The Mountains Sing(31)

“They told you that because they love to lie.” My mother’s sharp words startled me.

A minute of silence followed.

“They care about you, Daughter. All of us do. We all want to help you get better.”

“Get better?” Laughter spilled from my mother’s mouth; her eyes were red. “If I were as strong as you, for sure I’d be better. You left us behind when running away from your goddamn village, remember?”

“Come on, Ng?c. That was a long time ago. I didn’t have any choice.” Grandma’s lips quivered.

“You had a choice. Every mother has a choice!”

I had never seen my mother so angry.

“Sister Ng?c . . .” Auntie Duyên reached for my mother’s hand.

“No, you don’t get it. If my mother hadn’t run away, perhaps all of my brothers would be alive now. Thu?n is dead. ??t and Sáng might not be coming back. Brother Thu?n is dead. He is dead!” Tears trembled on my mother’s cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Daughter,” Grandma whispered. “Let me make it up to you. Tell me what I should do.”

“You can do nothing for me now.” My mother brought her hands to her face. “Nothing! I’m finished. Fouled and finished. Nobody could make me clean again.”

I stared at my mother. Her words made no sense to me.

“Ng?c.” Grandma put down her bowl and chopsticks. “You must have gone through terrible things. Let me help—”

“If you can help, tell me how you do this.” Anger flashed in my mother’s eyes. “Tell me how you can go on. Tell me how you can eat when Thu?n’s body is cold under the ground.”

“Enough!” Grandma slammed the table so hard, it shook. “You can’t even imagine how much it hurts to have a dead son.”

“Oh, you bet I can. I know exactly how it feels and that’s why I can’t understand how you can sit here, eating like this.”

“Stop fighting,” I screamed. “Stop it!”

I WAS AT my desk, crying, when Auntie Duyên came to me. “I’m sorry I stirred up bad emotions. Your mother . . . she needs time.”

“What happened to her, Auntie? What did she say to you?”

Auntie Duyên dried my tears with the back of her hand. “You’ll understand one day, Darling. . . . What I can tell you is that as a doctor, your mother saved many lives. She worked at makeshift clinics along the H? Chí Minh Trail. She operated on soldiers, sometimes without the help of pain-relief medicine. Wherever she was, she tried to look for your father and uncles, but it was in vain.”

“What else did she tell you? What turned her into such a horrible person?”

“Oh H??ng, the war . . . it’s worse than we could ever imagine.”

“Did she kill anybody?”

“What? Why did you say that?”

“In her sleep, she cried about a baby. Once she said she’d killed him.”

“No . . . that was just a nightmare.” Auntie Duyên shook her head. “Believe me, your mother is a good person.”

“You talked for hours with her. Please, what else did she say?”

“I’ll leave it to your mother to tell her own story to you once you’re old enough, H??ng. Whatever happened, please know that she loves you very, very much. She cares about you more than you’ll ever know. And she’s very thankful that you’ve tried to take care of her.”

“Did she even notice?”

“Of course she did.” Auntie Duyên bit her lip. “There is . . . there’s something she asked me to tell you.”

“She can’t talk to me herself?”

My aunt reached for my arm. “H??ng, your mother wants to come to my place and stay for a short while. She needs time to—”

“She wants to abandon me again?” I stood up.

“Oh, H??ng, don’t think like that. Your mother needs help. I can be there for her. My home is not much, but I can take long walks with her by the river. Being close to nature would be good for her.”

I turned away. My mother confided in Auntie Duyên, but not in me. She didn’t trust me. She didn’t think I was good enough as a daughter.

AFTER MY MOTHER had departed with Auntie Duyên, I went out to the backyard, Little House in the Big Woods in my hands. How lucky for this American girl to be anchored by her parents, while mine had drifted so far away. I turned to the final page, where Laura had been tucked snugly in her bed, with her mother in her rocking chair knitting and her father’s music and singing voice filling their cozy home with happiness.

I ground my teeth, ripped the last page from the book, and tore it to pieces. I thought I’d feel satisfied by my revenge but as the scraps of paper flittered down to my feet like dead butterflies, my tears followed.

I went back to school, struggled, and did badly on my tests. Grandma was shocked at the results, but I didn’t care. She was the one who’d chased my mother away.

Grandma became quiet; my mother’s words had hurt her deeply. She’d taken care of me, and now I should show my loyalty by comforting her, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so, fearing I would betray my mother. My mother didn’t care much about me, though. Whenever I brought her the food baskets Grandma had prepared, she looked at me with such vacant eyes that I wondered if it was truly my mother sitting there.