Slowly, Ba turns around. The fire rises, but he doesn’t make a sound. Why is Đà Lạt not raining? Why does it not pour, as Ba says it does in July? Does the sky not know we are hurting? How can it not hear the tenor of my scream? His eyes are surprised because maybe even he doesn’t believe what he’s done. Yet they are still soft, writhing in some other pain, and it’s the same as the day at the pier. He spreads his arms. Ba is a burning house, the doors open to me. “Come with me, Jade.” My dad leaving, my dad asking for me, my dad reaching for me. That was always the dream, wasn’t it? To be
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