greybeta | The day when I realized I had become less naive

The first day of kindergarten, I had a friend named Billy Nguyen. He was like me, a son of a Vietnamese war refugee. There's a picture of us in one of my photo albums back home. Our long shadows indicate the picture was taken early in the morning. We smile the smile of kids unsure of what to think on the first day of school.

My parents knew his parents, and in retrospect they had the bond of their motherland with them. I remember playing Super Mario Brothers (the original) with Billy quite a bit. Nintendo was so leet back then. We so much in common and we would have made great friends.

I say "would have" because one day he didn't come to class anymore. When I asked my parents about it, they said that his mom had left for a better place. I would come to find out later that she had died driving on a particularly bad storm that fateful morning. Billy and his dad would be going out to California now.

Then I have this memory, which I'm not even sure if it's a figment of my imagination or reality. We visited the funeral of Billy's mom. For some reason, Billy's dad was surprised to see us. Moreover, my parents whispered something about Billy's dad already taking up another woman. I was just a kid, I just wanted to talk to Billy. He wasn't very talkative for some reason.

I've kept a paper journal off and on since the ninth grade. And I distinctly remember it hit me one day as I was writing about Billy. His dad had taken up another woman so soon after his wife's death. What had Billy thought of that? I don't know, and I know it's none of my business. But I can't help but wonder what's happened to that guy.

That was also the day I became a little less naive.