Authors: Ong Xiong
“Oh,” Jess
replied.
“He was also in
Sweet
Lullaby
, remember? Mai made us watch that Korean drama that entire weekend
you were sick and thought you were dying of Ebola!”
“Oh. O-o-oh,”
Jess said as the information registered. “
That
hot guy.”
“Yeah,” both Mai
and Gaotah replied.
“My sister’s in
New York for her friend Katie’s wedding. She’s scheduled to return on Tuesday,”
Mai said taking out her cell phone. She pulled up her calendar and touched the
highlighted Saturday on her phone. “Hey Jess, can I borrow your car?”
“Why?” Jess
asked.
“I know my
sister. She’s probably home by now. The wedding was yesterday. If I leave tomorrow
morning, I’ll be able to see her and make it back by Tuesday.”
“I’m coming with
you,” Gaotah said.
“I’ll drive. I
want to witness some drama!” Jess said, smacking her lips as she said “drama.”
“
Korean
drama,” Mai said.
The three laughed
and gathered their things.
CHAPTER
39
Fall 2001
When her menses
didn’t come, Sue attributed it to the stress of burying her brother Tong,
breaking up with Jae, and helping with the care of her ailing grandmother. By
the second month, she thought it was probably due to the added stress of school
and living at home where her parents constantly argued about what could have
been done differently to save her brother. She thought her nausea was from the
flu that was going around on campus.
The stress made
her tired and forgetful. Usually, she could stay up late into the night to
study; now, she was lucky to make it past seven in the evening. She forgot to
study for a physics quiz and missed her first genetics exam when she fell
asleep in the student union. She was not able to make it up. Tired and upset,
she made her way home. Stopping at the student union to pick up her favorite
bagel, she caught the smell of garlic in the café and felt a surge of nausea so
strong she barely made it to the bathroom in time.
She was surprised
to be vomiting so much when she hadn’t eaten much that day. As she tried to
stand, her shaky body collapsed to the floor. Unable to suppress the tears, she
silently cried in the bathroom until she was able to gather herself enough to
stand without having vertigo.
She looked
herself in the mirror and saw a stranger staring back at her. Dark circles
surrounded her tired eyes and her cheeks looked hallow. Feeling empty, she
rinsed her mouth and took a drink of water. She searched her bag for her Tylenol
and found a menstrual pad. Dismissing it she continued searching then she
stopped.
In her grief, Sue
had forgotten the possibility that she could be pregnant. She closed her
backpack and slowly made her way to a corner store to purchase a pregnancy test.
Confirming what
her mind already knew, Sue stared at the multiple pregnancy tests, all
indicating she was pregnant, wondering what she was going to do. She leaned
against the stall of a campus bathroom for support and for the first time since
returning from Seoul, she prayed.
Lord, please
give me strength
.
CHAPTER
40
Her father was
not a bad man. He was just a proud man. Sue told herself that over and over,
trying to reassure herself of the man she was now facing. He was a man who
would kill to protect his honor, a man who would rather lose a child than lose
face. Face was everything. Sue knew this. It was drilled into her mind. How
often had she heard her parents’ warning,
xob ua poob ntsej muag
. Don’t
lose face.
Xai Chue Thao had
been a captain in the Laos army and was proud that he had fought with General
Vang Pao during the Vietnam War. Besides Hmong, he was also fluent in Laotian,
Vietnamese, French, and English and always made that fact known. However,
because he lacked a formal education he was forced to work in factories to
support his family.
Xai Chue brought
his family to the United States with the hopes that all his children would
become doctors, lawyers or engineers, the three professions he deemed
respectable. He was disappointed when his three older sons stopped their
education after high school. He was so proud when his eldest daughter Mai Yee
went to college but was even more disappointed when she dropped out to marry.
But Sue, his Sue
was the brightest of all his children. He made sure visitors knew about Sue’s
academic accomplishments. He showed his guests her report cards and framed her
awards. She was the son his sons did not fulfill. She was his hope at
fulfilling his American dream—prosperity.
