Cinnamon

Heartbroken

“Don’t touch me!” I shouted angrily, pushing away Loan’s hand — the woman who had an affair with my father and now stood here as my stepmother, along with her son, Duc, from her previous marriage.

My father — the man who had always been warm and had never even raised his voice at me, suddenly lifted his hand high: Slap.

One side of my face turned red and swollen.

I heard something break. Maybe it was my heart.

My mother dropped to the floor, covering her eyes as she cried loudly. The divorce papers sat neatly on the table. I knew I couldn’t be weak. I had to be the one my mother could lean on.

“Stay with this damn woman if you want, Dad. But remember, Nguyen Ngoc Van no longer exists.” I said it to him, but it felt like I was saying it to myself, letting go of the name that carried my father’s last name.

From now on, my name will be only one word — Van.

Not long after, the first divorce hearing for my parents took place. Since I was under 18, I still needed a guardian, and what I had feared finally happened. My parents pushed the responsibility onto each other.

My mother said my father had the money to take care of me.

My father said my mother should be the one to look after me, giving all kinds of excuses — like “a mother’s love,” or “it would be inconvenient for a daughter to live with her father,” and that… he already had a whole new family to care for.

I don’t know how many hearings we went through, but in the end, my mother was given custody of me. She didn’t say a word on the way home. Quietly, she packed the suitcases and told me, “We’re moving to the U.S.”

Honestly, I didn’t want to leave my hometown at all. I missed my friends and the neighbors here. But she was my mother, and I believed that wherever she was, that place would be home.

We landed at O’Hare International Airport in the U.S. on a snowy night in early December.

If it had been the usual me, I probably would have burst with joy at seeing snow for the first time — the kind I thought only existed in Harry Potter or in the Western movies I watched on Netflix. But right then, I was too tired after a flight of more than 20 hours, and my mind was tangled with thoughts I couldn’t even name… maybe about my parents.

I followed my mother, pulling my suitcase, and got into a yellow Uber headed to a small neighborhood in Chicago. My mother chatted cheerfully with the driver, while I was busy trying to figure out how to connect to the Internet in the U.S. As a Gen Z, nothing is impossible — not even getting online in America. A flood of messages and calls lit up my phone. Most were from people amazed that I was going abroad. The rest were from Huy — my best friend back in Vietnam — asking what had happened that made me transfer to a school all the way in the U.S., a country half the world away from home.

I turned off my phone after scrolling through Messenger notifications and reading a message from my father. He wished me a safe trip and sent a long string of loving words, saying how much he loved me. How could I believe that? This was the same man who had tried to reject me in court and slapped me because of a woman he had known for only three months.

While I was silently cursing my awful father, the Uber came to a stop at the entrance of a narrow alley, where it couldn’t drive any further. It was a small, two-story apartment painted white, though the color had faded to yellow over time. It looked pretty old, and it would probably take quite a while to clear away all the plants — or maybe flowers, I wasn’t sure — but they sure climbed well.

My mother said goodbye to the Uber driver and searched for the house key in her vintage bag from the 1900s. The door opened, and the LED light flicked on. The house seemed to have been cleaned… but only “a little.” My mother frowned and said, “A hundred dollars for cleaning, and this is what we get?” She ran her finger across the red sofa in the living room as she spoke.

Right, my mother was obsessed with cleanliness. I’d heard her scold me a hundred times for wearing shoes into the bathroom.

“Mom, go upstairs and rest. I’ll clean it,” I said, glancing at the cuckoo clock on the wall. It was only 8 p.m. If I finish early, we could still have dinner together.

Crash! I slipped and broke the only family photo we had, while trying to wipe off the dust… with my own tears.

My mother heard the noise and came downstairs. “You’re such a clumsy mess. Why do I have to carry the burden of you? I should have ended the pregnancy when I found out you weren’t a boy. Damn it, you’ve ruined my sleep.” Then she went back upstairs, leaving me with blood on my hand and a face quickly wiped free of tears. Right. What was I expecting? I was nothing but a burden to her. If I had been a boy, maybe this family wouldn’t have fallen apart.

I leaned back against the sofa, exhausted, after finishing the cleaning on the first floor. Ding. A message came in from Huy. He just wouldn’t leave me alone. I opened the chat.

Huy: “Answer me before I have to go to your house and ask your dad.”

Me: “I’m in Chicago. The time difference is killing me. I’m exhausted, let me sleep, please.”

Without waiting for his reply, I grabbed my luggage and went upstairs to the small, empty 10-square-meter room with just a closet and a bed. I collapsed onto it and fell asleep right away — still in sweaty clothes, too tired to even turn on the light.

I woke up earlier than usual, probably because of the time difference. Trying to get used to this new place, I decided to start with an American-style breakfast. No rice. How on earth do people have enough energy for the whole day with just a jam sandwich? I wondered.

Not long after, my mother joined me for this so-called American breakfast. She looked tired and didn’t say a single word about what had happened yesterday. I didn’t know how much time had passed before she finally spoke.

“Next week, you’ll start 12th grade at Kesey High School. Don’t be lazy. I don’t want to hear teachers in America complain about your math scores too. One person saying it in Vietnam was enough.”

“Yes, Mom,” I replied.