From Home

Reem Khalifa, Egypt

[Before reading: Mẹ means mother and is pronounced as “May” in one, short syllable.]  

Anna Tam Foster did not want to do this anymore. 

She had just gone out of the hospital after working nonstop for twenty-eight hours in the  emergency room. She was lost in her way down the streets with tears streaking her face. She had  seen enough pain, heard enough screams, touched enough scars, and had had her fair share of pressure to last her a year. Maybe she was not built for this job. Maybe all the dreams she built  and all the work she has done would be for nothing.  

No, she can’t think like that. She has been through a lot, and it is only right to face her fears, not  run at the first obstacle. Mẹ would disapprove.  

Well, mẹ has disapproved of almost everything Anna has done. No grades were enough. No  achievement was enough. Not even when Anna passed her tests to get into medical school; that  was also not good enough. It feels like all Anna’s attempts to make her mother proud were never  enough. She knows they were not for mẹ.  

Bad memories would do no good now. So, Anna searched with her eyes for a good thing; something Dad taught her to do whenever she got too consumed with the dark and gloomy  clouds of grief. And after what seemed like an eternity of her collecting herself and focusing her  attention, a small Pho shop next to the coffee franchise shop across the street caught her eye. It was a rare sight in this part of London to see something so colorful to contrast the industrial colors and the white English winter. The lovely scent of spices beat the smell of coffee to her  nose, and with it, she felt the warmth seep into her. It has been so long since she had pho. So,  without much thought, Anna walked over to the store. 

The moment the door opened, a myriad of smells flooded Anna’s nose. The warmth almost  stunning her senses with the contrast it had with the English cold. On the counter was a teenage  girl with gorgeous night black locks, neon pink tips, and sharp makeup that was louder than  inside Anna’s head.  

“How can I help you?” The young woman asked.  

“Um, hello.” Anna was at a loss for words. How can the woman help her? “You make Pho here,  right?”  

The woman gestured carelessly to the sign on the door and the handwritten menu above her  head. “Looks like it.” 

“Alright, I want a bowl.” 

“Anything else?” 

“No. Just a bowl.” 

The young woman yelled in Vietnamese to the people in the kitchen in the back. And Anna could decipher father and one from the blurry memory she had of her mother tongue. 

As the sounds of food being made erupted from the kitchen, Anna took a look around the small  shop. It was a warm, cozy place with orange, brown, and yellow as the main colors, empty of  anyone save for her and the staff. Seems like the coffeeshop would drive this place out of  business. She thought. There were so many photographs on the wall of old and young people from different time periods. There were polaroid pictures of an apparently Vietnamese baby spattered across one wall along with photos of people smiling, shaking hands, and eating pho.  

Anna lost herself in the images and small, homey decorations and details of this small shop as  the spicy fragrance wafted over to her nose from the kitchen. An old man emerged from the back  and lit up as he saw Anna and headed toward her with a beautiful green bowl.  

“This my best Pho for you.” The man said in broken English as he served Anna the plate.  “Thank... you.” She said in broken Vietnamese.  

The old man’s eyes lit up with a mixture of pride and recognition. “Where you from?” He asked in English. Must have seen the struggle Anna was in to get the words out.  

“I was born and raised here, my dad is English,” The man frowned disapprovingly, but Anna added quickly, “But my Mẹ is from Hanoi”  

“Yes, yes, Hanoi is good. I am from Saigon. My name is Chi.” Chi smiled at Anna “Now eat  your Pho before is cold.” 

Anna began eyeing her food as Chi went back to the kitchen. She has not had pho since she was seventeen. The very thought of it reminded her of mẹ and the memories stung her every time. But maybe it’s about time that she started bringing back the memories of home. Maybe it’s about  time she stopped running away. And so, she grabbed her chopsticks and spoon, and with a trial  or two to get her muscle memory to take over, she got a hold of her chopsticks, and dug in. 

No reaction. Anna gave no reaction to the first bite of the pho. This was not Pho. At least not her  mother’s pho. This was a festival of flavors in comparison. It was lovely in its own right, but this was not made the way mẹ made it. Anna slurped some more noodles, bean sprouts, and meatballs. Mẹ never put meatballs in the pho. And they served it with sriracha here?  

Trying to overcome this disappointment, Anna tried to enjoy the meal just like she would any  other new food. She eyed the rooster drawn on the sriracha bottle as she mulled over the  ingredients in her mouth. The noodles were perfectly cooked, and the lime added a contrast to  the whole meal. The warmth and spices definitely were adding a touch of familiarity, but the  spices were strong, the sriracha overpowering the meatballs, and the sweetness was unfamiliar.  Maybe this wasthe new way of making Pho. Maybe mẹ simply made it wrong. Maybe she made  it plainer to fit dad’s tastes. 

Anna finished the bowl and walked over to Chi’s daughter to pay for the food, and right after she  paid, Chi popped his head from the back kitchen. “You like my Pho?” 

Well, it was good. “I did.” But it was not her mother’s. “But it was different from my Mẹ’s” 

“Yes, yes. Your mẹ make Hanoi Pho. I make Saigon Pho.” There were two kinds? That made  sense, sort of. “Saigon Pho is best Pho.” Chi said that with so much pride and enthusiasm in his  eyes that Anna did not want to disappoint him with her opinion. 

