The Me Nobody Knows

The Me Nobody Knows

On April 4, 1975, my mother fled Vietnam alone with five children. Two weeks later Saigon would fall to the North Vietnamese army and the city would be renamed Ho Chi Minh City.

My father drove the family to Tan Son Nhut airport after curfew. He turned off the headlights of the car to avoid the attention of snipers. He passed the designated checkpoints with bribes ready.

That night was the last flight out of Vietnam for the Flying Tigers, a cargo company that carried supplies back and forth in the war in Vietnam. This had two unspoken consequences. One, that the United States would no longer be sending troops and supplies to Vietnam, which meant that the country would soon be overrun by the North Vietnamese. Two, if this were their last flight out that meant they would have an empty cargo hold. A cargo hold that could carry people who wanted to leave.

When we arrived at the airport, it was chaos. The Flying Tigers were only allowing women and children on board although a handful of men snuck on the plane and refused to leave. My father did not do this. Instead, he watched with relief as the plane took off in the darkness and his family began a journey that would last the rest of our lives.

Many years later, my father told me that he and his friend went home that night and opened a bottle of Scotch. If nothing else, their families were safe.

I have told this story many times: for college admissions essays, for history reports, for English assignments. I was two when we left Vietnam, so whenever I wrote this story, I depended on my older siblings’ memories. My brother Vu remembered that the younger children were given sleeping draughts so they would not cry out. My sister, Yen, remembered having to entwine herself in the cargo netting to stop from sliding all over the hold. My brother Thach remembered crouching on the floor of the car in case there was shooting. My brother Tung remembered that when the plane took off someone stood by the open cargo door with a flare gun. If infrared missiles were shot at the plane the hotter flame of the flares would lead the missiles away from the plane.

In retelling their memories, each of my siblings all insisted that they carried me when we left Vietnam and therefore each expected eternal gratitude. I suspect that they all held me at certain points. But what is touching, is that the responsibility of holding me or carrying me was an important part of their memory of that night. Finally, at some point I asked my mother, “Who carried me out of Vietnam?” She looked at me strangely and said, “I did.”

* * *

It is forty-five years later when my sister says, “This is like leaving Vietnam again. We have to get you out now.”

I mull over this statement when she says it. I am leaving an abusive marriage and the divorce is a nightmare. It makes me sad that my 20-year marriage is analogous to a war-torn country. It makes me fearful to fully realize what a dangerous and dysfunctional situation I have just left. It also makes me strong. I think about my mom in that cargo plane alone with her children, leaving everything she knew behind to an unknown future. That is what I am doing.

The day my marriage ended I called my brothers in birth order.

My eldest brother is shocked. He is patient. He is supportive. Finally, he asks me, “Can you afford to live and take care of the children?” I told him, “I don’t know. I have been crying all day.” He is silent. Then he says, “Look, you can spend the rest of today crying but tomorrow I want to see a budget.” I am initially stung, but his practical wisdom forces me to focus on the road in front of me, not what’s in the rear-view mirror.

Thach tells me he has set aside money for my girls. He tells me that it is the interest on the money that he borrowed from our father when he started his business many years ago. My father did not want the interest payment, so my brother said he saved it for my girls. He says it is not much, but it’s been well invested. “It was always meant for you and the girls. It has nothing to do with this but use the money and get a good lawyer.” He never told me about its existence until just that moment. He is awkward with emotions and words, so we hang up. Then he texts me: You are very strong to make this leap... we love you.

Vu makes the 3-hour drive from North Beach, MD to Philadelphia that weekend because he worries for the physical safety of my girls and me. He installs a deadbolt on the door. He wants to install a security camera because my siblings all live 3-4 hours away. I won’t let him because I am more afraid of what reaction it would trigger. Instead, Vu drives up every week for the next two months to stay with me.

I don’t have to call Yen because she is always there for me. She’s the one who got me to leave the marriage, prodding me to stand up for myself, being afraid for me, strategizing with me on how to hide money and plotting imaginary revenges on my behalf. When it is all over, she gives me a makeover and bakes me a divorce cake with a lotus flower. The lotus flower symbolizes rebirth and awakening.

I did not have the courage to tell my dad until Thanksgiving- almost two months after the separation. I told everyone I didn’t want to tell him on the phone because he doesn’t hear very well, or I want to tell him in person because I wanted him to see that I was alright. But the real reason was that I was just so scared. But when I told him and tried to reassure him that the girls and I were going to be okay. He said, “Of course, you will be okay.”

After my divorce became final, my sister-in-law told me, “You know, Oanh, every time Vu got off the phone with you, he would say, ‘Man, she is strong.’” I do not think of myself as strong but I am. I tell her, “I am strong in the people who love and support me.”

They all took turns carrying me to a better future in their own ways. They are like the net in the cargo hold. I hang on to it to prevent from being flung out into space alone.