The storage facility sat between a tire shop and a check-cashing place on International Boulevard. Maria got there first. She sat in her Accord with the engine running, air conditioning on, watching the entrance. Twenty minutes early. That was like her. David would be late. That was like him.
She checked her phone. Nothing from Tom about the kids. Nothing from David either. Three years since they'd spoken, not counting the text messages after Mom died. Brief, functional texts. The funeral home needs a decision. Did you call Uncle Duc? I'll handle the flowers.
A truck pulled up, primer gray with a cracked windshield. David. He'd gotten heavier. His work boots hit the asphalt hard. She turned off the engine.
"Maria."
"David."
They stood there in the heat. Cars passed on International. Someone's bass rattled windows three blocks away.
"You have the key?" he asked.
She held it up. Unit 47. Their mother had paid for ten years in advance, the manager had told Maria on the phone. Paid cash. That was two years ago, when the cancer came back.
They walked to the entrance together but not together. David lit a cigarette.
"You can't smoke in there," Maria said.
"I know that."
He flicked it into the parking lot half-smoked. They went inside.
The hallways were yellow under fluorescent lights. Their footsteps echoed. Unit 47 was in the back corner, a ten-by-twelve. Maria worked the lock. It stuck, then gave.
The smell hit them first. Mothballs and something else, something older. Incense maybe. Their mother's smell. David made a sound in his throat.
Boxes stacked to the ceiling. Neat labels in their mother's handwriting. TAX 1995-2000. WINTER CLOTHES. PHOTOS. A dresser they recognized from the old apartment on 23rd. Two suitcases. More boxes behind those.
"Jesus," David said. "How long did she have this place?"
"The manager said at least fifteen years. That's when they bought the business."
They stood looking at it all. Neither moved to touch anything.
"I'll get some trash bags from the truck," David said.
"We're not throwing everything away."
"I didn't say we were."
He left. Maria pulled down the nearest box. PHOTOS. She opened it carefully. Their father in Army uniform, 1968. She'd seen this one. Their mother at maybe twenty, in Saigon, wearing an ao dai. She'd never seen this one. Their mother looked like someone else entirely. Beautiful. Unworried.
David came back with a box of contractor bags and two bottles of water. He handed her one.
"Thanks."
They started working. Not talking much. David took the left side, Maria the right. The dresser had their mother's good clothes, the ones she never wore. A silk dress with the tags still on. Scarves. A coat that must have cost three hundred dollars.
"When did she buy this stuff?" David asked.
"I don't know."
In the bottom drawer, wrapped in tissue paper, jewelry boxes. Maria opened one. A gold necklace, heavy, real gold. Another box had jade earrings. Another, a ring with a stone she couldn't identify.
"David. Look at this."
He came over. Picked up the necklace. Weighed it in his hand.
"This is worth something."
"She never wore any of this. I never saw it."
"She had secrets," David said. He put the necklace back carefully.
They kept working. Tax returns. Medical records. Their report cards from elementary school. David's first communion certificate. Maria's high school graduation program. Their mother had saved everything.
In a Nike shoebox, letters. All in Vietnamese. The paper yellowed, fragile. Some from the seventies, the stamps showing they'd been mailed from Vietnam. Others newer, from San Jose, Houston, Orange County.
"Can you read any of it?" David asked.
"You know I can't."
"She never taught you?"
"She never taught either of us."
"She taught me some."
Maria looked at him. "When?"
"When you were at college. Those four years. We talked more."
This hurt in a way Maria hadn't expected. She went back to her side of the unit.
Two hours in, they were both sweating despite the November cold outside. David had filled three bags with old clothes for Goodwill. Maria had three boxes of things to keep. The letters. The photos. The jewelry.
"I'm taking a break," David said.
They went outside. Sat on the loading dock. David lit another cigarette.
"I didn't know you started smoking again."
"Divorce will do that."
"I heard. From Uncle Duc. I'm sorry."
"Yeah, well. Shannon got tired of me. Can't blame her."
They sat quiet. A plane passed overhead, low, heading for Oakland Airport.
"You could have called," Maria said. "When Mom got bad."
"Could I? You made it pretty clear what you thought of me."
"That was three years ago."
"So?"
"So things change."
"Not that much."
Maria wanted to argue but didn't. They went back inside.
In the back corner, behind the suitcases, a filing cabinet. Locked. David forced it with a screwdriver from his truck. The top drawer had insurance papers, the deed to the house Mom had sold in 2015, bank statements. The middle drawer, more of the same. The bottom drawer, a manila envelope, thick, rubber-banded.
