BANYAN MOON A NOVEL THAU THAI
INTRODUCTION
At first, there was no sign of the red tide, except for a tightness in their throats as they picked their way through dune grass that bristled against their legs. Three shades of brown, three sets of stalks, wild as the vegetation prowling along the coast. Ann, seven years old and dying to run down to the surf, reached down to scratch her ankle, but her mother, Hương, pulled her up, in a silent hurry, though there was no appointment to make, no work to rush to that day.
A rare day of repose for the Tran women, and one that each measured with her own internal expectation, none of which overlapped. The morning was still, if portentous. “You’re so slow, con,” Hương said. “Little lost turtle.” It was hard to tell if she was teasing. Hương’s voice shouldered an edge, something related to sarcasm, though Ann will never be able to pinpoint
exactly what, even years later when she is an adult.
Ann peered up at her mother until she saw the shadow of a smile. Really
just a pull of Hương’s lips, drawn out like a concession. Ann let herself relax
when her mother took her hand, smoothing her thumb over Ann’s knuckles.
As the three of them tracked through the shell-pebbled gray sand, their
noses began to twitch, an unfamiliar push of sinuses against their skulls. The
red tide hit them then. They coughed, then hid their coughs from each other,
trying to smile against the thrash of a March wind, a product of the
unseasonable cold front this time of year.
THAO THAI lives in Ohio with her husband and daughter. Her work has
been published in The Los Angeles Review of Books, Wired, the Sunday Long
Read, Catapult, and other publications. She received her MFA from Ohio
State University and her MA from the University of Chicago.