“I send you off
to school to get an education and this is what you brought home? A bastard?
You!” Xai Chue angrily pointed to Sue’s mother. “She’s your daughter! Let her
go, you said. She’s smart, you said.” He turned his attention back to Sue. “I
shouldn’t have let you go to Korea, then I would not be losing face now!” His
voice shook with anger. “How can you keep your head high now, hmm? Who will
marry you now? How will you raise that bastard?”
“I can still go
to school. I can work. There are programs that can help me,” Sue said weakly.
It sounded better during rehearsals.
“Get rid of it,”
her father commanded angrily.
“No!” Sue’s hands
instinctively covered her still flat stomach. If not for the doctor assuring
her she was pregnant, she wouldn’t have believed. Except for the nausea, there
was yet no sign of life within her petite body.
“Tomorrow your mother
will get some herbal medicine for you to take. Mother, you hear me. By God, we
can still save face!” he roared, wiping his sweaty face with a hand.
“No! I already
found an apartment close to campus. I’m moving out. You won’t have to deal with
me anymore,” Sue said, trying her hardest to not break down. She was wringing
her hands together, thinking rapidly about what to do. She had never seen her
father this angry. And her brothers, Tou and Teng, glared at her with homicidal
rage.
“Oh no you don’t,
you little bitch! You made your mother and I lose face because you couldn’t
keep your legs closed. I will not be disgraced further by having my unmarried
daughter living like some whore!”
“You don’t mean
that. I know you are angry, but I’ve learned from my mistakes and will not make
them again. I’ll talk to you more when you have calmed down, dad.”
“Learn from your
mistake? Learn from your mistake!” Her brother Tou snapped sharply, mockingly,
almost with a laugh in his angry voice. “You think you’re so fucking smart,
huh? Too smart to use a fucking condom? You are carrying your fucking mistake,
you stupid bitch!” Tou shouted angrily at her. He was shouting and spurting
spit, slamming his fist into the wall. “The world will see your bastard! We
will not be disgraced because of you!”
“Where do you
think you are going? Don’t you dare take the car!” her father hollered at her,
while Tou grabbed her hair. He forcefully yanked her head backwards before
striking her across her face once, twice before her grandmother was able to pry
her away from Tou’s strong hold. He had struck her so hard, her glasses broke,
cutting her eyelid.
“
Mi ntxhais
urh
, what have you done?” her grandmother wailed in Hmong, running her
hands over Sue’s head, trying to soothe her burning scalp. “We send you to
school, my good daughter and you disgraced us,” she continued in Hmong, wiping
her tears and continuing her gentle, grandmotherly patting of Sue’s head.
Tou and Xai Chue
were still hollering at Sue. Her sister Mai Yia was bawling, scared at the
scene that was unfolding before her. The last thing Sue wanted to do was cry.
Her cheeks burned. It seemed as if all she had been doing for the last two
months was crying and this was not the time to do so. She needed to be strong,
if not for herself, for the life she carried within her. Her chest tightened
and tears of guilt and anger gushed out. She couldn’t stop them no matter how
hard she tried.
Her mother’s
soothing tone as she offered advice contradicted what she was saying. Lost
face. Disgrace. Unmarriageable. Shame. All Sue heard was shame. Shame, shame,
shame. Still in her grandmother’s embrace, Sue closed her teary eyes and
thought about her life.
A sheltered life
that was no longer…well, that darn pain radiating to her bones from the force
of her brother’s hands were blocking all that seemed to matter. The pain
overshadowed all that she had accomplished academically or any other thing that
she had done in her young life. Nothing made any difference at this moment. Her
grade point average was not going to prevent her brother from hating her or
take back the agony that she had inflicted upon her family. The pain took over
everything and all she could do was tell herself not to cry.
In an instance,
her life had changed forever. A living nightmare she couldn’t wake up from.
