Summary
Chapter 16
Grazina feels depressed on Christmas Eve. Hai tells her it is likely clinical depression, and reminds her of the power of eating carrots and stomping on bread rolls. Grazina suddenly remembers that she is meant to visit her son, Lucas. She gives Hai an old nurse's scrub top and dresses herself in a lumpy wool sweater with an owl knitted across the front. She makes green peppers stuffed with fish, tomatoes, and onions. They take a cab to Lucas's condo, which clearly indicates his wealth. Lucas's wife puts on false welcoming airs while his son makes snide comments. Hai wishes that Grazina would respond with a "vinegary remark," but she claps and mumbles in Lithuanian. Hai takes her to the restroom to check in with her, and asks if she wants to leave. Upon returning to the dinner table, Lucas tells his children that their real grandfather was a war hero. He claims to have inherited superior genes compared to his sister, who is Jonas's daughter. All of this leads to the announcement that Lucas found a nearby assisted living home for Grazina to live in.
Back home, Grazina rigorously bathes herself due to her grandson's comments about her smelling like urine. Hai reassures her that she is a clean person. She asks him to undress and he does. According to Grazina, she escaped the tyrants in Europe and achieved her dreams in America, only for it all to slip away. At the end of the chapter, Grazina tells Hai that the hardest thing is to live an unremarkable life, and that he is her friend.
Chapter 17
BJ announces that HomeMarket headquarters decided that the chain will now sell pizza bagels. Hai speculates that this means that HomeMarket is losing money. The crew carpools in the delivery van to a bar where they will watch BJ perform her entrance song and compete in an amateur wrestling match. A producer named DJ Red Card will also be in attendance. Someone spray-painted "Deez Nuts" onto the side of the van, and BJ takes this as her wrestler name. Hai notes that BJ unfortunately resembles Big Bird from Sesame Street. BJ performs the same set she showed the crew at HomeMarket, except this time, Maureen comes on partway through and plays the banjo, causing the audience to jeer. Prior to competing, BJ had arranged with her competitor, an elderly woman named Miss Magician, that BJ would win the match so that Miss Magician could retire. They choreographed a fight that made it look as though she "destroyed, in bizarre fashion, an aging and beloved local icon." The crowd expresses its displeasure.
BJ sobs in the van after the match. DJ Red Card walks up, raising BJ's hopes, only to disappoint her by selling weed instead of a management deal. When the crew drives back to HomeMarket, BJ orders pizza from Sgt. Pepper's, the neighboring place that is always empty. The girl who walks the pizza over yells at them for stealing business from her parents (who own Sgt. Pepper's) by advertising pizza bagels. After Maureen and Wayne leave, BJ, Sony, and Hai sit in the van and eat the pizza. They notice what appears to be a wild, rabid animal in front of HomeMarket. Upon closer inspection, it turns out to be a freezing homeless man. BJ opens the store, works to warm the man up, and feeds him.
Chapter 18
Hai uses a pepper grinder to grind his pills. He accompanies Sony to visit Sony's mother, and Hai's Aunt Kim asks him in Vietnamese about Sony's well-being. Hai assures her that he is looking out for Sony. While Sony fetches a cup of soda, Kim privately laments over why Sony could not have been a prodigy like other neurodivergent people. Hai defends Sony. Much to Hai's shock, Kim reveals that Sony's father, Minh, died four years ago. Before Sony and Hai leave, Kim requests that Hai tell his mother that her sister is in Florida, should she ask about Kim.
After dropping Sony off, Hai rides to his mother's house and calls her on the phone to wish her a happy New Year. She tells him she is proud of him for carving out his own opportunity in life. High on Dilaudid, Hai bikes through town, calling out for his deceased grandmother and uncle. He slips on a patch of ice in front of Grazina's house, and she comes outside, addressing him as Sergeant Pepper. Breaking down in a fit of despair, Hai cries out that he cannot quit. Grazina brings out a radio to play orchestral music. Hai asks Grazina to cut his hair according to a Vietnamese Tết (New Year) tradition.
Chapter 19
A boy refreshes himself in a motel bathroom before having a sexual encounter. The man is missing an ear, having just returned from serving in the military in Iraq. The man, whose name is Tom, is a regular at HomeMarket who was present the night BJ performed a practice set. On another night, Hai sees his mother at a CVS. He rushes out before she notices him. Meanwhile, Grazina's mental condition steadily deteriorates. She resumes conversations started decades ago and cries out of nowhere. HomeMarket provides stability in Hai's life. One night, he and his coworkers (alongside a regular named Cherry) wait for the power to come back on during a storm. Another day, a regional manager named Vogel pays a visit, demanding to know where the pizza bagels are. The disrespectful way he treats BJ unsettles the crew. He dumps a batch of cornbread in the trash after noticing that it has added sugar, throws away Sony's origami decor, and demands that BJ speak with him in the office. Hai overhears Vogel tell BJ that she will have to fire two employees.
