Ba, Lily, and I are laughing, the sound so full it bounces throughout the attic. We each have a corner of a fitted sheet, utterly bamboozled over which side is which as we pivot around the four-poster bed set at the room’s center. “These things should come with directions!” Lily shouts when we get it wrong again. We’re probably faking it now, holding on to the luxurious cotton as a lifeline to one another.
Ba said sorry, didn’t he? And Ba wants to protect Mom, and us, and make us proud, and a home in all of this. Repeating this makes it easier to be here. Beneath anger and resentment, there’s so much love. Love makes all things easy, as one of Mom’s inspirational decals would say.
Something’s simmering on the stove downstairs. Savory heat snakes through the narrow door and swaddles us. Finally, we tuck the fitted sheet on the bed. My sister’s happy that we’re in this together, that we’re making our handprints encased in cement hold meaning. Lily fusses over blankets and throw pillows while Ba and I work on the walls. I’d fixed the rectangular exit holes on the chimney earlier—sloppily, but enough to pass Ba’s eye. The thumping sounds no longer taunt us either, gone since I pried those brutal photographs free.
The walls have been sanded smooth and primed for paper. Caustic fumes from acrylic primer mix into the smell of a delicious meal. We run light yellow wallpaper from one edge, and I stop here and there to listen, ear flat until pincers pinch underneath. This sixth room is largest by far. The house was right: guests will love this room.
When we lean back to admire our handiwork, the paper’s pattern becomes clear. It’s not white damask as I thought, but curly diamonds centering Nhà Hoa’s face over and over again. A hundred Nhà Hoas peer from the wall, and the promise of many more remains rolled up on the floor, ready to be laid out. “I had the wallpaper made special,” says our dad. “This is a house the Nguyens made beautiful.”
“We have to give the room a Vietnamese name,” I say, because it is ours, no matter which ghost claims it.
Ba rubs his chin. “Ngọc bích loa kèn,” he suggests. We stare, very blankly, at the oily primer smeared on his face. “I’m pretty sure it means ‘jade lily.’ ”
That he is not sure himself is what makes the name perfect. I smile. “That is terrible.”
“It’s the best, you mean,” Lily interjects, beaming, then faltering as she remembers she should be mad at me. She stands close to Marion’s writing desk, now polished and restained cherry, and avoids looking my way. Cream hydrangeas brush the sill over it. “What about Brendan?”
“Your brother’s not here, is he,” Ba says, because a bone for a good act explains it all. His eyes slide over to me. “Remember to update the website.”
Right, the website, which I’ll make perfect. Two days until its debut at the party, and now the sixth room has our names. Florence’s old name too, since we share the translation, but I’m not supposed to be thinking about her.
“Let’s go eat.” Ba leads us down the narrow staircase where my vision goes unsteady. My breath hitches in a panic until the world rights itself again. I stayed up all night listening to this house, on guard so my body couldn’t be taken. I’m not giving up yet. The hours blend together so much that I realize we’d skipped lunch entirely.
At the foot of the stairs, Lily stops me, all the warmth gone from her voice again. “Mom sent us something. Last week.” She goes into her room, and since she can make a home of any place, she’s moved her bed away from the chandelier and piled her favorite books and knits in the spot where glass once exploded. She returns with a box, duct tape hanging in tatters. There’s a lot we haven’t talked about since our fight. If I’d answered any of Mom’s attempts to contact me, I would’ve known she sent a gift. Lily shoves it in my arms. “You’re hurting her feelings, so please call her back.”
My sister means to leave me behind, but it’s my turn to stop her. “I have something for you too.” And though I shouldn’t, I grab the silver brush from my desk.
Her eyes widen on the antique. “How did you get that back?” she asks. I’ve removed Alma’s tangled white hair and run the brush under hot water as the house’s birds watched. I wonder if Lily would believe that a ghost possessed me, that I am truly sorry anyone—including Alma and Thomas—got hurt. I hardly believe it myself.
“Don’t take anything from Dad,” I say instead. Not a spoonful of honey, not a garnish of mint. Her lips thin out, displeased with my nonanswer, as she puts the brush back on the vanity. For the briefest moment, I wish she’d ask again. She vanishes downstairs.
I hide my disappointment in my room. Sea-foam green fabric pools inside the box. When I take it out, the áo dài cascades delicately over my arm. Branches extend upward from the tunic’s edge, sprouting delicate cream flowers. It’s gorgeous, nicer than all the ones we tried on earlier this summer. The silk trousers are a bright white. By look alone I know they’ll fit my wide hips fine, even perfectly. I hook the hanger over the window.
Insects overflow from the sill. I’d stopped cleaning when the jar was stolen, and time has robbed the remaining exoskeletons of their shine. How lucky is it though for them to die together, fuzzy and warm in a well-made bed.
I can’t think about sleeping. I can’t think about eating either.
All at once, the swell of aromatics from the kitchen is too much. I force myself out the front door, shouting back at the house, “I’ll be right back. Gonna call Mom real quick.”
