Thanhha Lai - Inside Out and Back Again

Tt, our New Years, doubles as everyones birthday. Now I am ten, learning to embroider circular stitches, to calculate fractions into percentages, to nurse my papaya tree to bear many fruits. But last night I pouted when Mother insisted one of my brothers must rise first this morning to bless our house because only male feet can bring luck. An old, angry knot expanded in my throat. I decided to wake before dawn and tap my big toe to the tile floor first. Not even Mother, sleeping beside me, knew.

February 11
Tt

Brother Quang remembers I was as red and fat as a baby hippopotamus when he first saw me, inspiring the name H M, River Horse. Brother V screams, H Ya , and makes me jump every time he breaks wood or bricks in imitation of Bruce Lee. Brother Khi calls me Mothers Tail because Im always three steps from her. I cant make my brothers go live elsewhere, but I can hide their sandals. We each have but one pair, much needed during this dry season when the earth stings. Mother tells me to ignore my brothers.

We named you Kim H, after the Golden (Kim) River (H), where Father and I once strolled in the evenings. My parents had no idea what three older brothers can do to the simple name H. Mother tells me, They tease you because they adore you. Shes wrong, but I still love being near her, even more than I love my papaya tree. I will offer her its first fruit. Every day

A seed like a fish eye, slippery shiny black. The tree has grown twice as tall as I stand on tippy toes. Brother Khi spotted the first white blossom. Four years older, he can see higher. Brother V later found a baby papaya the size of a fist clinging to the trunk. At eighteen, he can see that much higher.

Brother Quang is oldest, twenty-one and studying engineering. Who knows what he will notice before me? I vow to rise first every morning to stare at the dew on the green fruit shaped like a lightbulb. I will be the first to witness its ripening. Mid-February

We hoped to plant them together. She waves from the back window of their rabbit-shaped car. Her tears mix with long strands of hair, long hair I wish I had. I would still be standing there crying and waving to nothing if Brother Khi hadnt come to take my hand. Theyre heading to he says, where the rich go to flee Vietnam on cruise ships . Im glad weve become poor so we can stay.

Early March

Each of us bows and wishes and hopes and prays. Everything on the altar remains for the day except the portrait. Mother locks it away as soon as her chant ends. She cannot bear to look into Fathers forever-young eyes. March 10

A few years ago she made enough money to consider buying a car. On weekends she takes me to market stalls, dropping off the clothes and trying to collect on last weeks goods. Hardly anyone buys anymore, she says. People can barely afford food. Still, she continues to try. March 15

The hen gives one egg every day and a half. We take turns eating them. Brother Khi refuses to eat his, putting each under a lamp in hopes of a chick. I should side with my most tolerable brother, but I love a soft yolk to dip bread. Mother says if the price of eggs were not the price of rice, and the price of rice were not the price of gasoline, and the price of gasoline were not the price of gold, then of course Brother Khi could continue hatching eggs. Shes sorry.

March 17

Mornings free, Mother trusts me to shop at the open market. Last September she would give me fifty ng to buy one hundred grams of pork, a bushel of water spinach, five cubes of tofu. But I told no one I was buying ninety-nine grams of pork, seven-eighths of a bushel of spinach, four and three-quarter cubes of tofu. Merchants frowned at Mothers strange instructions. The money saved bought a pouch of toasted coconut, one sugary fried dough, two crunchy mung bean cookies. Now it takes two hundred