At the Nail Salon

What was the quality of the woman’s voice trying to tell?

“I’m from Vietnam.”

“I traveled there in 2008.”

“Did you see the Ha Long Bay?”

She is from southern Vietnam, which isn’t as cold as Hanoi. She used to go back every two years, but her parents have passed now.

“Do you have any children here in the U.S.?”

“No children.”

And her eyes flicker.

Perhaps she could not conceive. Perhaps love forsook her, though she longed to hold them: husband, children, grandchildren. Perhaps they ran from her, swiftly, beyond her reach into the deep jungle of her heart.