The Bride Test(6)

“That means you’re the one I want, M?. Come to America to see my son. I’ll give you the entire summer to win him and go to his cousins’ weddings. You’ll need the time. It’ll be work to figure him out, but it’ll be worth it. He’s good stuff. If anyone can do it, I think it’s you. If you want to. Do you?”

Her head began spinning. “I don’t know. I need to think.”

“Then think and call me back. But don’t take too long. I need to arrange your visa and plane ticket,” C? Nga said. “I’ll be waiting to hear from you.” With that, the call disconnected.

A lamp on the other side of the room clicked on, illuminating the tight, cluttered space with soft, golden light. Clothes and kitchen paraphernalia hung from the walls, covering every square centimeter of crumbling brick not taken up by the old electric stove, tiny refrigerator, and miniature TV they used to watch kung fu sagas and bootleg American films. The center floor space was occupied by the sleeping bodies of her daughter, Ng?c Anh, and her grandma. Her mom lay between Grandma and the stove, her hand on the lamp’s switch. A fan blew humid air at them on the highest setting.

“Who was that?” her mom whispered.

“A Vi?t ki?u,” M? said, barely believing her own words. “She wants me to come to America and marry her son.”

Her mom propped herself up on an elbow, and her hair fell in a silken curtain over her shoulder. Bedtime was the only time she let her hair loose, and it made her look ten years younger. “Is he older than your grandpa? Does he look like a skunk? What’s wrong with him?”

At that moment, M?’s phone buzzed with a message from C? Nga.


To help you think.

Another buzz, and the photograph of Kh?i covered the screen—the same one from before. She handed her phone to her mom wordlessly.

“This is him?” her mom asked with wide eyes.

“His name is Di?p Kh?i.”

Her mom stared at the picture for the longest time, quiet save for the soft sighing of her breathing. Finally, she handed the phone back. “You have no choice. You have to do it.”

“But he doesn’t want to get married. I’m supposed to chase him and change his mind. I don’t know how to—”

“Just do it. Do whatever you have to. It’s America, M?. You have to do it for this one.” Her mom reached over Grandma’s thin sleeping form and pulled Ng?c Anh’s thin blanket up to her throat. “If I had the opportunity, I would have done the same for you. For her future. She doesn’t fit in here. And she needs a dad.”

M? clenched her teeth as childhood memories tried to spill from the corner of her mind where she trapped them. She could still hear the children singing Mixed girl with the twelve buttholes at her as she walked home from school. Her childhood had been difficult, but it had prepared her for life. She was stronger now, tougher. “I didn’t have a dad.”

Her mom’s eyes hardened. “And look where that’s gotten you.”

M? looked down at her girl. “It also got me her.” She regretted being with her daughter’s heartless father, but she’d never regretted her baby. Not even for a second.

She brushed the damp baby hairs away from her girl’s temple, and that enormous love expanded in her heart. Gazing at her daughter’s face was like looking in a mirror that reflected a time twenty years past. Her girl looked exactly like M? used to. They had the same eyebrows, cheekbones, nose, and skin tone. Even the shape of their lips was the same. But Ng?c Anh was far, far sweeter than M? had ever been. She would do anything for this little one.

Except give her up.

Once Ng?c Anh’s father had married, his wife had discovered she couldn’t have babies, and they’d offered to raise Ng?c Anh as their own. Again, M? had turned down an offer everyone expected her to accept. They’d called her selfish. His family could give Ng?c Anh all the things she needed.

But what about love? Love mattered, and no one could love her baby like M? could. No one. She felt it in her heart.

Still, from time to time, she worried she’d done the wrong thing.

“If you don’t like him,” her mom said, “you can divorce him after you get your green card and marry someone else.”

“I can’t marry him just for a green card.” He was a person, not a stack of paper, and if he decided to marry her, it would be because she’d succeeded in seducing him, because he cared about her. She couldn’t use someone that way. That would make her just as bad as Ng?c Anh’s dad.

Her mom nodded like she could hear the thoughts in M?’s head. “What happens if you go and you can’t change his mind?”

“I come back at the end of the summer.”

A disgusted sound came from the back of her mom’s throat. “I can’t believe you need to think about this. You have nothing to lose.”

As M? looked at the black screen on her phone, a thought occurred to her. “C? Nga said he doesn’t want a family. I have Ng?c Anh.”

Her mom rolled her eyes. “What young man wants a family? If he loves you, he’ll love Ng?c Anh.”

“It doesn’t work that way, and you know it. If a man knows you have a baby, most of the time he’s not interested.” And if he was interested, all he wanted was sex.

“Then don’t tell him right away. Give him time to fall for you, and tell him later,” her mom said.