8. Unloved

 

Love was never named,

never expressed.

 

I thought the Vietnamese language lacked words for it.

That love was theatrical, something from Western imported films.

 

Looking back, I must have felt love with my father:

the ice cream, the park, his arms around me.

 

Once, he hugged me in front of a friend.

Later she said,

‘You are so lucky.

My father never hugged me like that’

 

I thought I was the luckiest daughter in the world.
I clung to that belief for years.

 

I cannot describe unloved.