“It’s good seeing you, too.” Behind her, someone was talking on the television in the living room. “I don’t mean to be rude, but you should have called.”
“We were just taking a drive,” I said. “And we thought we’d stop by.”
Sam knew my father and I never drove together just for fun, but she beckoned us in anyway. I expected another man to be there and entered cautiously, checking either side before stepping in. Stacks of student exams were arranged by grade on the avocado shag carpet, at the chrome feet of a couch made from fake black leather that we’d shopped for together in the Korean shops on Western Avenue. “Sorry for the mess,” Sam said, easing herself onto the couch.
My father occupied the armchair, and I was forced to sit on the far end of the couch from hers. I toed a stack of exams, one with a red “C” on the topmost sheet. “They’re not doing so well.”
“I think I’m losing my touch,” she replied.
People say a pregnant woman glows in a beautiful way with love and expectation. I’d always imagined this glow as a kind of aura, but the shine on Sam’s puffy face was only a reflection from a glaze of oil and sweat. “I’m not as energetic in the classroom as I usually am,” she went on. “It’s rubbing off on the students.”
“A teacher must lead by example,” my father remarked.
“So you’ve always said, Mr. P.” She closed her eyes for a moment, as if she were tired. “If you’d like a beer, you can help yourself. Getting me up almost requires a crane.”
“You have beer?” I said.
“I keep it for guests.”
We should have refused out of politeness, but my father immediately went to the kitchen for the beer. Sam rested her hands on her belly and gave me a neutral look. “What have you been doing, Thomas?”
“Working. And sleeping.”
“Me, too.”
“My father moved in with me.”
She laughed. “That must be interesting. Who does the cooking?”
“He’s the cook, of course.” My father returned with two bottles of beer, a bowl of pretzels, and a glass of water. “The master of instant noodles.”
“Thanks, Mr. P,” Sam said when my father handed her the glass. “I need to cool down. I’m having a hot flash.”
We lapsed into silence and watched the show on television, about the cruelty of the meat industry’s practices. When my father broke the silence and complimented her on the house, Sam explained that most of the decorations belonged to her roommate, another teacher who was out for the night. My father pointed the tip of his beer bottle at the television, on top of which was a pipe, carved from teak and in the shape of a dragon with a ball of opium in its mouth. “From where did you buy that?”
“Hue.” She spoke the city’s name with the correct rising accent. “But you can’t actually smoke anything with it.”
“You went to Vietnam?” my father and I said at the same time.
“Last summer. I didn’t teach summer school and went backpacking instead. Sometimes”—she paused—“a girl just needs a vacation.”
“Did you think about me?” I said.
Sam shifted her weight on the couch, uncrossing and crossing her legs, the ankles and calves swollen. “Of course I thought about you.” She smiled at me as if I was one of her students. Then she looked at my father, who was studying the cottage cheese ceiling. “And you, too, Mr. P.”
“I will never go back.” He rapped his bottle of beer on the coffee table. “You do not know the Communists. I know the Communists.”
“They’re not so bad. They just want to move on with their lives.”
My father shook his head emphatically. “You are a foreigner. You know nothing. They take your money and say nice things to you.”
“Maybe you should go back,” Sam said quietly. “You can get closure.”
“I will never go back.” My father slashed his index finger across his throat and made a guttural noise. “If I go back, they will call me a war criminal. They will put me in reeducation, and you will never hear from me again.”
Sam pushed herself off the couch, rising before my -father got started about what evil the Communists had done or would do. He would tell these stories for an entire evening. “Excuse me,” Sam said. “I have to use the bathroom.”