The rain pours on Đà Lạt, a slow storm that turns into sheets. Still, heat chokes the house, and me in it, the last of the shower water beading into sweat. Perched on a chair by the desk, I pick dead bugs one by one with tweezers and compare its shape to the insect leg I’ve pressed in paper. Mosquitoes are easy to rule out with too-thin legs, but spiders are harder. Many kinds have come to die on my windowsill. I collect them all in a mason jar to prove they exist and that they keep sneaking in when I’m not looking.
The sleep paralysis has come back, and every time I’m idle for too long I remember the girl in the kitchen from two nights ago.
The voice sneaks back into my head. The shape of her mouth when she spoke. Đừng ăn. Was any of it real?
I press a knuckle to the headache that has started between my brows. It comes away sweaty.
Enough. Screw waiting for Ba to fix this mess.
The voice was a dream, as was the girl, all brought on by heat deliriousness.
After shelving away the unidentified insect leg, I head downstairs with the conviction that there is nothing to be afraid of. I avoid no mirrors or corners, eyes sweeping every inch of the house.
There’s a loud clanging beyond the kitchen in the old chamber that doubled as servants’ quarters years before, where his bà ngoại and her family stayed. Ba curses over old cast-iron pipes, down on his luck. The box cutter is probably in there, but I don’t want to explain why I need it.
The knife drawer contains exactly three choices: a large cleaver perfect for smashing garlic, a smaller knife that easily pierces meat and vegetables, and a fillet knife for descaling and gutting fish. That last one is long and skinny, shark nosed.
I take it with me upstairs. The grip is surprisingly rough. Rain sloshes against the windowpanes, but I’m past caring. This heat is choking me, and I will take the heady scent of the hydrangeas over it. The knife, unsheathed, blinks light back at me.
Steeling one hand on it, I run the fillet knife between the window and the inner wood. Spiderwebs catch on its blade, which cuts so sharply that paint and wood flick onto the ledge. Taking charge is what I do at home, but all I’ve felt here is small. The work is slow, snagging on thick globs of paint. When I pull the knife harder, something else moves too.
The sill groans with scraped wood, and the window shows a smudge behind me. Blurry with rain and glittering in a sweeping dress, it smiles with a mouth as dark as frostbite.
The knife slices into my hand, and I scream. Blood slicks my bare feet. I turn from the bloodied sill, staring into the bedroom’s vast emptiness. No shadows, no woman, no smiles.
Footsteps thunder up the stairs. “Jade!” Ba yells, louder and more urgent than I expect from him. “Jade?” Lily arrives first from her room and gasps before running off and yelling about a towel.
At my doorway, Ba stands disheveled, shirt spotted with water. I glance at the window, where his reflection has replaced the menacing shadow. My eyes are hot as my hand throbs. My imagination runs wild with theories: the smudge was the girl, my grandmother, every missing person presumed dead I’ve ever seen on TV. It is someone.
“Are you going to stand there and cry?” Ba asks, the question blasting away my bewilderment. Urgency has faded to exasperation. Those large eyes are a stranger’s again. “I told you I was doing it.”
“And you didn’t,” I say as my hand bleeds from the tension I can’t let go. “For over a week.”
His head shakes. “Come on. First-aid kit’s in the bathroom.” He cleans the gash roughly, the only way he knows how. This is the second time we’ve touched here. We haven’t even hugged hello yet.
Are you going to stand there and cry, says the cruel thing that torments me by replaying moments that hurt. I’ll grind my teeth into dust before I give either the satisfaction.
Lily waits, anxiously watching Ba tighten the bandage over my open palm.
“Why this house?” I ask. “Your grandma worked here when she was little, but it was never hers, right?” Most of these villas belonged to French officers when first built in the early 1900s, and Alma had already told us who owned this one. On the wallpaper, another bird has been eaten by silverfish, giving it the texture of crushed tissue. Outside the rain lulls as if to leave us space to shout.
“This is a good house.” Ba’s eyes level mine. “Good location.”
The many abandoned houses on this hill say he’s lying. There are even more in Đà Lạt, built in the European style tourists love so much. “Why not a new one, then?” I ask.
“What’s this about?” He lets my hand go. Lily sucks in her cheeks, nervous. My sister knows how an impending fight sounds in my voice. On those rare occasions I laid it out with Mom, the whole town house trembled.
My mouth is as parched as the night something crawled into it. I stop myself from reaching in and grabbing whatever’s behind my tongue, at the cobblestones of my blood-red throat.
Way too much to admit. I stick to the facts instead, not holding back. “The nasty bugs, the rats that keep eating the wires, the brand-new fridge that apparently never works.” The windows you screwed up. “This is a shit house. Who’s gonna stay here?”
“Don’t say shit,” Ba says. “Alma and Thomas có nhiều bạn.” He’s switched to Vietnamese, which I have a much smaller catalog of bad words in. It’s a shame because I want to ask what racist retiree friends do they have to invite but in a much more colorful palette.
His reasoning isn’t baseless though. This house and its French architecture, the soaring flowers, the tiniest details that are both French and a little “exotic.” As Florence had said, people eat that—poop emoji—up.
The thing about fighting is, it’s easy to let something true slip when your emotions run so close to the surface, the vessels loose in your skin. Holding his stare, I say, “I saw something in that window, where you were standing when you came in.” I want my dad to believe me. I need him to.
“Jade,” he says.
“And the other night, downstairs—”
“You think too much.” He gets up. Lily moves out of the door frame.
“No, it’s, ma.” I say the word ghost in Vietnamese, but it sounds a little bit like I’m saying mom. The pronunciation is similar.
“You watch too many scary movies.” The first-aid kit snaps shut, but I’m already bleeding through the bandage. “Bad for you.” He taps a finger against his head.
“No.” I grit my teeth, searching for the words I saw. “Con thấy ma.” Con, your child, a semblance of closeness that I’m trying. Please recognize me.
“You saw nothing,” Ba says. “You don’t want to stay here, but that’s the deal, Jade.”
Anger explodes at my pulse points. “It’s not about that.”
“Stop.” He waves a hand in dismissal. “Nothing bad happened until you got here. You want to leave early and still win. No. Stay four more weeks.”
He sees me as a liar, but how can I lie to him when we don’t talk? The me in the mirror is flushed red. I want to put her to rest. I wish this was a ruse. I wish I could sleep for four weeks and walk away.
“Why am I even here?” My voice comes out small, and I hate it.
Shoving past him is easy since he doesn’t try stopping me. Passing by Lily’s stressed, questioning face is harder. I can’t talk to you right now, is the look I channel. I will never cry in front of her.
My door slams shut, and I throw the window open, a guillotine in reverse. Cool air rushes in, drying my skin and cooling me down, but I am a flame. Rain splashes on the sill and mixes with blood. There’s iron, then flowers, the hydrangeas in Đà Lạt fresh cold, finally let in.
I throw open my suitcase and toss clothes inside, ignoring the shocks of pain from my left hand. Ba is useless. None of this is worth it. I should be back in Philadelphia, making up with Halle, crossing off items on our Before We Get Old list. I should be somewhere I can understand almost every voice around me. In a place where I am enough of everything I dare to be.
Everyone graduates with debts. To their parents, or siblings, the school, or the government. My debt will just be more than I planned because I never want to owe anything to my dad.
Blood slides from the sill and onto the wall, where it inches toward the floor. I’ll let it stain, because it’s exactly what he wants: a mark on Vietnam.