Inside Out And Back Again

On the first day back at school after the holiday break, Hà accidentally wears a new nightgown, thinking it is a dress. A girl in the class points out the small flower on the chest of the nightgown, proving it is sleepwear. Hà pulls the stitched decoration off the gown, says “Nightgown no more,” and wears it through the day. Hà shares the incident with Mother. Hà also tells Mother how it feels to receive a gift from Pam without having one to give. Mother reveals that she brought with her from Vietnam the tin of wildflower seeds Hà and TiTi gathered months before; Hà is thrilled to have a perfect gift for Pam.

One day in mid-January, Mother’s amethyst stone goes missing from her ring from Father at work. Though the family returns to her workplace to search, they find nothing, and after an evening of chanting in solitude Mother tells the children, “Your father is / truly gone” (250). Three days later, they dress in their best clothes and hold a ceremony in the house with incense, prayers, and goodbyes to send Father to peace. When Hà tells Miss Washington later about the ceremony, she also tells her about Tết coming up, when a new year will begin.

Hà reflects on transitions in the lives of her brothers. Brother Vũ wants to go to cooking school in San Francisco, where Bruce Lee lived. This disappoints Mother, but she is happy that Brother Quang now goes to night school for engineering and is satisfied that Brother Khôi wants to be a veterinarian. In addition to an engineer, a doctor, and a poet, Mother wanted one of her children to be a lawyer; when she points out that Hà loves argument, Hà denies it, making Mother smile. On Tết, Hà takes stock of the many differences this new year brings compared to last and prays for good things and happiness for Mother and the brothers and peace for Father. For herself, she prays to learn Vũ Lee’s fly-kick move this year, “not to kick anyone / so much as / to fly” (260).