Anna thanked Chi and tipped his daughter before she left the warm embrace of the store and  went off to the outside world. She looked at herself in the glass of a window then smoothed her  messed up hair, adjusted her fur coat, and wiped her tear-stricken face. She was definitely  steadier now than she was an hour ago, Chi and the pho took her mind off of the day’s events,  but the whole experience brought back memories of home. And a new craving of mẹ’s pho  sprouted inside her.  

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Anna continued her ordinary life from that point forward and took a less stressful shift at the  hospital. But sometimes, when she found herself some free minutes in the break room, she would  look up the recipes for Northern Vietnamese Pho. She already had access to rice noodles, a  butcher for the beef, and the rest would be easy to get. She would only need to get the stockpot that mẹ used to use. And time. This would need a lot of time. 

It was a long trip to the markets, and an even longer one to the nearest Asian food supplies shop,  but everything was ready. She took a day off, and Anna would dedicate it to mẹ’s Pho. She  started with putting the beef bones in the stockpot and covering them with water. The bones were  always the part that scared young Anna. Mẹ would laugh and say they are good for the body and  the skin to grow strong and beautiful, but Anna only imagined the animal they were once a part  of, and all those disturbing thoughts would melt away as the hot, lovely soup washed over her  mouth.  

The broth started to boil and the smell of it engulfed the house, and with it, the memories of  home started flooding Anna’s mind. The sound of mẹ’s laughter over something dad said. The way mẹ would shake her head when Anna’s report card said 97 instead of 100. The shine in  dad’s eyes as he looked at mẹ. The warmth of dad’s hug. The taste of the fruits mẹ cut up for  Anna instead of an apology. Pho broth took so long to make, and it feels like Anna’s family lived  their memories entangled with the smells and flavors of it. 

Anna removed the scum as said in the recipe, lowered the heat, and chopped up the onion and  ginger for charring. She put them in the oven broiler and got started on adding the spices. She crushed the cardamom and searched for the scissors to open the packet of dried shrimp, and once  she finally opened the packet, she smelled the smoke of something burnt. The onions. The recipe said the onions take less cooking time. 

Anna rushed to the oven to find her onions burnt to a crisp, and the gingers running close behind.  She turned off the oven and sat on the kitchen floor, head in hands. Mẹ always curled her lips in  this look of disappointment whenever Anna failed. She used to blame her for burning her dad’s  toast. For dropping the medication before she gave them to him. For wanting to be an artist. For  dying her hair. For putting too much sugar in the cake. For every little slip that Anna had from  the image of the perfect daughter.  

No. This was not the time to dwell on all the times mẹ made Anna’s soul feel down. This was the  time to get back up and chop another onion and try again. That is what dad would say when she  burnt his toast. When she dropped the medication. When she put too much sugar in the cake. “Just the fact that you tried is enough, love. You can always try again.” He would say. So, she tried again.  

Anna tried over and over again and did not give up. Daytime turned into nighttime as she burnt a  piece of beef, spilled some broth, or overcooked the noodles, and tried again to get them right. It  was four in the morning when Anna had her bowl of Pho, the finished product of her  concoctions, ready on the counter. And so,she took her chopsticks and spoon and dug in. 

No reaction. Anna had no reaction as she tried to process the emotions and memories that  erupted through her. The broth tasted the way mẹ made it; the beef reminded her of dad’s pleased  eyeroll whenever he bit into a piece of beef, the noodles reminded her of the sound mẹ’s lips made as she slurped them, and how dad never made a sound but didn’t judge mẹ for it. This was  home. This meal brought Anna back home. Back near the lake where Anna would always jump, and the sound of mẹ’s voice scolding her for the dirty hair and sodden clothes afterward. Back in  the corridor as she put her ears against the door and listened, hoping to know what was wrong with dad. Back in her mother’s hug as they cried over dad’s grave. Back in front of mẹ’s  disappointed eyes and scalding voice.  

Anna buried herself in school and work to forget the fear she saw in mẹ’s eyes and the worry that  planted itself in her features when dad left them. She detached herself from anything that felt like  home so that she can erase the memory of the emptiness in her own eyes as her mother left her  alone in this world. She had left the house untouched, left the whole town in the country, and escaped like a coward to school. Then to London. And never went back.  

But she was back now. She was no longer escaping. She was remembering mẹ’s laugh and dad’s  hug. She could taste home. And salt. She tasted salt from her tears. Anna was crying. Mẹ would  always tell her to give herself five minutes to cry then get herself together. But Anna has been  getting herself together for too long. She wanted to cry. She wanted to feel. She wanted to  remember. 

The sound of the next day’s alarm brought Anna out of her staring contest with the ceiling. She  has work now. She is a doctor who will heal others and remove their pain. She will soothe others unlike she could do for her dad. So, Anna cleans the counter and the dishes, stores away the rest  of the Pho, puts on the blue scrubs and the fur coat, washes the tear marks from her face, wraps her hair into a tight bun that makes her look way too much like Mẹ and walks out the door to the  cold London streets.  

This time, Anna would not run away when she faces her fears. She now knows she will never  heal enough scars, soothe enough pain, or calm enough screams. But she will try. And this time,  she will be accompanied with the loving memory of her mẹ’s smile and her dad’s voice. This time, she will face her fears. She will face her feelings. She will not escape them. And she will  overcome them with the courage she will borrow from the past. From home.

Reem is a 16 year-old Egyptian student who is passionate about all things art. She is an alumna of the Between the Lines creative writing summer program. She writes both poetry and prose but finds herself always writing in too much detail, so she turns her poetry into prose.