Chapter Nine: A Good Pot of Red Sauce

I don’t know how I really convinced Mai to let me read the letters. I mean, we were hanging out in her apartment on Saturday afternoon while her mother was working at the restaurant. The first time, I had met her mother, Mai had taken me to the Vietnamese restaurant where she worked and introduced me. Talk about the spread of food—I was in paradise. Spring rolls, different noodles dishes, and they served some sort of ice coffee that was to die for. Mai’s mother remarked as I was stuffing my face that I was a good eater. She was very quiet and reserved, but that didn’t stop her from asking me where I lived, and how I was doing in school. I had of course lied and told her that I was doing really well in school. She then scolded me and Mai for being in remedial Algebra. I didn’t mention to her that I was also in remedial English. I didn’t want her to think I was a complete dummy and a bad influence on Mai. I did inform her that my mother had studied Chinese history in graduate school. She didn’t say anything to that. I found out later that Mai’s mother didn’t like the Chinese.
Mai’s mother is beautiful—striking beautiful—like a model. She wore her jet- black hair tied in a bun, which opened her face up—and her eyes. Her eyes were green. Later, I asked Mai what her grandmother had looked like, and she said her grandmother was French. And then I started to piece it together—Mai’s mother was also a “Con Lai”, and then I thought, my God, here is a true romance! Here is what romance is all about; Mai’s grandfather some great scholar had fallen in love with a beautiful French woman, and had Mai’s mother.
We are sitting on Mai’s bedroom floor and we have all the letter’s spread out. There were twelve in all, and a bunch of post-cards. The hand writing was big and loopy.
“You know when I am feeling a little lost,” Mai was saying as she lifted up one of the letters that was on yellow legal paper and a little worn around the edges,” I read these letters to feel a as if I wasn’t a mistake.”
I didn’t say anything. I just knew that I needed to stay quiet. What was I going to say? I felt we were intruding in her mother’s past, in a way we were thieves, but I couldn’t help myself.
LinH is Mai’s mother’s name; it means gentle spirit in Vietnamese and Mai name means cherry blossoms. Mai told me all this as we were reading the letters. She also explained to me that that in the Vietnamese culture all names have hidden meanings. That was so cool, I thought, I wished my name had a hidden meaning. When I said this to Mai, she giggled and said, “Yeah, your name means ‘wind of the Mouth”,
“Really,” I said getting all excited thinking she knew something I didn’t.
“What does it mean in English?” I anxiously asked
“Big Mouth.” She said with a laugh
“Thanks a lot,” I said I was hoping for something like Warrior princess or girl with sparkling eyes.
“Dream on,” Mai said, “face facts, you talk a lot.”
The letters dated back to 1966. And they all started out with,My Gentle Spirit.
And all the letters were signed, forever more, T.
‘You know, Mai was saying, my mother was supposed to marry some guy that her father had arranged for her to marry, but he was killed. And my mother felt it was a sign—"
“Really, a sign from what?”
“A sign from her dead mother, a sign to only marry for love nothing else.”
The last letter in the stack was about how excited Mai’s father was that Mai’s mother was pregnant. It was dated March 1968. He said he was going to marry her and take her back to the States and that they were going to move back to California where he was from. But that never happened because a month later he was dead. He was killed. Mai was telling me all this as I was reading the last letter in the stack —and she was looking out the window crying.
And then we heard the front door open—
“Shit,” Mai whispered
We quickly stuffed all the letters back in the box, sliding it under Mai’s bed just as Mai’s bedroom door opened.
I left right after Mai’s mom got home. I just couldn’t sit still. I felt so guilty having read those letters, but despite my guilt I felt closer to Mai, as if we both shared a secret together. Maybe one day, I thought as I boarded the train back to my neighborhood, Mai and I could take a trip to California and search for her father’s relatives. I had some cousins in Los Angles that we could stay with. I was so lost in thought that I almost missed my stop at Loyal. It was quarter to three and I needed to be at the restaurant to help start setting up for the dinner crowd.
I opened the restaurant door, smells of garlic and onions greeted me and despite my fear of my Aunt, I was comforted by these warm smells. I thought yeah, my crazy family might fight, but at least I know my family. And I walked up to Connie and gave her a big kiss on the cheek and asked her how things were going.
“It’s going.” She said as she chopped the onions and tossed then in the big black skillet. She didn’t stick a piece of bread in her month like my Nanna did when she chopped onions. I sat there for a minute starting at her profile. Wondering what she looked like when she was my age. Wondering why she was so unhappy, and then she turned to me –“start setting the tables”,
‘Connie, are you ever going to talk to Nanna?”
“It’s none of your business what or when I talk to my mother?”
“Well, I think she is sad too.”
“Whatever,” she said reaching for her glass of wine.
The funny thing is Connie didn’t shed one tear when she was chopping those onions.