Six months later, in Dallas Harold died of a slow killing heart attack, which no one suspected, even his doctor; and Left Thui nothing. Even though he had asked his children to give her $20,000 in case of his death, they did not. They wanted to punish her for the act of their father. Besides why would they give any money to this foreign girl who had adhered herself to their father for coming to America. Since he had not included her in his will, and Thui did not know anything about American legal system, did not have any money to hire a lawyer, her immigration status was still in limbo, and her English had not yet been perfect, she allowed Harold children treated her unfairly. She knew a day will come that she would get out of this. She was contented and happy that she was finally in America. Let them come and throw her out! It was there, in Harold's son's home, where they were making her to do their house keeping to earn her ticket back to Vietnam, that for the first time she met Ed. A window of opportunity opened for her that night.
The only memory she had left from Harold which for many years came to her vision was him being in death bed. His death was sudden, very sudden. He was not feeling good for a little over a week, but it took him only one day to die. Afterwards, his doctor said that saving him was impossible. After not feeling good for a while, he got really sick Monday morning and died the same afternoon. Thui had no idea that he had heart attack. Afterwards, his doctor said that saving him, even if he was in hospital, was impossible. Thui was in the kitchen preparing chicken soup for him. He was resting in bed all morning and early afternoon. Thui had checked on him may times and talked to him. But in the late afternoon when she returned to the bedroom with a tray of food and juice and his medicine, she saw he was not lying down but sitting up in his white pajamas. His back was against the head board of the cherry wood. He was covered by a white sheet up to his chest. She was so shocked to see that everything about him and around him was so white- his white hair, his ashen face, his white pajamas, the white pillow case, the white sheet. All that whiteness somehow harmonized with the peace on his face. An unfamiliar gesture of kindness showed in his dead face... She put the tray down on the table, and went to the bedside.
She looked at his hand folded over his chest; and she realized that he was entirely dead. He could not be just a little dead. It was all or nothing. His face was smooth, white, his eyes were half opened. To the end, he was a military man. He had died with dignity, sitting straight not lying, hands folded on his chest not in some gesture of fright and horror of the last moment. Thui touched his forehead, and a sweat ran into her body. His body was still warm. It should had happened just recently. She sat on the corner of the bed and thought: "What am I going to do next?"
Ever since that death, Thui's eyes were always seen like ice; but one could not make sure that there was a fire smoldered beneath that ice. She kept remembering the last days, the last weeks of Harold's life. This man, who had brought her to America and had bought so many things from clothes to jewelry for her, a man that always gave her more money for household expenses that she needed, now was gone. In fact what Harold had done for her in six months marriage was much greater than what Ed had done in eleven years of their marriage and without any prenuptial agreement. Ed was a very stingy man. Thui had to beg him for money even to buy things for their three children.
In Harold's last days of life, without knowing that he had suffered a heart attack, she noticed how pathetic he looked. She saw unruly tears in his eyes, and she knew why he was crying. He was not a man ever to show weakness or to tolerate dependency. To watch him not being able to do what he always did for himself, was a reminder to Thui of the ultimate failure of all men. On the third day of his sickness, Thui forced him to go to his doctor with her. The doctor's guess was just some kind of virus, "it must be a bug". That is how the doctor said. He wrote the name of some vitamins and ordered chicken soup and a lot of liquid.
Notwithstanding, on his last days, he proved to Thui that he, the quite, dignified man, could bare the accident of life with honor, to the end a Military Colonel.
The six months between Harold's death and meeting Ed, Thui often tried to evaluate her life candidly! She never gave up her habit for walking in the evening; and in one of those evening, walking in dusk, she asked herself that question again. The answer that came to her was like a blow to her face. She analyzed herself in a brutal way and realized that she had been afraid to know herself because of its horrifying result.
Nevertheless, in that six months she lived life with boredom and irritation. She tried to figure out why she did not have any feeling for anything even the nature which once she so admired. She was anxious, worried; even her childish dreams kept coming back to her. She tried like a light switch to turn on and off her emotions to a different path; but it was always ambiguity that came to surface. She thought a lot about Harold, her dead husband, the old romantic man which was a lot better than many young men she had been with. With her, he had stimulated his nerves and his emotions to the point that they finally broke him down and killed him. He always wanted to prove to his young wife that he could be equal to her, and he was.
Sometimes she would lock herself in her bedroom. Harold's oldest son would hear her silent sobbing. Thui now was living in his house. He felt sorry for her, but he was not about to save her. She needed to save herself, to work for it. He was not about to respect his father's wish and to give Thui the money that his father wanted him to give. On the other hand, Thui hated him, her step son, older than her, with every cell in her body. But for now she had to endure this life and put a mask on her face so he would not know the degree of her disgust.
Their house was cozy and luxurious. He and his wife, both lawyers, had enough money to save her, or to gave her the money Harold had asked them to give her, but no, they did not. He was nothing like his father. He was a mean, unkind man. They had a very good idea that the marriage between Their father and this Vietnamese girl, his grand children's age, was not for a true love, but it was infatuation on Harold's part and coming to America and fast money on Thui's part.
Thui felt like a prisoner in this peaceful, luxury home which looked hospitable from outside. she thought about leaving them, that darkness, but she did not have the strength to separate herself from it. Besides, she did not have any skill for any type of work, except the house keeping. That was not in her plan. She had not finished even her high school. She had one more year when she had had that unnamed baby. The dilemma she was in was greater than any other things she had faced in her life. She waited for a miracle. It happened the day Ed saw her there for the first time.
To Be Continued
No comments:
Post a Comment