Front Door.

A doorbell, a welcome mat, a number on the wall. We stand there like this isn't my own house, like the keys aren't in my front pocket and like I wasn't simply coming home.

A home. A house. English distinguishes the two, frames one around safety and love, the other around the beams supporting a structure together and the air that occupies it. In Vietnamese, they share the same word: nhà.

Cái nhà. A house, or in some cases, a building. Cái nhà của mình. The house of ours.

My parents would argue (yes, they would. Get it?) that the phrase nhà của mình holds the same meaning that home does in the English language. I would argue back (maybe. I don't know, is it worth it?) that language is arbitrary. It's what we make of it. A house can be a temple, a stage, a point of singularity. If I call this house a tree root, what would you make of it? If I call this door a riptide, what would you think?

Mother stands at the door, gushing words of welcome, questions cushioning the awkwardness of all this — seafoam, decayed algae brought in by the tide to soften the surfaces. Father passes by, brief smile and curt greeting. It's your first time meeting them, and you're the perfect child — head bowed to the winds of hierarchy, answers threaded with just enough flattery that the ocean's water almost seems sweet.

Maybe we're all sailors, a house with our parents in it a siren singing home. 

***

Living Room

TV blaring, people shouting, death all around them. We're watching a movie — head on shoulders, side by side, a blanket over two. A movie about a war — bodies on dirt, side by side, blanket over the retrieved. A movie about a captain trying to find another soldier and bring him home.

There it is again. That word. Bring him home. Bring him to cái nhà. No, that's not right. Bring him to cái nhà của ỗng. That's not really it either, it still doesn't flow the way I want it to.

To make this work, I'd need to change the whole sentence, to take cái nhà out of the picture. I don't know if it's worth it.

They say that home is wherever your loved ones are. Does that make this living room a home? If you leave, does it then become a house? If you were there, on the screen, would that make the movie my home, or the TV?

I hear the front door open, the familiar warning of keys on the table. I sit up, sit back, sit away. Lean on the arm rest, put a pillow between us. You're here, but you're not with me. You're over there, and I'm over here.

The war has left the confines of the screen. The war is here, each of us soldiers in our own war, fighting for our own survival. We don our uniform, rehearse our drills. Maybe this house is a grenade, maybe our actions are the pin.

***

Kitchen.

The clock reads seven, the table's set for three, and I'm but one against the world.

"I like girls."

Western steak — beef, mash and gravy, chips and steamed carrots, broccolis, peas, corn. Salt and pepper.

Sriracha. 

Feeling out of place in your own home; Asian condiment in a Western meal in an Asian home.

Three glasses of water; two half-drunk, another overshadowed by a bottle of beer.

The silence has gone on for longer than I can stand, the intermittent screech of knife against porcelain plate the only thing breaking the silence.

Plates, a knife and a fork and tongs and- and two pairs of chopsticks. My father places his down, calmly, like the steady fire of a stove under a boiling pot of water.

"Don't say that again."

He grabs for the green bottle, takes a swig. His eyes are red. Even the Heineken fits into this scene better than I do, is wanted more than I am.

Maybe the house is a bottle of beer, maybe my existence is a hit to the top.

They say Asians are smart, that we're good at maths. Maybe this is why I know that if I say anything else, if I try and explain myself, that the probability of a quiet dinner is reduced. They say that we're bad drivers. Maybe that's why even though I know the rules, I still somehow get into a crash.

***

Bathroom.

The sunlight was warmer when I was young. The hands were kinder, the words were softer.

My mother lingers by the bathroom door. She stays on the other side of the threshold, doesn't step over the line — I'm glad she doesn't. Didn't. Not this time, anyways.

"He didn't mean what he said last night."

"Yeah."

"And he didn't mean to hit you."

Yeah.

"We don't want to make you sad."

"Yeah."

"You just- You need to understand why he said that."

I spit in the sink, minty fresh white foam. Someone might tell me to wash my mouth out, if I said what I wanted to — but I just did. I still want to say all the things in my head, but I know it's pointless. I rinse my mouth again.

I know mother isn't done talking, I know she's trying to find the words. I want to leave, want to escape the suffocating tiles insulating the tension — but to leave would be to pass her, to be within her reach.

"We came here as refugees. Our life is hard enough as it is. We just don't want things to be harder for you than they need to be."

Is that it? Displaced as we are by the war, maybe there is no home. Maybe all the places we live are simply cái nhà. Nothing more, nothing less.

"We love you — Ba Mẹ thương con lắm — you know that, right? We just want what's best for you."

Is it possible that for them, to love is to hurt? They share the same word in Vietnamese, after all. Maybe cái nhà này là cái nhà thương – maybe this house is a hospital, where we love and we hurt, where we fix people up and make their lives easier.

That's how it works, right?

***

Bedroom.

There is rarely safety under the covers, fabric quilts and springy mattress a child's bunker.

Maybe I've inherited the war. It's all I know of my family – shots firing back and forth, defences up. Strategic retreats, only to advance again later. No one yields to the other; neither lacks a reason to fight. The war never really left them, even though they left it.

The war forced them to flee Vietnam – not their house, but their home, where all they love and loved was left to burn. Maybe love is what makes a home. Maybe we can't love without hurt.

But if by that logic, a home exists, then maybe my home is you. My home is in the crook of your neck, between your arms, in your eyes.

And if I really have inherited the war, then shouldn't I fight? Fight for what I love, for what will hurt me if I lose it?

Maybe you're my Vietnam, my homeland. Maybe you're in flames too.

I'll fight this war, if it means I can save my home.

Maybe a house is just a bed. Maybe a bed with you in it is a home.

 

Author Bio: Katy Le is a student at ECU, majoring in both Creative Writing and Media and Cultural Studies. Much of her work revolves around explorations of queer diasporic identities and the different ways one negotiates and comes to understand themselves. She finds her double-degree the perfect way to explore things of interest and importance to her, as well as continue to engage with her past studies in the health sciences.

 

Copyright © Katy Le, 2025