Goodnight Ong Ngoai

Dancing around my room dressed up as an ancient Chinese nobleman’s daughter while watching hong kong dramas was a regular occurrence for me when I was 12. I put chopsticks in my hair, wore long sheets draped over myself tied it with belts and had a small bag I put coins and small rocks I painted silver and gold to complete the look. Oh how I wish I was from those times. A time when women just had to be beautiful in order to find a handsome man that will whisk them and their troubles away. Not sure what immense troubles I had that I wanted to be whisked away from but that was besides the point.

I have always been a girl who loved to dream and live in fantasy. That’s what you do when you spend the amount of time I spent alone.

My siblings were always away and working. 12 hour shifts, maybe more at the nail salon. My parents had me later in life and had business to take care of in Vietnam so they spent 3-4 months away every year and had my brothers and sisters watch over me during this time. Which really just meant taking me to school, picking me up to drop me at home, and making sure there was food in the house so I didn’t starve. But I was alone.

So I began to imagine. I imagined I was a princess. I imagined I was a courtesan. I imagined being a flight attendant. A hot teacher. A prison guard. I imagined being a secret agent who used my beauty to lure men into thinking they had the upper hand when I in fact did before I killed them. What can I say, I like to feel sexy and strong.

There were times when I used to grab my mother’s digestive pills for her acid reflux and walk slowly to the kitchen, dramatic Nikita-esque music playing in my head while I looked around - knowing full well no one was there - before opening the pill capsules and pouring them into soups, big tea kettles, sauces of the meat. I would take meticulous detail to make sure to mix it in so not a single trace was left behind and I would never get caught. Even if no one was around to notice.

I wasn’t trying to kill or hurt anybody. In my fantasy, they were meant to put my siblings to sleep while I robbed them blind since they killed my family when I was a baby and adopted me as their own so I’d never take revenge on them. But then I found out when I found a photo of me and my real family so of course I had to take revenge.

What can I say. Too much TV.

I don’t know why I had such an obsession with the idea of being a powerful vixen but I did. And to be honest why not. In my eyes I was as lost and forgotten as those orphans that they hand selected to become assassins and yearned for the day when I could be an adult and do whatever I wanted instead of pretending.

The lock and key were my babysitters and prison guards.

As imaginative as I was at the time I was a major rule follower and I had never been out of the house on my own so it worked. I didn’t get into trouble in the real world.

But in my fantasies I was strong, powerful and everyone bent to my will. I was free.

On the day my grandfather died, my mother was in Vietnam with my father, my sister and her husband. It was the day of her wedding and everyone in my family besides my siblings and I were there to celebrate it.

I was hurt and upset for not only not being asked to be a bridesmaid but having to miss it completely. Tickets to Vietnam were expensive and I had school. That was the line I was fed for missing my sister’s wedding. So I of course pretended I was there. Thankfully it was a Saturday so I got to fulfill my fantasy uninterrupted by realities like the slamming of locker doors and 7th grade cafeteria food.

From the time I woke up that morning I imagined what it would have been like that day.

I started my day with a long bath, and started getting ready for my role as maid of honor. It was only right. I took meticulous detail putting my make up on, making sure I would be camera ready. Next I did my hair and painted my nails, matching the dress from my sister’s closet that I picked to wear of course. Finally the look was complete and I imagined myself walking into the room where all the women were gathering, them all looking at me with awe and happiness, welcoming me into the fold. They me know how important and loved I was and how happy they were to have me there. How much it meant to my sister.

The wedding went without a hitch. At least my version of it. I danced around the room speaking to various imagined guests who all found me incredibly charming and beautiful. I hugged my sister who was so happy to have me there on the most important day of her life.

I held up my glass when it felt like the time to cheers and gave a speech to the happy couple, but mostly to my sister. My idol and friend and manipulator. But that’s for another time.

Then I danced the night away. It’s funny because I’m realizing I never even ended up playing any music. My brain always came with a soundtrack of its own.

The day came to an end I felt satisfied with yet another day of my life in fantasy land and got ready for bed.

As I laid down my things and turned off the lights my grandfather’s photo on the top shelf above my parents bed fell and hit me on the head and fell to the floor. It was just a photo. No frame. Nothing. Just a singular photo left on the shelf with a little trinket to keep it from falling.

I picked the photo off the ground and looked deeply at my grandfather. The wrinkles in his face. His balding hair. His tan skin and clear brimless brown sunglasses he often wore rather outdoors or not. His faded white collared shirt with super thin baby blue stripes tucked into his black pants. His face serious and expressionless as he looked the camera.

My grandfather was a serious man but he loved parties. I’m sure he was drunk and having a blast.

“Smile Ong Ngoai, at least you got to go to the wedding. Better be having fun for us both!”

I didn’t think much of it and put his photo back on the shelf.

The next morning my sister came over to my parents room where I spent most of my time when they were away and told me my grandfather died last night. In the middle of the wedding. He was walking to his seat, suddenly collapsed and never woke up.

I asked her how it happened and she told me it was a sudden heart attack. How he went quickly and likely felt no pain.

I told her about how his photo fell on me when I was getting ready for bed last night and how strange it was that it happened the night he passed away. Knowing me and my active imagination, she brushed it off as I was probably lying or exaggerating for attention and said nothing besides how I can go back to bed now. And so I did.

I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to react. We were never particularly close my grandfather and I. He was old and I was a baby most of the times I saw him but he was my mom’s dad and therefore my family so I should be sad. But I wasn’t. I mostly felt numb and a bit scared that his spirit might have heard me thinking about how he was old and bald and had wrinkles.

Later that morning I went downstairs to the living room and told my sister again how I felt like it was really weird that his photo fell on my while I was sleeping when it had a trinket holding it back. There was no wind or fan in the room. And yet, unprompted, right around when he passed away, the photo fell.

Was he saying goodbye to me? Did I matter that much that his spirit traveled across the world to find me? Was there anything he was trying to tell me?

She agreed that it was kind of strange but nothing to think about. Probably just the wind.

Yeah. The wind. In a room with the windows closed. The door closed and no fan on. We lit an incense and said a prayer for him and my sister went to work.

Alone again.

I went upstairs and before I opened the door to my parents bedroom I stopped, wondering if the photo would still be there or if it somehow disappeared. To my relief it was right where I left it.

I turned on the TV and laid down to watch my hong kong dramas - rotting in bed for the rest of the day. After all, I had a big day being maid of honor yesterday.

Before long, night fell. I went to turn off the light for bed and as I turned around I saw the photo had fallen again onto my pillow. This can’t be. Not once but twice? What is going on?

I was a little scared but decided to walk over to the bed and picked up the photo to look at it. Maybe it was the fact that he was no longer around but my grandfather somehow looked even older in the photo. Like he had aged since I looked at it last night. I kept being fixated on this one hair of his that was standing up but then I saw it. He was smiling. I rubbed my eyes and held the photo up again and there it was. He stood there in a black suit, brown sunglasses and was smiling. I could not believe my eyes.

I turned on the lamp besides the bed and sat up to look at the picture again.

This time he was once again expressionless. In his white collared short sleeve shirt. Tucked into his black pants and not smiling. Not smiling at all.

I sat there and stared at the photo for awhile and eventually put it back up on the shelf, trinket in front of it. I made sure to secure it extra well so it would not fall again and laid down to sleep.

I’m glad he had a good time at the wedding.