Chapter Five- Losing Love- Empathy

"My mother acted thunderstruck when she heard Lien's accusations; not so much to show humiliations, which was expected, but from what seemed to be genuine sorrow- empathy form one woman to another who knew what betrayal was like (136-137)." In this passage, Le Ly has just learned that Anh's wife is the wife of the father of her child. Le Ly's mother empathizes with Anh's wife when she realizes that her daughter has betrayed her. The hurt Lien had to feel, on top of being very sick, is a pain that Le Ly's mother knew well. At this point I imagined how Le Ly felt in committing adultery. Le Ly wrote that Anh avoided her the day after they made love, out of guilt she supposed. Le Ly shrugged it off even with the negative mood now associated with Anh's and her relationship. She didn't really regret sleeping with a married man and went on with her daily chores. Even when Lien confronted Le Ly about her husband's infidelity, she seemed more worried about Anh and getting kicked out of the house rather that the emotional damage she had done to a family and a marriage. When Le Ly's mother found out of the situation between Le Ly and Lien, she begged with every strategy she could come up with that they might not be kicked out of the house. She verbally shrunk Le Ly's very existence down to nothing in proposal for Lien's mercy. In the end, Lien kicked Le Ly and her mother out, just as I would have done. I think that especially with Lien being sick, she needs her husband's full support and attention now more than ever, and to have Le Ly and Anh's baby in the picture would be a distraction and a huge inconvenience for the family Le Ly and Anh had just hurt.