Banyan Moon Quotes
"But still. Are good mothers born that way? Is the DNA strand an invisible one, winding through the others?"
"You wring them out like laundry, until all that’s left is the residue, scenting the very last bits of your memory."
"You have to accept its faults. You will love it for what it is, right?"
"I am yours now. We’re in it together."
"The young always think they’re the first to experience anything—love, heartbreak, fear."
"Grief is sedate. If Mẹ had died in Việt Nam, the guests would have paraded through the streets, pounding their chests."
"You’re a funny little mouse. You make me want to scoop you into my pocket."
"I clung to my youth, knowing what motherhood meant after watching my own mother sink into her seat at the end of the day."
"We swept the floors. We prayed to our ancestors. We laughed into the face of the fear."
"I could singe her with my glare if I tried hard enough. All that would be left would be her pearls, clacking on the floor."
"The lightning bugs begin to emerge. They dip in and out of the banyan tree, their green lights flashing for just a second."
"Your bà ngoại had her secrets. Her life didn’t start with you, you know."
"I remember how, on arriving in Florida, we had silently accepted cardboard boxes full of clothes and canned goods from the Baptist church ladies."
"To the church ladies, to America for accepting us, the people our own country didn’t want."
"So in my estimation, Mẹ lived a life that could only be counted as brave."
"We don’t really know what’s inside another person’s heart."
""Of course it’s yours, con, who else’s would it be?""
""My Minh. Even if you never loved me, I am yours forever.""
""You’re an adult, Ann. But you haven’t done this before. Just for now, let me help. Let me be your mother.""
""Did you know? That she was going to give us the house?""
""I never met him, con. But he is the father of your child, and I want to see you both taken care of.""
""You’re mine again. I will not let you leave this time.""
""Fair is not your world turning upside down, your favorite person dying and leaving a rotting wreckage of a home, your boyfriend and his gorgeous ex taking up permanent residence in the story of your relationship, your insides expanding and growing to welcome a life that you weren’t prepared for.""
""What’s it mean?" He brushes the hair from my face and stares so intently into my eyes that I almost shrink back. I’m not used to being studied, seen in this way."
""That thing is still a piece of shit," he says, "but it’s a good car. Worth fixing up. I can help you, if you want.""
""I should get home," I say to Wes, untangling myself from him."
""I really am sorry about your grandmother. My dad died last year, and it was tough. More than that. It was kinda like having surgery, while you’re awake, right? A part of you gets cut out, and everyone gets to watch, and you’re never really alone?""
""I’m supposed to say I’m fine. To be the strength for you, but I don’t have it in me today.""
""I think kissing you would taste like panna cotta," he said, a little drunkenly."
""You’re a good guy, Wes," I tell him, hugging my unicorn."
"Truth is like an onion; I have to peel it apart, questioning everything I remember, examining my own culpability. Each layer reveals a new sting."
"It was always wet. His mom would sneak to his crib after he was asleep, grab the duck, and run it through the dishwasher every night."
"What’s fair? He shrugs. "Elijah was sunshine, our bright baby, but he grew up with the bickering. I didn’t want that, you know, for his first words to be full of all this blame."
"I’m drawn to the ocean for all its moods, its tempestuousness and danger. Its openness. I want to conquer it."
"Then, when we moved to the States, while she was off cobbling together jobs as a dishwasher, tailor, laundress, and cleaning lady, Phước and I were often alone."
"I would find ashes around the front stoop, though Mẹ tried to ignore them, as if they had fallen from the sky, another symptom of the unpredictable Florida weather."
"Sometimes Phước considers himself the elder in our family, perhaps because he has achieved more, has won respect from people we did not grow up with."
"I’ve done us a favor," I would tell Ann. "Secrets are a menace. They will spill from your mouth like angry, writhing eels, or they will fill you up until you combust."
"I feel the thoughts race between us. Things we can’t bear to pull outside ourselves yet."
"But do I now? My heart has grown larger, inconceivably, since my mother’s death. Now it’s large enough to hold all of us, including Kumquat. Including myself."