A Dress of Violets
By: Angeline Ai-Nhi Truong
Tags: Asian American, Vietnamese, Authors, Refugee, Novel

Source: from https://www.maangchi.com/shopping/lion-market



I was born in my Amah’s home — a little beige house with a red roof on it. It had a big door made of shards of stained-blue glass that might have once been transparent but now were so dirty and broken that they might as well have been opaque. My mother was lying on the couch in front of the fireplace because it was a particularly cold day in May. Suddenly, her stomach started bubbling and straining.



“What’s wrong?” my father asked.



“Nothing. It’s just the hot and sour soup we had for lunch,” my mother said without turning to him.



“You know spicy food can induce childbirth,” my father said disapprovingly.



“Well, so can sex, so I guess we’re not having that tonight,” my mother replied, and my father shut up.



When my father wasn’t looking, I poked my little head out from between my mother’s thighs and looked out at the big white world, at the crackling fire-place in May and the thick jade curtains. I saw my father sitting over in the corner with big round eyeglasses looking like a strange owl. I thought, Nope, switch him out, too many men in one room. I’m not coming out here. My mother replied, Don’t be ridiculous. Your Amah is still at the market. Are you coming out or not? I said no. I was particularly good at being stubborn, even then, so she sighed and leaned back on the couch, and we waited for my Amah to come home.



When my Amah came back two hours later, she was very excited about what she had found at Lion Supermarket, which was her favorite place to be on a Sunday. Sunday was the day before the new shipment of fresh fruits came in, which meant there were only rotten and bruised fruits left on the shelves. This meant she could harass the little white boy who worked in aisle eleven from 9:45 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. to give her a twenty-five percent discount.



Amah came back with a thick bundle of cilantro, slightly wilted (five dollars off), one eggplant (free — she had stuffed it in the big eggplant pocket she’d sewn into her skirt for this very purpose), and two boxes of rice noodles (one paid full price, the second free because she had terrified the white cashier so much he’d forgotten to scan it). Amah came home and immediately stared me down, her gaze narrowing. She dropped her purchases on the floor and stormed over.



I felt my Amah’s hands moving over my mother’s stomach, poking and pinching at my little baby butt-cheeks, and she ordered, Come out, come out. We haven’t got all day. You are to be born. I thought, No, no, you are wearing a dress of violets.



My mother put a hand on Amah’s, and said, “Hold on. Go change first.”



“Don’t be ridiculous,” my Amah said, and my mother glared at her with raised eyebrows. I did my best to look at her angrily too, through a haze of blood and placenta, until she sighed and stormed off.



You see, my mother and I both knew something my Amah didn’t — that in twenty years my heart would be broken by a handsome soccer player and a girl named Violet, and I wasn’t going to be able to stand the sight of violets for years, and it’s funny how much mothers know, don’t they, that even other women can’t understand. We both knew the exact day it was going to happen — October 21, 2018 — and on that night, I’d call my mother from college sobbing my eyes out, and my mother would coldly say on the phone, “You are being dramatic. You’d better finish your chemistry homework instead of wasting time over boys.” Then she’d hang up, and I’d lie in bed not able to breathe until I fell asleep alone.



But on this day in May, at least I would get to come out into a violet-less world. Mothers are very good at loving you, at least when it involves being right.



So finally my Amah came back wearing a little blue sack that she’d stitched together from a bunch of old sweaters, and she stuck her cold hands into my sac and said, Get out. Finally my father noticed — because it always did take men longer to realize anything going on. My father was so excited. He said, “Hurry, come out, I want you to be born on the same day Star Wars came out so I can tell my friends.”



I said, “Shut up, don’t rush me,” speaking human words aloud for the first time in my life, but my father was not listening. Men never do. My Amah finally got me loose and rudely pulled me out, and that is how I found out that I had been born.

***

My story begins with elements of surrealism. The mythic, magical elements of my novel, however, are all tied closely to the feminine, and to motherhood. Nothing else is given this touch of the supernatural. In this article series, I share excerpts and stories from my book, After the Rain. I hope you enjoyed this post — if you enjoyed it and want to connect you can reach me here via email [altruong@stanford.edu] or connect with me on social: [@angelxne on Twitter]. Also, you can also find my book on Amazon — it will be available very soon!