If You Lived Here by Dana Sachs Page B

can cut an onion, depending on the dish it will go in. I talk and talk. I fill the air with everything I’ve ever known or imagined about food. And my father’s method seems to work. Shelley cries until she’s had enough, and then she stops. Without saying anything, she gets up, washes her hands, and goes back to her task. She cuts, turning the entire sausage into tiny pieces. Her sausage sticks are more perfectly regular than mine have ever been, a pink haystack of meat at the edge of her cutting board. I pause to say, “You do good,” because I really do admire her skill.
    She lifts a hand and uses it to push her cap up her forehead. Her eyes are red and puffy but clear now. She smiles at me. “I never knew that microwave trick with the noodles.”
    I shrug. “I learn it on Iron Chef .”
    At the other end of the counter, the coffee has finished dripping through the filters. I’ve already poured the sweetened condensed milk into the bottom of the glasses and now I stir it to mix it in. “Here,” I say gently, handing her a glass. She looks calm now, but no more cheerful. “You okay?” I ask.
    She nods, stretches her long legs. Her face is grim. “My husband’s backing out of the adoption.”
    “Completely?” “Completely.” “Why?”
    She takes a sip of coffee, then says, “He’s been having a hard time lately. I guess he thinks a child would just push him over the edge.”
    I say, “He got a hard job.”
    She looks at me impatiently. “People manage,” she says. Then, rubbing the back of her wrist against her swollen eyes, she adds, “I don’t
    have any more sympathy. I’m so angry. I just keep thinking that I’m too young to give up on being happy.” The words come out frankly and without hesitation, as if the two of us have confided in each other for years.
    I stare down at my coffee, unsure of how to respond. How can I talk about happiness and grief? Would she expect that of anyone? Or does she just expect it of me?
    Shelley lifts her glass to take another sip, then asks, “What matters in life, really? In my business, we end up wondering about that. I want to value the things I can appreciate at the end of my life. Money doesn’t matter, ultimately. Status means very little. The most basic things matter. Love matters. Family matters. Happiness matters. Mai, don’t you think we’re entitled to that?”
    I look up. She holds my gaze. Is happiness a right? Did my mother think about happiness when she ran from her village, afraid for her life? Did my father think about happiness when he became a soldier for the revolution? Actually, they did. My father always said that they fought the war for selfish reasons—food on the table, a better life for themselves and their children. The Communist Party used the words freedom and independence, but it also used the word h  nh phúc. Happiness. People fought the war for happiness, too. In all these years, I’ve forgotten that. I say to Shelley, “We are,” and then, to my surprise, I add one minor but revealing truth about myself. “For long time,” I tell her, “I don’t think about happiness much.”
    Shelley smiles at me. Despite all the tears, her face is radiant. “Here,” she says, standing up. “Let me show you something.” She lifts her purse, which has been hanging on the back of her chair, and pulls an envelope out of the side pocket. From inside, she takes out a photo and shows it to me. “This is my son,” she says.
    I’m not sure what she means. She looks calm, though, holding the photo in her hand and waiting for me to take it. I wipe my hands against my pants, then lift the photo by the edges. We look at it together. A baby lies on a rattan mat on the floor. The mat has a red design running through it, and there, behind the child’s shoulder, I see part of the character for “double happiness” in old Chinese. I can’t read Chinese, but any
    Vietnamese will recognize that word. Every Vietnamese has sat on a mat like