Like a berry hanging from a vine that’s the first sign, according to the experts. But you didn’t know it then: back in Vietnam fruit grew on trees and bushes. It didn’t hide and rupture like cherries too ripe inside your wife’s head.

Even war has its starts, its survivors. All you got was a thud and a body choking on itself. That was when we became refugees, too.

One day we told you we saw her, going elsewhere. At last, when you finally looked, you found her picking fruit in familiar fields, urging you to come back home.