Chapter Three: Laos:

My time in Laos was pretty much the same as it was in Cambodia. However, it was a strange time then. I couldn’t really grasp it at the time, but things felt rather rocky. The second we stepped off the bus, chills ran down my body.

An stood looking scary as usual. By this point, I didn’t ask questions. The best thing was to follow her lead. So far, An did treat me well. We still didn’t talk. Strange. After a month, I would think that we would’ve gotten closer. It was November when we touched down in Laos and I still couldn’t figure her out.

In Laos, I was determined to change that.

“Hey An,” I said at lunch one day in mid-November. She didn’t look up from her bowl of noodles. Her lack of response made me hesitant to continue, but I shook that feeling away.

“Do you have a family back in Vietnam?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

“Where are they?”

“Dead.”

“Oh.” I looked down at my noodles. “I have a little brother and sister back in Ho Chi Mein. They are ten and five now.” I waited for a response, but nothing came.

“Mom sends me letter and pictures about them every day. I don’t know how she’s going to send them now.”

“Mother Hoa will deal with it.”

“What? How?”

“She probably already made contact with your mother and sorted it out.”

“How can you tell?”

“That’s just in her nature.”

“How do you know?”

“I have worked and studied beside her since my youth.”

I raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “Really? That’s first time you told me about yourself since I have known you. What else can you tell me about yourself?” An glared at me before she returned to her noodles. I frowned and started back on my soggy noodles. Darn it, I was so close. How much longer do I have on this trip? I puffed up my cheeks as I tried to think of how I would get this woman to talk more. This was going to be a long trip, wasn’t it?

By January, An and I left Laos.