his temple pinched. “When is it going to get through to you that maybe, just maybe, your mom doesn’t expect anything of you? You’ve been holding on to this idea that you need to take care of her forever—by yourself.”
I bite my tongue, holding back on the harsh words that threaten to spill out. Tri?t means well, he does. But he doesn’t understand the pain of losing a parent.
“You think that I don’t know how you feel and that’s why you’re giving me that look.” He laughs. “Do you know why I left B?n Tre? Why I never really visit?”
The remaining ice cream turns sour on my tongue. “What? Why?”
“My dad always said that since I’m the only male in the family, I need to inherit his land. Growing up, I hated it. I hated farming, I was always more interested in drawings and sketches and seeing how people can build things. All my sisters are good at all this agricultural stuff, and they have the passion for it. But when I asked for my dad’s permission to come here to study and told him that I want something different for myself, he threw all my clothes and belongings out into the front yard. He disowned me. So I left, and I found a new family here.”
“You never told me about this.”
He shrugs, playing with his hands on his lap. “I didn’t know what to say… you know how it is—the burden of being a loyal child to your parents. I had a lot of guilt, and a lot of shame, too. Your mom knew, or at least she sensed something was up, but she said nothing and took me in like a son. Lan, I may not know how it feels to lose someone that I love, but I do know the painful rift between a child and their parent, and I don’t want to see you and your mom like this anymore. Talk to her, she just wants the best for you. Stop carrying all that burden by yourself. Let your mom fly a bit, too; don’t let your dad’s memory overshadow your own life.”
A painful sob escapes me. It’s not like I haven’t thought about all these things that he’s accusing me of. “How can I even learn to live, Tri?t? When it feels even more painful every single day without my dad? I broke my promise to him. I didn’t pick up his call that day. If I did, he wouldn’t have pushed himself to drive back alone sick. If I had answered, he’d still be here.”
I failed him. He never came back because of me.
“I can’t answer these questions for you, Lan.”
I’m tired. So tired of people telling me that they can’t tell me what to do. Life would be so much easier that way. I don’t know what I want, and I certainly don’t know what Ba would have wanted.
