Twin tides, p.29
Twin Tides, page 29
“Did you ever visit? When Mom was still alive?” Caliste asks.
“No, though we could have after things opened back up in the nineties. There just was never time. She never returned here—not until now.”
There is a pain in her father’s voice that nearly breaks Caliste.
Their mom left Vietnam as a child only to come home as ash.
“Anything you do, whatever path you take, your mom—she would be happy. I will be, too.” His voice is awkward and staggered as he speaks, and Caliste smiles to herself. He must have practiced.
“I understand, Ba.”
“Good.”
A gust of wind blows Dylan’s hair, flopping it to the side. When Caliste looks up, Aria and Philip are walking toward them, with Priscilla and Bà Nội following behind.
Aria squeezes Caliste’s shoulder and stops to kiss Dylan on the head once she’s close enough. Being together feels natural now, as if they hadn’t lived an entire lifetime unknown to the other.
In her grandma’s arms is a royal-blue urn painted with apricot-and-gold flowers. Aria and Caliste chose it together.
“My two pretty girls,” her grandmother says, smiling at them both. Caliste and Bà Nội lock eyes for a moment, and her grandmother’s expression is uncharacteristically soft. Perhaps the most startling event in the past few months was when their grandmother sat both Aria and Caliste down and apologized.
I thought your mother was weak because of her sadness. But the truth is, I am sad, too.
It was an apology over a decade too late…but Caliste thought it was still better than never. And, oddly enough, the words were a comfort to her, too.
“Ái da,” Aunt Thu mutters. Her cane has been left to lean against the tree, and her hunched figure is fussing over the flower bed. “I told my cousins to plant this earlier. It’s so small! Tsk…”
There is a small frangipani bush, barely a foot tall, at the base of the plum blossom tree. There aren’t any flowers yet, but Caliste still thinks this is the perfect site for their mother’s final resting place. A stream flows just a few feet away, and Caliste pictures a version of her mother in girlhood, splashing in the water instead of being trapped by it.
Aunt Thu fusses around the soil at the bush’s base before placing her hands on her knees to stand. Soon, all of them stand in a semicircle, with Aria at Caliste’s side. Aria squeezes Caliste’s hand, and tears spill over immediately.
It’s time. Finally.
Fourteen long years.
Their mother can rest.
After the silence, Aunt Thu opens the top of the urn, assisted by Philip. They scatter the ashes over the soil, the developing flowers, and the water. Paul leans down to help, and before long, Caliste can no longer tell where the ashes begin and the earth ends.
“Welcome home,” Paul says, leaning down to pat the earth. He’s crying, and Caliste is, too.
Caliste turns to hold Aria tight, their fingers digging painfully into each other’s sides. There are the sound of the wind rustling through the plum blossom tree’s branches, tears, and the scent of the juvenile plum blossoms lingering.
THE GHOUL
Do you remember when I told you I was pregnant? It was a situation so ridiculous, so comical, and so unlike you, that the image is burned into my memory, like a childhood fairy tale from Ba. You were angry at me, sister. This is when Phúc and I had nothing, and you told me I was foolish to bring life into such tenuous circumstances.
In that moment, the Thu that took care of me, the Thu who cleaned up after me, the Thu I was so used to, became someone new to me. Now I know that I became something new to you, too. A marvelous and terrifying new beast. I was embarking on the path that killed our mother. It was a path you could not tread for me.
I also know you were just afraid of losing me. Now, in your palm, you hold bits of me. I feel your pulse, a rhythm that lulled me to sleep under the cover of thick plum-blossom-scented blankets.
You return me as ash to the waters of our home. I am reborn.
What bad luck we must have, sister. I possessed a soul that was cursed to rot in the water, and you possessed a body cursed by the rot of war.
We were the river, the air, and the seasons.
Do you remember that it was you who first told me the story of Ma Da? Of the vengeful spirits who drowned? I couldn’t conceptualize vengeance then, couldn’t understand what type of wicked rage would tie a soul to this earth, fated to drown others before they could move on. But perhaps the rage was embedded in us in the first place.
But I no longer feel rage.
I feel love.
That boy…his violence…violence passed on by his father. If I had taken his soul, then his violence would have continued. I cannot stop it all, but I can stop them.
I wanted vengeance.
But I also want peace.
There is a song that I’ve always yearned to hear again. A joyful melody of my girls, my home, and my ancestors, and I hear it at this moment. I lie in the bottom of the riverbed and close my eyes to sleep. I feel everything. Mud. Silt. Memory.
Us.
