Butterfly Yellow

Hằng faints outside the church, and an old woman with a cane, who introduces herself as Mrs. Brown, wanders over to investigate. LeeRoy, irritated, explains that he was coerced into being Hằng’s taxi, but has to leave now. However, Mrs. Brown sweet-talks LeeRoy into bringing Hằng to her porch.

Mrs. Brown unbuttons Hằng’s shirt to help her cool down; LeeRoy spots red squiggles on Hằng’s throat, and assumes they are tattoos. Hằng insists she must find her brother, which piques Mrs. Brown’s interest. She asks LeeRoy to sit with Hằng while she fixes them both a snack but as soon as Mrs. Brown leaves, LeeRoy runs back to his truck and drives off.

Mrs. Brown returns with toast, butter, jam, and lemonade. She is not surprised to find LeeRoy missing and is sure he will return. Hằng slowly eats and drinks, after which Mrs. Brown asks her to talk. She is unable to understand Hằng’s accent, so she brings her paper and a pencil.

As Hằng writes, Mrs. Brown remembers a boy who looks just like Hằng, who came through the area years ago. Brother Grady brought the boy back from his volunteer trip to Vietnam and renamed him David. David didn’t speak for a month, until one day he plucked an unripe plum from the backyard and began speaking in a different language as he devoured the fruit.

Mrs. Brown discovers Hằng has drawn mustang stallions, and Hằng tells her that she always wanted to see horses in America and believes her brother would have wanted to see them with her, even though it is her fault that her brother is missing. From memory, Hằng writes out an entire National Geographic article on horses, word for word. Mrs. Brown confesses she knows where Hằng’s brother is; Mrs. Brown will get in trouble for telling Hằng but believes the girl has a right, as the boy’s sister. Mrs. Brown shows Hằng an envelope that contains a Christmas card with “a photograph of a blond woman and an olive-skinned boy on her lap” (59).

Hằng hugs Mrs. Brown and tears up, but she quickly pulls back, embarrassed, thanking and apologizing to the woman simultaneously. Hugging Mrs. Brown reminds Hằng of hugging Bà. When Hằng hugged Bà before she left Vietnam, Bà promised she would always be beside her granddaughter. Hằng believed Bà because Bà knew how to do everything. After the war, Bà managed to keep the family fed by trading and bartering different things; when a new quadrant Communist leader began courting Hằng’s mother, Bà appealed to him with conversation and different foods while Mother hid inside the house. Hằng, 17 at the time, was also hiding, secretly studying English, copying, and recopying the National Geographic article she first read with her father years ago.

Hằng remembers when she and Mother eventually left Vietnam by boat and how Bà assured her the year was lucky, and their escape would go unnoticed. They knew it was time to leave when the Communist leader had secured permission to occupy their house, after which it would be impossible to keep him away from Mother. They arranged for a neighbor to take Bà in. In the present, Hằng wonders if Bà and her father are buried together.

Hằng has no knowledge of how and when Father died, just that he had been translating for an American photographer near a battlefield. His body came back before the war ended. Conversely, Hằng knows that her mother died on February 17, but will never know her actual resting place. Now, she studies the envelope with the return address, “Los Cedros Ranch, FM 1265, Canyon, Texas” (64). She feels hope rising, and runs outside trying to tamp it down, just as LeeRoy returns.

An angry LeeRoy demands to know who swiped his wallet, and Mrs. Brown smilingly confesses; the theft was her way of ensuring his return. He counts out all his money carefully, then ravenously devours Hằng’s leftover toast. Even as he plans to leave again, Mrs. Brown convinces him to listen to what she has to say.

She tells him how the man who ran the church and brought Hằng’s brother to Texas was killed in a car accident, and Linh, now David, was taken in by the man’s sister. Hằng asks LeeRoy to take her to the new address and offers him 40 dollars. She climbs into LeeRoy’s truck even as he protests. Mrs. Brown brings over a bucket of ice and a washcloth for Hằng. LeeRoy resignedly begins driving again.

Hằng wets the washcloth with ice cubes and cools her neck gratefully. She is eager to get to her brother before Chú Quốc catches up. When they met yesterday, he had insisted she continue her studies, perhaps in medicine, the way her father would have done and he not met Hằng’s mother. LeeRoy hears Hằng’s stomach growling and tells her he won’t stop because they are running behind. Hằng contemplates how his name sounds like “Ly-Roi” in Vietnamese, which translates to “Glass-Whip.”

LeeRoy stops in front of a crowded building and steps inside, warning Hằng to stay in the truck. However, she gets out and peeks inside. The crowded floor brings back a memory of a pirate lifting the young monk by the throat, prompting the older monk to run and scratch at his back. The pirate swung the machete at the older monk’s throat in retaliation. Hằng pinches herself to stop the memories and tries to locate LeeRoy.

Suddenly, the entrance door opens and LeeRoy is flung out, shoved and kicked by a man. Hằng turns to LeeRoy’s attacker and rams her head into him. LeeRoy grabs her before she can do so again; they run to the truck and drive away. Hằng asks LeeRoy to thank her, so that she can say, “Du eo-khầm” (You’re welcome). He refuses, even as he tries to stop his bleeding nose. Hằng lets him pout, assuming he is embarrassed.

LeeRoy rants about what happened inside: He was in line, so close to meeting Bruce Ford, when a man cut in line, pushing and shoving LeeRoy, getting him tossed out. LeeRoy shows Hằng his grandfather’s buckle and tell her its story, but she stays silent throughout his commentary.

In a bid to get her to talk, LeeRoy asks Hằng if she knows what rap music is and plays a song. Hằng smiles, listens intently, taps out the rhythm, and begins singing along, clearly pronouncing all the words now. LeeRoy is amazed at how she made out the lyrics, and Hằng simply states that the song is a “‘Pô-èm. Ai lớp pô-èm-sì’” (80) (Poem. I love poems.).

It is dark by the time they arrive at the new address. Hằng is in a hurry to go inside, but LeeRoy tells her they must wait till daybreak. He asks if she has any food, and she reluctantly gives up crackers and an orange, the latter of which she had been saving for her brother. They both settle down for the night in the truck.

In the morning, Hằng marches up to the front door and is greeted by a blonde woman and a boy who looks like her brother but is older than Hằng had imagined. She greets him in Vietnamese, asserting she has arrived as promised, but to her shock, the boy slams the door in her face.

LeeRoy offers to try to speak to the boy, but just as he is about to knock, Chú Quốc arrives and yells at LeeRoy to get away from his niece. Hằng informs him that Linh is inside; Chú Quốc runs to the door and exclaims to the blonde woman that he is Linh’s family, and Linh was kidnapped in Vietnam. Infuriated, the woman yells at the group to not upset her son and slams the door shut again.

Chú Quốc pushes Hằng towards the car, asking her to come home, explaining that they will return later with legal documents. Hằng screams to LeeRoy for help, who to his own surprise, chases after Hằng and Chú Quốc in his truck. He races the car and breaks sideways in front of it, causing the car to ram into the truck. LeeRoy and Chú Quốc both yell at each other for damaging their respective vehicles.

The police arrive, along with the blonde woman, and the man from a neighboring house who looks like a real cowboy. Everyone except the cowboy talk and yell all at once. Hằng walks to a nearby fence and sits against it, watching her brother retreat into the house in the distance. She resolves that she will stay close to him henceforth.