“Fine, I’ll take my bike. I’ll come get my things when I can,” she said in a
shaky voice. She hardly recognized it as her own. It felt as if she was hearing
a stranger, seeing herself as a stranger, being cradled in her grandmother’s
ailing arms like a wounded bird.
CHAPTER
41
Sue moved into a
one-bedroom apartment by campus on the West Bank of the University of
Minnesota. For the first two months she was on her own, she cried almost
nightly. Her apartment was not the best place to be but it was cheap and the
location was convenient, especially since she didn’t have a car.
There was a party
every weekend and sometimes she discovered condoms and beer bottles in the
hallway and by the stairwell. Often, she could hear huffing and panting from
her neighbors. Sometimes she could hear steady banging on her walls and she
covered her ears and tried to think happy thoughts. She tried to think about
what the baby would look like. Would it be a boy or a girl and what should she
name him or her? Should she give her baby her last name or Jae’s? Sometimes, it
worked and she fell asleep without shedding tears. Sometimes it was too much
for her and she cried herself to sleep.
School became
unbearable and Sue withdrew from her fall semester to work full time at the TCF
bank on campus. She saved every penny she could and made plans to move away
from campus before the baby was born. She still didn’t have a car, but she was
getting really good at utilizing the public bus and the University’s commuting
system.
While she could
still work, she took on a second job as a program counselor for a non-profit
agency that provided care for individuals with disabilities. She worked the
sleep overnight shifts in their residential program and although the sleeping
arrangement left her aching in the morning, the schedule allowed her to pick up
extra shifts.
The first time
she heard her baby’s heartbeat, she cried and thought of baby names. The first
time she felt her baby move, she cried and went shopping for baby furniture,
picturing the theme she would use for the beddings and decorations. She was
carrying a life within her. A life. She placed her hand over the small bump on
her belly and cried some more. But the tears she shed now were happy tears.
We can do this
together little one. We can do this
.
Her pregnancy
became more real each day as her belly grew bigger. She was even more
determined to save every penny she could. She purchased a crib and a car seat
with matching stroller. She was undecided between Noah’s Ark and Winnie the
Pool. In the end, she purchased a neutral owl print bedding set to start with
and decided that she would wait for the baby’s arrival to make up her mind
about decoration themes. She stored all her purchases with Tony until she could
set them in her new apartment.
On a cold, winter
morning in February, after working eighteen hours, everything changed. She had
worked from eight to four at the bank then headed straight to her second job
from five until six that morning. When she arrived home, it was already eight
in the morning and she needed to be at the bank again at ten. She had just
enough time to take a nice warm shower and eat breakfast before heading out,
but that morning, she was tired and cold and decided to take a bath. She fell
asleep in the bath and didn’t wake until her alarm went off, indicating it was
already 9:30 a.m. Out of habit, she usually set a timer to indicate what time
she needed to leave. She quickly dressed and fixed a quick breakfast on the go.
In her haste, Sue
didn’t see the empty beer bottle on the stairwell. She tried to brace herself
on the railing but the damn thing was old and wobbly and Sue lost her balance,
falling down a flight of steep stairs. She tried to protect her baby but there
was nothing she could do. Through pain and tears, Sue yelled for help. Her
voice shook with fear when she saw the blood, pooling beneath her. She clutched
her enlarged belly, as if holding it tighter would protect her baby.
No one answered
her call. She tried to get up but sharp pain radiated through her body, forcing
her to collapse back on the cold floor and she yelled for help again. She
prayed and prayed and called for help until some sleepy-eyed neighbor opened
the door to see what the racket was about. Startled by the sight of Sue and the
blood surrounding her, the neighbor sobered enough to call 911.
By the time she
arrived at the hospital, she was bleeding heavily and the nurses couldn’t find
her baby’s heartbeat.
“Try again! Oh,
God, just try again!” Sue pleaded.
She was induced
to deliver the baby. Now, when she looked back on that day at that time, she
thought how cruel it was to go through the ordeal knowing that the baby she was
to deliver no longer had a heartbeat.