Author’s Note
In November 1990, my family left Vietnam and flew to Thailand and San Francisco before ultimately scattering throughout the United States. In November 2021, I lost my mother suddenly. My career as a writer and the themes I explore in my stories are intimately tied with the grief of losing her.
For me, the heart of Twin Tides is its exploration of intergenerational grief (and intergenerational love). My mother lost her parents while she was in the United States and they were back home in Vietnam. The last time my mother saw her own mother was before she immigrated. In many bittersweet ways, losing my mother brought me closer to her.
My family raised me in Des Moines, Iowa, but I left to attend college in Southern California and eventually settled for most of my young adulthood in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area (locations that are featured in Twin Tides). When I received the message that I needed to return home as soon as possible because of my mother’s health, I was only a three-hour flight away. My mother, however, was almost nine thousand miles from her hometown when my grandmother died. She was unable to return for the funeral. Finding out this news from a distance is heartbreaking. I can never truly understand my mother’s grief, but I often recognize her heartache and rage within me.
To live as a member of the Việt diaspora is also to live within a web spun from a history of violence. This is something I’ve grappled with my entire life, and I will likely continue to do so. Twin Tides explores this legacy, through both the violence of the war and the violence enacted on Xuân and her daughters. My family is one of many diasporic Vietnamese families, each with a unique and complex immigrant story. It was important to me to render the Hà and Nguyễn families’ joys and pains on the page without positioning this text as any sort of authoritative take on the refugee experience.
The fictional historical documents in Twin Tides were modeled on sources provided in the Gerald R. Ford Museum’s Core Collections on the Vietnam War; more specifically, the documents provided in the “Indochina Refugees—Interagency Task Force (2)” of the Theodore C. Marrs Files portion of the collection. There are many military documents in the collection as well, now public after being declassified. The history of wealth built on the violence of war is woven through Twin Tides.
The bits and pieces readers get of Aunt Thu’s and Xuan’s childhoods in Vietnam are based on the real events of Operation Ranch Hand, which resulted in 11 million gallons of Agent Orange being sprayed in Vietnam.[*] The herbicides destroyed many of the mangrove forests on Vietnam’s southernmost tip, where their hometown of Cà Mau is located. In addition to the massive environmental impact, the lingering health effects can still be seen today.
Another aspect of history highlighted in the novel is the migration of Vietnamese immigrants to the American Midwest. In my hometown of Des Moines, I lived in a community of Việt, Lao, Hmong, and Cambodian families. It wasn’t until I left that I realized this does not necessarily match how others perceive the Midwest.
Many people I’ve met in my life are surprised to learn that there are vibrant Asian communities in areas they believe to be homogeneously white. Les Eaux (pronounced lay sooz) is a reference to Des Moines. Both are cities with French names that are pronounced very differently with an American accent (Des Moines is pronounced day moyne). The fictional town of Les Eaux is a combination of Des Moines and the Twin Cities metropolitan area in Minnesota. One of the largest Southeast Asian populations in the United States calls the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area home. Twin Tides is intentionally set in Minnesota and is a nod to the many immigrant and refugee communities across the Midwest.
Ultimately, I set out to write a book about two girls grappling with grief and loss caused by their forced separation and supplemented by a chilling mystery. While this is categorized as a young adult thriller, at its core, Twin Tides is a ghost story, and ghost stories are almost always told with an eye toward the past. The tides, too, are a continuous affirmation of the past and our histories.
Skip Notes
* Institute of Medicine (US) Committee to Review the Health Effects in Vietnam Veterans of Exposure to Herbicides. Veterans and Agent Orange: Health Effects of Herbicides Used in Vietnam. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 1994. 3, The U.S. Military and the Herbicide Program in Vietnam. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK236347/
Acknowledgments
It took many villages to create this book, and I am immensely grateful to everybody whose hard work, support, and love helped bring it to life.
To the reader: You made it to the end! I am grateful to you for reading my words. That, in itself, is a privilege.
I have so much gratitude to my editor, Bria Ragin. Thank you for seeing the spark in Twin Tides even before I had a book to show you. I am so thankful for your work, both helping me in conceiving this story and in making sure my vision was always center stage.
To my agent, Katelyn Detweiler, I couldn’t dream of a better partner to shepherd the beginning of my writing career. You saw value in my words and have been an indispensable advocate every step of the way.
