Both of us vomit over and over, deep into the night, until nothing comes out, then we dry-heave. I spit up blood. Drink some water, but as soon as it hits my stomach the vomiting starts all over again. The same with Phuong. After, we both collapse back on the ground. And then come the chills. And the delirium. It goes on for hours, and must be going on with Phuong, too, but I’m too weak, too helpless to check. Everything aches. I’m freezing. Each breath causes muscle spasms. I see things, hear things: people whispering on the other side of the bamboo, Vietnamese voices, conspiring to attack us. They have machetes. They’re going to hack us to death, and no one will know. I try to warn Phuong, but I can’t find her. I search for her, back in the ghost forest, going from white tree to white tree, fearful of who might be hiding behind each one, but compelled to find out, to keep on until I reach her. There’s Vu, alive again, but faceless, mute, uncomprehending when I speak to him, walking blindly, arms extended, trying to feel his way somewhere. And my mom! She’s there! I call to her, but she doesn’t answer. I run to catch up, but she keeps moving away from me, and no matter how fast I run, I can’t make up the distance. “Mom! Mom!” I scream in desperation. I have to catch her. We have to find a way home. But someone is moaning close by. It’s Phuong and she needs me. I have to let Mom go.

My fever breaks. The delirium passes. I’m bathed in sweat, my face pressed to the damp ground, grit in my mouth, a desperate thirst, night so black I can’t see anything. I feel around me until I find a canteen. I drink until it’s empty. A voice says, Go easy, go easy, you’ll make yourself sick again, but I can’t stop. I lie back down, sweat rolling off my face, my clothes soaked, but at least the nausea is gone, along with the chills and the hallucinations. Black turns gray, and when I force my eyes open I can make out shapes. The bamboo walls surrounding us. Phuong, her back to me, still shaking and whimpering. I find her rucksack, pull out her poncho, and drag it over her, but she’s thrashing now and throws it off. I gather it over her again, and this time wrap my arms around her and hold on.

And little by little it works. She stops shaking. I stop sweating. And I keep my body pressed against hers, both of us curled up together on the jungle floor, and merciful sleep comes and that’s how we survive the night.

In the morning, while Phuong still sleeps, I pull myself away from her and stagger out of the bamboo with the canteens in search of more water. Amber light filters through the thick canopy, and all the voices of the jungle seem to waken at once—the birds, the monkeys high in the trees, barking deer. Every step is a chore as I follow the trail up what should be a gentle rise, hoping I’ll find a stream soon. I don’t have the strength to go far. I stop and listen for the sound of running water, and after two false leads, I hear it for real. Not more than a trickle, but enough to fill the canteens until my knees start trembling and my legs threaten to give out. It’s too much, too soon. I have to crawl back to the bamboo nest and Phuong.

She’s still passed out. I lift her head and gently pour water onto her chapped lips. She swallows. I let her rest, then do it again. I brush her long black hair out of her face, use some of the water to wash off vomit and dirt, let her sleep, and lie down to sleep again myself. I don’t know why I’m working so hard to save her. It’s just what you do. But also, if she dies, I die. I have no idea where I am in this jungle and can’t possibly survive out here on my own. What are the chances of my being rescued on the Trail? I’m more likely to be killed by American bombs.

When I wake the second time, Phuong is the one sitting, leaning against the bamboo, her legs drawn up in front of her, forehead on her knees. She hears me struggle to sit as well and lifts her head and gives me a wan smile. The effort of even that seems to exhaust her. She puts her head back down. I drink some water, nudge her arm with the canteen. She drinks some, too.

The next hour passes in that way—one of us remembering to drink, then reminding the other to do it, too, slowly rehydrating, slowly coming back to ourselves. The morning turns into late morning, judging from the angle of the sun’s rays that find their way into our hiding place. It grows warmer, but not as bad as the fierce January heat back on the plains of Vietnam. Just almost as bad. Phuong hasn’t spoken all morning. Neither of us has. Neither of us do. Neither of us has the strength. Maybe neither of us has anything to say.

I crawl out again for more water and manage to stand longer this time to fill the canteens. Then I drag myself back to the bamboo. Phuong has retrieved her weapon, rucksack, and gear. It’s all next to her now, the gun across her lap. She might have even cleaned it. So if she needs to shoot me, or shoot anybody, she’ll be ready. It makes me angry, or as angry as I can get in my weakened state. Here I am getting water for her, after holding her all night through her chills and fever sweats and everything, and all she can think about is her gun, which means all she thinks about me is that I’m still her prisoner. So maybe I should have taken the weapon in the middle of the night, once my fever passed, and just gone ahead and shot her instead. Too bad I don’t know how to fire the thing.

I throw her canteen to the ground next to her, but she catches it and looks up at me, surprised.

“Merci, Taylor,” she croaks, the first and only words either of us have spoken. And for some reason that makes me feel better. I guess my emotions are all over the place—from being so sick, from being so weak, from being so starved, from everything that’s happened over the past two weeks, from having my world be upside down with no chance of it ever being right again.

“Pas de tout, Phuong,” I say back, because even with all that I guess I should still be polite. Not at all.

We rest, refill canteens, rest some more. Sleep again that night in our little fortress, though Phuong says we need to be careful about bamboo pit vipers, which scares me enough that it’s hours after she dozes off before I quit worrying enough to fall asleep, too.

We both wake before dawn when it’s too dark to venture out. I only know Phuong is awake because I can just make out the shape of her sitting up, and because I can hear her talking softly to herself, her voice barely a whisper. I listen for a while and realize she’s singing. So I lie there, keeping still and enjoying the sound, though I don’t know any of the words.

Finally, at first light, she stops. We drink the last of our water.

“We should continue today,” Phuong says. “We’re perhaps two days’ walk from the supply base. We might run into NVA patrols. We should meet up with a wider trail, maybe by tomorrow, wide enough for truck convoys. Hopefully we’ll be able to find food soon.”

She checks her gear, repacks her rucksack, and picks up her AK-47.

I ask her a question that’s been weighing on me since I learned about the attack on the embassy.

“Phuong, do you know if my parents are alive?”

She looks at me evenly, her face drawn.

“Back in Saigon,” I add, “they were at the embassy when your soldiers attacked.”

“I don’t know,” Phuong says. “I wasn’t there. But perhaps you can tell me if my mother is alive. My father as well. And my sisters and little brother.”

“What do you mean?” I ask. “How would I know anything like that?”

“The Americans have been dropping bombs on Hanoi for years, thousands and thousands of bombs. I haven’t had any letters from my family in more than a year. Since before Ben Suc. You think I may know something about the fate of your mother, so maybe you know something about the fate of my family.” She sounds angry. “They are your bombers, after all, dropping your bombs. The Americans say they only target military installations, but that’s a lie. Many civilians are killed—children, parents, elderly people.”

I want to protest that those weren’t my bombing raids. I’m an American, but nobody asked my permission to bomb Hanoi, or anywhere else. And my mom is a civilian, too, and has nothing to do with the war. And my dad—Phuong seems to know more about him than I do, and I don’t know what to believe. What if he is the one responsible for bombing the Trail? Does that make me guilty, too? Or is guilt even the right word when you’re doing what your country tells you to do, no matter whether it’s right or wrong? No matter whether you’re my dad or Phuong.

All those questions from the inquisitor, and from her, all the things I’ve been told, about Dad and the not-so-secret war in Laos and Cambodia to destroy the Ho Chi Minh Trail. She wants answers, or confirmation, or details. I guess I want those, too. But mostly I just want Mom and Dad to be alive, and safe. And I want to be alive and safe and with them again.