As Kim rocked in place on the toilet seat, she had to stuff away her thoughts of Bao. Looking around the bathroom, she noticed the mildewed tiles and the crooked floor, the splintered wood and the loose doors, she saw how slippery everything had become in her life. With this realization, she forgave her brother and sister-in-law. In this crowded old house, a slammed drawer or a loud laugh, a soft breeze, or a bit of gossip, just about anything could crack open, revealing even the slightest of indiscretions.

Mornings had to be tightly orchestrated on 22nd Ave. There were twelve people and only one bathroom between them all. Kim told the children “Brush your teeth so your teachers know you’re not the children of peasants.” She said, “Skip the shower but at least wet your hair down so you don’t look like a refugee.” She dried their hair but had no time to dry her own.

Kim arrived to her English as a Second Language class looking like a wet stray. Bao saved a desk for her and lifted the books beside him. When she sat down, he clawed at his desktop and smirked. It reminded her even more of his reputation as a tom-cat before he married. In Sàigòn, he’d strut around the city with a camera dangling from his neck. Once when she was a teenager, she let Bao watch her reading beneath a lemon blossom in their courtyard. It was fragrant springtime, and the pollen made her brave. She lay on her side propped up on an elbow and smiled at him every couple of pages. He approached, asking her to pose. She allowed him one quick snap before she ran away because she was young, scared, and swollen by the thought of him even then.

A decade later, he was the only man in her life who wasn’t family.

They’d gotten into the habit of going for coffee at the Dunkin’ Donuts after class. Outside, it began to rain. Bao lit his cigarette and smoked it with relish. Over steaming cups he said, “Careful you don’t get sick, going outside when your hair is still wet.”

Kim shook her head, allowing the damp ends to splay out against her face. She said, “I’ll use the blow dryer when I get to beauty school,” when he reached across the table with fingertips stained from nicotine and without a hint of self-consciousness, brushed the hair from her cheek.

They sat nestled inside their booth watching the passersbys outside in trench coats and newspaper hats. Kim said, “I can’t believe Sophia and I walked to the movies just yesterday.” She blushed immediately regretting the mention of those Pussycats again.

“My sons would play in the rain naked and roll around in the mud. It made my wife crazy,” he said.

“It would have made me crazy, too. I hate mud in the house,” she said thinking back to Duc and his muddy footprints.

She watched Bao put out his cigarette and tuck the remaining stub back in its box. “I miss home,” he said. “American rain is ugly, gray, too much like that war.”