Thomas, her beloved father, the man who had brought a red fish from the river to her, was taken away. This, the handcuffs, and the fish are her memories.

Right now she hates memory. She sees it often now, in the city, old men crying with their memories, and their memories so terrible, and they have to contain it all within themselves. Nevertheless, they sit together as friends and sometimes gamble, sometimes playing cards the Americans left behind, talking about small things, someone always saying, “You cheat!”

For her, memory always hurts. She has no memory of her mother. Sitting on the bench she tells herself there have been light-years since then, the days in the country by the river, but even so it is all here now like the light of a star traveling the night, and the bats catching insects in the light of the full moon.

Then, back then, they heard a new army was on its way and they had to leave the village. The old man, knowing he would die, sewed three things into Lin’s jacket: the address of an uncle in Saigon, what is now Ho Chi Minh City, hoping the uncle was still there, and the address and photograph of her father now in the United States, along with a folded map. “This map. Be sure you keep it. It is important. It tells where we are.”

When Old Grandmother set out, she took her chicken, a pot of flowers, and a teapot. It was more than she could carry and someone had stolen their cart. Lin carried the teapot and the fish her father had given her. Someone else took the flowers from the old woman. “Keep quiet,” they were warned. At first they went down past the houses on stilts in darkness, thinking the water would be safer to travel, but then they saw the water was dangerous, too. Sampans burned and there was the sound of men shouting. “Hurry!” someone said, and they stepped into a boat and they tried to float away, but not far from there they came to a bend in the river. There even more boats were burning and things were floating where they shouldn’t be, clothing on the water, shoes. It was so light from the fires, it was like daylight. Men and boys swarmed the little boats and rafts like ants that take over the other ants. She recalled hearing an infant cry, then suddenly stop. Its silence chilled her.

“Does it hurt when you die?” she asked her grandmother on the boat.

Her grandmother smiled and said, “No, and someday we’ll all see each other again,” because she knew already she would have to be left behind.

And then Lin was forced to leave. Old Grandmother said, “I will go back home. You go on. Go!” And Lin followed her orders, looking back at the small woman. It was just before her grandmother would be turned to light. The ant boys were swarming. They were like the ants she’d seen leave their hills to cover over an entire animal someone shot, or come through a village in droves and enter everywhere while the villagers tried to flee.