Which finger was it that I should use to measure water for rice? Was it up to three quarters of one segment of my ring finger? Not my left ring finger though, not the finger I will tie myself to a man with, but the right ring finger that I will use to measure the rice that will keep me and that man alive. Mom, I’m sorry but the man I married did not come with a rice cooker, how do I cook rice on the stovetop? What is the name of the heart shaped herb in English? What is it in Vietnamese? Can I serve it with everything now that I am my own cook? And if I grow it in my backyard like you used to, will it purify the poisoned ground that we live on? Can we live on it when I’m too tired to cook? Mom, when did you hit menopause? Does breast cancer run in the family on my father’s side? Or was that a myth that I misheard as a child? Why did my father’s mother die so young? Did she die in the first war of her lifetime or second? Did she ever know peace? Will our family forget me since I’m all the way across the world? Will I be able to speak with them if I only learn a child’s Vietnamese? Mom, what was the humidity of the city you grew up in? Is that when my hair will look its best? Mom, what are the toxins you were exposed to? What about your father? And your mother? What about my father? My father’s father and father’s mother? Mom, what do you remember and what do you miss? Mom, where is home? And now, Mom?

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Thao Votang is a writer. Her work has been published in Salon, Hyperallergic, Sightlines, Southwest Contemporary, and Lucky Jefferson. Her debut novel will be published July 2024 from Alcove Press.