Linh turns to her, the whites of her eyes shining against the dark sky. She grips Anh’s hand in her own. But she says nothing. For the first time since Anh can remember, her sister has no words.
CHAPTER 16
AT NIGHTFALL THE FISHERMAN TELLS HIS DAUGHTER,MAI,to take the little boy to where they fish after sunset.
B?o follows the girl. Her yellow dress is like a lantern in the evening sky.
As they approach the shore, he notices a few small fishing boats already there, but B?o does not see his mother or father.
“Is that our boat?” he asks Mai as he points to the tiny wooden crafts bobbing in the dark water.
“No,” she answers. She giggles as if she is still playing a game.
“Is that our boat?” he asks again, indicating to another one that looks empty anchored closer to the shore.
“No,” she answers again.
Fear washes over him. Neither his mother nor his father nor Anh has come over to meet him, and he wonders if Mai’s father has somehow tricked his parents, taken their gold and separated them from him in the process of this hoax.
“Where is your father?” B?o now begs the little girl. “He promised to help my parents.”
Her face glows in the moonlight. Her eyes are wide and empty. “I don’t know,” she says. “Where is yours?”
B?o has no answer. He last saw his father at sunrise as he headed out, a pole with two baskets balanced on his back. “We are going on a journey,” Chung told him. But he still doesn’t understand why they’ve left him here all alone.
Night falls and the air cools. Two layers on his body, but no blanket for warmth, B?o curls himself tightly into a ball and closes his eyes. Mai has left. He is hungry and imagines a bowl of rice in his hands, counting each grain to make the hours go by more quickly. He tells himself when morning comes, he will convince the captain’s daughter to take him back to their hut. If his mother doesn’t arrive as she promised, he must think of another plan to ensure they are somehow reunited.
An hour later, he hears a rustle in the grass, and B?o sees his mother walking toward him. B?o rushes over and embraces her. She wraps her arms around him and pulls him close. Her warmth flows over him like a blanket. He begins to cry, unable to stifle the emotion that he had fought to control.
“I didn’t think you’d ever come,” he utters through his tears.
She pulls him again closer to her. “Nothing would keep me from you, bé tí.” Minutes later, his aunt emerges from the forest, having followed Linh’s path. She walks toward them.
In the grass, mosquitoes buzz and bite. Now, the three of them united, they wait, frozen as statues.
Soon two more adults appear. Like Linh, they are carrying provisions wrapped in cloth. One person is clasping a carved statue of the Virgin Mary to their breast. Another is carrying kerosene.
They all crouch low, looking out to the water, waiting for a sign that their boat is near.
Lastly, Chung arrives. B?o sees his father approaching through the tall grass, his bamboo pole with its loaded baskets sags across his back. His eyes are lit and flickering in the darkness.
His mother does not move, but B?o can sense her relief. She turns to him and places a finger over her mouth. But her lips are now curled in a smile. She reaches into her blouse and takes out a yellow handkerchief,which she lifts in the air like a small flag. His father lays his pole down in the tall grass and moves toward them. Anh is a few steps behind.
The light flashes like a beacon from the boat before melting into the shadow of the night.
It was the sign they have been waiting for. Slowly they wade into the river toward a small fishing boat. They walk until the water is waist deep. Linh and Chung lift the cloth-tied bundles of food above their heads. B?o stays at his mother’s side, holding on to her pant leg. None of them can swim, and he’s never been so deeply submerged in water before.
Everyone scrambles to try to get on board the boat. The person carrying the statue of the Virgin Mary pushes ahead. The single fisherman, with the light strapped to his head, pulls them each onto the boat, telling them they have all brought too much.
The boat bobs up and down; water laps at its wooden edge.
B?o is lifted on board, then Linh, then Anh. The men are last. They crouch next to the others, shoulder to shoulder, fitted together to occupy nearly every inch of space.
Chung wraps an arm around his son. Between his knees, he safeguards what they have brought for the journey. Linh’s face tips to the moonlight, and Anh watches her sister’s family with longing. The ache inside her is overwhelming. She looks back at the strip of land, the country she has known her whole life and the soil in which her husband is buried beneath, the ancestral shrine she has devoted to her prayers for those she has lost, her husband and their baby. She glances at her own naked ring finger, then her sister’s and Chung’s. She prays that the act of selling their rings won’t bring them bad luck.
Her brother-in-law draws B?o close.
“Is America far?” her nephew asks sweetly. Chung shakes his head. Like the rest of them, he believes America is only a few days’ distance by boat. The other side of the world is just next door.