I’m too tired for this, but Lily’s right, of course. She remembers birthdays, holidays, and Bren’s recitals at school. She writes letters by hand rather than by email and closes envelopes with stickers. Mom is important, and I have to talk to her. Surrounded by things secretly buried, I know she’s my last tether to normal.
The pines run cool this late in the day. By the time I reach the ant colony, it feels as though I’ve emerged from the deep end of a pool.
“Hi, Mom,” I say as soon as she picks up. “I got the áo dài.” She turns off the TV in the background, and guilt gnaws on the emptiness in my stomach. Compared to early summer, her smile is less easy.
“Có vừa không? I had to guess your measurements,” she says. “Your aunt was wrong about who can wear áo dài. It’s very pretty.”
I smile. In some roundabout way, she’s telling me I’m pretty. “I’m going to wear it at the house opening. Where’s Bren?”
Mom waves at him off-camera. “Come. Bren. Bren!” She frowns as she refocuses on the phone. “He doesn’t want to talk right now.” Great, he’s mad at me too. Against all reason, Ba is the only person I’m getting along with right now. “Does Lily like her hair clips?”
“She loves them,” I say. “You talk to her recently, yeah?”
“Lily would say she likes anything I give to her,” Mom says as I toe the edge of the ant colony. “I was thinking …,” Mom continues. The ants have deserted the fallen tree trunk for the trees above where they’re frozen, mandibles tight on stems. Stalks spike the air, and a thin webbing holds them together in death. “We come to Nhà Hoa. It’s your birthday.”
“No,” I snap. “No way.” The warning in the truck was clear. Ba would never let her leave.
Her voice dips. “Why?”
“Because … ” This is haunted, I’m haunted, Dad’s fucked, we have parasite problems, it’s not safe for you because I love you. I love you. My jaw aches as I work words from my mouth. “I don’t want you to. I’m seeing you next week anyway. It’s a waste of money.”
“That’s not a big deal. Money is just money,” says Mom. A mattress squeaks from her end as she straightens up with rare embarrassment. “And actually, I’m already in a hotel in Đà Lạt.” I’m not an optimist, because shit like this happens. Hope dooms you into making dumb decisions, such as ignoring your romantically challenged but well-meaning daughter’s advice to avoid your almost ex-husband who is decidedly still a mess but in a different and probably supernatural way.
“Are you here to see me or Dad?” I ask. They haven’t seen each other in person since that one weekend visit, when Ba sucked away all the joy and color from Bren’s birthday balloons. Despite all that and our sparse calls, she wants to see him. The longer it takes me to shut it down, the easier I imagine Marion slipping into my place with a soft yes, yes, come here. A hungry ghost always needs more, and this house has learned what it shouldn’t have. And me, I’m another excuse for her to see him. “It’s a birthday. Who even cares? You should have asked me first.”
She sighs. “Okay.”
“I’m serious,” I say, jaw cracking. “I’m not your excuse to see him.” I let Mom witness the tiny part of me that resents her too. “This is our time with Ba.” She recoils from words I’ve never spoken aloud. I’m sick of holding it together when everyone’s intent on reconciliation with someone who abandoned us.
Mom sighs before putting on a dim smile. “Take pictures for me, okay?”
Over ten stressful minutes, I make her promise not to tell Lily or Ba that she’s here. That instead of coming to the opening party, she and Bren will harvest coffee beans, white-water raft, or whatever it is we tourists do. Afterward, we’ll meet up at the airport and fly to Saigon together. The sun has sunk close to the horizon by the time we hang up, phone burning in my pocket.
When I reach Nhà Hoa’s porch, the first thing I smell is the salty sea. Crushed crabs, shrimp paste, and fried shallots. The house is dark inside, except for the dining room. Ba and Lily wait for me at the table. It’s six o’clock and everything’s been set. Lace linen covers the sturdy oak.
“It’s your favorite,” Ba says from the head of the table. The insulation’s yellow fuzz dusts his brows.
“I don’t want to eat,” I say, yet am beckoned forward. Lily, with her long hair swept over a shoulder, sits on the opposite side. She looks past me.
I sit. The chopsticks are in my hands. There’re floating tomatoes, squishy and juicy, and a broth that’s all red flame in a porcelain bowl. White noodles as pulpy as worms on wet pavement. Pressure-cooked pigs’ feet, the hairs plucked.
“I’m not hungry.” But I eat. The taste melts over my tongue and fills me. When my hands stop, Lily slurps her steaming soup down. Ba watches us before skewering a meatball made from pounded crabs and pork flesh. My sister whimpers into her bowl. I’m so tired I can’t fight it. Secrets do not keep a girl fed, and this nourishes me. It reminds me of home, Saturday nights in a warm kitchen.
I eat, and I eat, and I eat.
The house watches from the wallpaper, buzzing, growing loud, overtaking conversation. It’s always so pushy. I gnash tendons between my teeth. I don’t want to. I’m so hungry. It feels good to not be in control. I tear skin and muscle. The white linen is splattered with the mushy insides of an overcooked tomato. I suck on each knuckle and dislodge it from the whole.
Bones pile at the table’s center, the remains of our ongoing feast.