How to Pronounce Knife - Souvankham Thammavongsa Page 0,31

they were still in Laos. She was smiling. Her hair was parted in the middle, her face plain, her smile shy. Next to the photo was a plastic flap that held his driver’s licence. He looked at his first name. Jai. It rhymes with chai. It means heart. Heart.

You Are So Embarrassing

EVERYTHING OUTSIDE WAS BLURRY and wet, and there was nothing to be done about it. The windshield wipers sounded like sobs. Eeek. Eeek. Eeek. The woman’s small blue car was parked in an alley. She was hoping to catch a glimpse of her daughter, who left work every day at around four in the afternoon.

The woman had done this before, sit in this alley and wait. She never worried about being noticed. She was sure the girl didn’t even know what kind of car her mother drove these days, or anything else about her for that matter.

A few months ago, she had gone to her daughter’s house and stood on the sidewalk across the street, in the dark, waiting for a glimpse. She had wanted to see if her daughter was happy, but she didn’t want to embarrass herself looking the way she did. Her hair felt like straw to the touch. And no matter how much she scrubbed, the dirt was still there under her fingernails and the smell of the farm lingered.

The woman had noticed little details outside the house. There was the light turning on in a room, the shape of a black garbage bag left at the curb. Then she saw her daughter’s face, framed by the kitchen window like a small photograph. She was standing at the sink doing the dishes. Her husband came into view, caressing the back of her neck before turning her around into a slow dance. Her daughter seemed happy. When you’re a mother, you create a life and then you watch it go on its own way. It’s what you hope for, and want, but when it happens, it happens without you.

The woman slipped back into her car and drove away.

THE WOMAN HAD WANTED to call after the stroke last year, but she didn’t want her daughter to hear her slurred speech or to see that one side of her face now drooped. She didn’t want her daughter to think she needed to be taken care of. She didn’t want to be a burden. It had taken six months of therapy before she looked and sounded like herself again. Sometimes, when she let her guard down, like when she laughed, you could see some of her facial muscles were slow to react. Food didn’t taste the same as it did before, either. Her sense of taste comes and goes now. Most of the time it all tastes bitter. And all that bitterness in her mouth is hard to swallow.

She had been working on a farm at the time. Got the job through a friend. It had been difficult to find work after the plastics factory shut down. She had been there for forty years. They don’t have jobs like that anymore. The factory had paid severance, so she had a little something left over after she spent all her savings putting her daughter through school. But that wasn’t the point. It was a job she wanted. Something to do for twelve hours. At least she knew how to drive. A friend had asked if she could give him and a few others a ride to the farm where they worked, and she did. She liked their affectionate teasing, the bawdy jokes they told, how they included her in all their stories, the way they took you in, no questions asked. When they told her the farm was looking for more workers, she offered to join them. “But you know how to drive and speak English better than anyone we know. You can get a job anywhere.” She didn’t want to tell them it wasn’t true. And out of pride, she just said, “I’m bored. It’ll be something to do.”

It was good to be outdoors and on the land, feeling the sun on your back. She pulled weeds from the ground—the ones with thorns. She wore gloves to protect her hands, but once in a while, a thorn sharp and fine enough would pierce through. They didn’t use weed killer out here, not next to the strawberries that get harvested and sold as organic. She did whatever they needed done, though—she even drove the tractor. She liked that. Seated so