Hai hides in the freezer until Maureen joins him. She tells Hai that she has a lump in her chest and suspects that it is cancerous. Russia calls them out to help serve cake at a birthday party being held in the restaurant. Maureen stays to watch the family eat cake.
Chapter 20
Spring arrives. Hai comes home one night to a dark, empty house. He decides to call Lucas, who informs him that Grazina is in the hospital after suffering a fall due to missing her medication dose. Lucas asks Hai to clean the house and keep Grazina in one piece until she can move to the Hamilton Home. Hai goes to visit Grazina in a rehab ward. She appears glazed over and does not recognize him right away, though she does finally address him as Sergeant Pepper. She asks Hai to tell her about his life. He opens up about the incredible moments he shared with Noah. Noah's death is the true reason why Hai dropped out of school and returned home. He could not bear being alone in his grief, but he felt unable to articulate this to his mother, who had never met Noah. Grazina accepts Hai for who he is. Eventually, she loses track of the conversation and of herself, and Hai assures her that she is still herself.
Hai calls Sony as he leaves the nursing home. They rewatch Gettysburg together, and Hai recalls the day that Sony became enamored with Civil War history. Years earlier, the cousins watched a war movie marathon on Memorial Day. One movie depicted the Vietnam War, with white actors in makeup playing the Vietnamese soldiers fighting during night battles. Hai remembers Sony pointing at a mass of corpses and asking, "Is that us?" Hai repeats this question as they watch Confederate soldiers die in Gettysburg.
Analysis
Upon entering Lucas's condo, Hai immediately notices the stark contrast between Grazina's living situation and that of her son. He observes that to be wealthy means "to live in a house where all the tools of living are out of sight" (Chapter 16). The space that creates this façade also extends to physical interactions with others, particularly those deemed different. When Lucas's wife greets her mother-in-law, Hai takes note of the hug given "without actually touching" Grazina, the kisses given "nearly a foot from Grazina's face" (16). Lucas's wife, Clara, strikes Hai as disingenuous and performative in such a way that is actually cruel. Hai prefers the artifice of HomeMarket's processed food over the inauthentic atmosphere of this family meal.
The way that Grazina's son and his family treat her makes her feel as though she will disappear. She asks Hai to confirm that she is real, and her hunch that her family would like her to disappear is confirmed when they try to convince her to move into a residential care facility. On the one hand, Grazina's current living situation is precarious. Her house is located in an environmental hazard zone known as the "Devil's Armpit" due to nearby toxic sludge. The inside is decaying, odorous, and cluttered. However, on the other hand, Grazina has lived there for nearly five decades and remains attached to the place. In addition, Hai perceives the distinct lack of love and care from Grazina's son and his family.
BJ chooses to assist a freezing homeless man without hesitation in Chapter 17. Although her identity as a manager matters a great deal to her (as can be seen by her proclamation "'I’m the fucking manager'" made at the end of the chapter), she automatically ignores any kind of corporate rulebook that would prohibit her from bringing a homeless person into the store after closing time. BJ does not equate authority with callous disregard. Instead, she promptly brings him in and instructs Sony and Hai to help her get the man warmed up and fed. In this way, she acknowledges his humanity. When the man tastes BJ's cornbread, Hai notices "a discernible personhood unfurling through the matted hair and beard, like a blooming diabolical flower" (17). This blooming is only possible because BJ values people over rules and profit.
The combination of drug intoxication and the weight of family secrets overwhelms Hai. When Hai and Sony visit Kim, Sony's mother, in prison, she informs Hai that Sony's father died four years prior. Incredulous, Hai exclaims, "'What am I supposed to do with this?'" (Chapter 18). His Uncle Minh becomes another ghost in Hai's life, joining his Bà ngoại. Hai himself feels like a fractured ghost. He explains to Sony that his "'ghost is in pieces...It’s all over the place, caught in all the spots where [he] snagged [him]self'” (Chapter 18). The novel's narrative style reflects this. In the first section of Chapter 19, the perspective shifts as Hai has a sexual encounter in a motel room. He is referred to as "the boy" instead of by his name. This contributes to a sense of disembodiment as Hai seeks a moment of intimacy with a near-stranger in order to ground himself. As everything in Hai's life seems to unravel, his shifts at HomeMarket and his camaraderie with his coworkers provide an anchor.
Vuong moves into the second-person perspective to describe what it is like to be admitted to a hospital or nursing home. This turns the reader into a participant in the story rather than a passive observer. The passage begins with the phrase, "[i]f it's your turn, and you never want it to be your turn, you'll be wheeled in, always wheeled in, by people young as your children, maybe even grandchildren" (Chapter 20). The acknowledgement that no one ever wants it to be their turn recognizes the widespread fear of aging, illness, pain, and death. Vuong heightens the tension in this moment by employing repetition and accumulating clauses. Before he became a novelist, Vuong established himself as a poet, which can be seen in the lyrical pace of this passage.
