Five months later he was sitting in the same kitchen, a backpack and a suitcase tucked under his feet. The bus to Boston would leave in two hours, and the house was filled with that frenetic, fraught air that permeates when someone is about to depart for a long trip. There was nothing to do but tap the table and feel his heart pump as he waited for Ma to finish packing the coconut rice. Though it takes no more than an hour, she had woken at five, in the cold blue dawn, to steam the rice and boil down the coconut milk, which left her staring out the kitchen window for the rest of the morning
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