Twin Tides would not exist without Random House Children’s Books and the many people who touched this book through its many lives, including Wendy Loggia, vice president and publisher, Delacorte Press; Mallory Loehr, president, Random House Children’s Books; Trisha Previte, cover designer; Reiko Murakami, jacket artist; Ken Crossland, interior designer; Tracy Heydweiller, production manager; Tamar Schwartz, managing editor; Kayla Overbey, copy editor; Kiffin Steurer, proofreader; Stephania Villar, marketer; Rachel Jensen, publicist; and Lara Ameen, Authenticity Reader. I am filled with gratitude for your hard work and care.
Thank you to my Avengers of Colour 2021 mentee cohort, and to my mentor June Hur. Your community and advice early on in my author career have been indispensable. I am cheering for all of you and am so blessed to have a shelf just for our stories. I workshopped early versions of Twin Tides with Pingmei Lan’s “Pacing, Structure and Timelines” Winter 2024 group and am so grateful for your help. I also want to thank the many Discord communities who have made writing feel like home, including việt viết, the AAPI Writing Community, Submission Slog Comrades, Let’s Get Published, and 2025 Debuts. In addition, I’d like to credit Maya for coming up with the name for the fictional town Les Eaux.
For my WriteGirl community and Round Table Mentor community: Thank you for being the tide that lifts all boats. Thank you to Echo: Writing with you and hearing your words is a privilege. Thank you to Frances: I am so excited for your stories to make their way into the world, and I am so blessed to have had your trust as a mentor.
Many friends read my work through the messy first drafts to the polished pages, or shared the burden of my publishing struggles, and I couldn’t have done this without you: ‘Dolapo, Haarika, Manuela, John U., Amanda K., Amanda B. & Matt, Leslie, Julie, Savini, Lucia, David, Eunice and Tom, Juan and Carolina, UVA friends, and many others. (If I have forgotten you, I owe you a boba!)
Many cheers to DC Dinner Club—thank you for your friendship. I cannot imagine how my twenties would have looked without you all. I am so proud of every single one of you, and your friendships have made me a better human being (as well as a better cook).
Although my time with you all was short, I am grateful to Women Writing for (a) Change, Bloomington, for being such a supportive, talented, and uplifting community.
To my 2024 Ossabaw Island Retreat cohort, the island donkeys, and my faculty leader, Tom Franklin—thank you so much for both a creatively energizing time and a time filled with care, humor, and levity (mostly Lois).
To my 2024 Roots. Wounds. Words. Autumn Writers’ Retreat: Mountain crew, we are bonded for life. I am so blessed to have heard your stories and felt your light. There are no words that can give justice to that transformative experience (although perhaps gravity flushes and we are evacuating come close).
I would not be here without my middle school teachers Holly and Rebecca. I am a writer because of you both. I hope you know that. Your support when I was twelve years old altered the course of my life in the best possible way.
To my high school English and creative writing teachers, Diane, Jean, and Sherry—this book wouldn’t exist without me having been assigned The Brothers Karamazov and experiencing your joy, humor, and creativity in class.
Donna, Regina, Paul, Leila, and Martha—when I was an uncertain college kid from Iowa, your encouragement and mentorship was truly transformative.
Seirra, Iesha, Qiu, Piper—I love you all. Thank you for being my life partners.
Thank you to Tempura and Panko for your snuggles and occasional chaos.
To my family: Thank you for shaping the person I’ve become.
Hieu and Thao: You supported me from diapers to walking across a graduation stage. I forgive you for hiding the Easter eggs in places I can’t reach and making me cry by leaving for college.
Ba: Con thương Ba nhiều lắm. Cảm ơn Ba đã nuôi dạy con bằng tình yêu thương.
Mommy Lexington: I love you. I see you. I am so grateful to you. Thank you for your sacrifices and endless love.
Uncle Rocky: I wouldn’t be who I am today without you in my life. I’m sorry you won’t get to hold this book, but maybe it’s for the best, because you would have talked everybody’s ears off about it.
Vú: Con nhớ Vú nhiều hơn Vú có thể biết. Con thương V lắm.
And to Joe, whose gentleness and unyielding care made this book possible. I’m uncertain of how many universes exist or how many exist where you and I stare at the same sky. Perhaps there are some where we’ve found each other and others yet in which we are sworn mortal enemies. I know very little, but I know that this universe, if it is indeed the only one where I have you, must be the best one.
About the Author
Hien Nguyen is a speculative fiction writer who hails from the Midwest. By day she is a social science researcher, and by night she writes about Vietnamese ghosts, monsters, and mythology. She is interested in the uplifting and haunting forms of human connection, and how writing speculative fiction can lay those bare. Twin Tides is her debut novel.
authorhien.com
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Hien Nguyen, Twin Tides