Maria opened it. More letters, these in English. From someone named Tuan in Vietnam. The earliest from 1992.
"Dear Sister," Maria read aloud. "I hope this letter finds you in good health. I am writing to tell you that our father passed away last month..."
She stopped reading. Looked at David.
"Sister?" he said.
They read the rest together. Letters spanning twenty years. This Tuan talking about his life in Ho Chi Minh City. His children. His work as a mechanic. Asking for money sometimes. Thanking her for money other times. And always calling her Sister.
At the bottom of the envelope, a photo. A Vietnamese man, maybe fifty, standing with a woman and two teenagers. On the back: "Tuan and family, 2018."
He looked like their mother. Same eyes. Same sharp cheekbones.
"She had a brother," David said. "A brother she never told us about."
"Half-brother maybe. She was so young when she left."
"Still."
They sat on the concrete floor of the unit, surrounded by boxes and bags. The fluorescent light hummed above them.
"Remember when she wouldn't let us study Vietnamese in high school?" Maria said.
"Yeah. Said Spanish was more useful."
"She was cutting us off from all this."
"Or protecting us from it."
Maria looked at her brother. "Since when are you on her side?"
"I was always on her side. I was the one here. When she got confused and called me by Dad's name. When she forgot English for days at a time. When she cried about people I'd never heard of. Where were you?"
"I was working. I have kids."
"So did she."
They were quiet again. Down the hall, someone else's rolling door thundered open.
"I'm sorry," Maria said. "I should have been here more."
"Yeah. You should have."
But he said it without anger now. Just tired.
They went back to sorting. Found more letters from Tuan. Found photos of people they didn't recognize. Found their mother's citizenship papers from 1985. Found a journal, also in Vietnamese, filled with their mother's tight handwriting.
"We need someone to translate all this," Maria said.
"Uncle Duc could do it."
"Would he tell us the truth though?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, families keep secrets. Vietnamese families especially. If there's something in here Mom didn't want us to know..."
"Then maybe we shouldn't know it."
Maria looked at her brother. "You don't want to know?"
"I want to know why she left us with Dad that summer. I want to know why she worked three jobs instead of letting us get jobs in high school. I want to know why she never went back to Vietnam, not once. But we're not going to find those answers in these letters."
"How do you know?"
"Because the answer to all of it is the same. She did what she thought she had to do."
Maria felt tears coming. Pressed her palms against her eyes.
"I said things to you," she said. "Three years ago. About Karen."
"Yeah."
"I was wrong. I mean, I wasn't wrong that you were drinking too much. But I was wrong to say it like that."
"I was drinking too much."
"Still."
David stood up. Stretched. His back popped.
"We should get dinner," he said. "Come back tomorrow to finish."
"There's that pho place on East 12th."
"Mom hated that place. Said they used powder instead of real bones for the broth."
"She hated everywhere that wasn't her kitchen."
They both smiled a little at this.
Outside, the sun was setting. The storage facility's lights had come on, harsh white LED. They stood by their vehicles.
"I'll take the jewelry and the letters home," Maria said. "Keep them safe."
"What about the brother? Tuan?"
"I don't know. We could write to him."
"And say what? Hi, we're your sister's kids, we didn't know you existed?"
"Something like that."
David pulled out his cigarettes, then put them back.
"She sent him money," he said. "All those years. Working at the factory, cleaning houses, sending money to Vietnam."
"We don't know how much."
"Any amount was too much. We needed that money."
"Did we though?"
David looked at her hard. "Yeah, Maria. We did. You don't remember because you were younger. The electricity getting cut off. The eviction notices. You don't remember because she protected you from it."
"She protected both of us."
"No. She protected you. I was her messenger. Tell the landlord we'll have it next week. Tell PG&E we need a payment plan. Nine years old, talking to bill collectors."
Maria had never heard this before. It sat between them like another box to sort through.
"I'll call Uncle Duc tonight," she said. "Ask him about translating."
"Good."
"David?"
"What?"
"Tomorrow, after we finish here. Do you want to get a beer or something?"
He looked at her for a long moment. "I don't drink anymore."
"Coffee then."
"Maybe."
He got in his truck. Maria watched him drive away. The storage facility's gate clanged shut behind him.
She sat in her car for a while. Called Tom, told him she'd be late. Called Uncle Duc, who agreed to look at the letters but warned her she might not like everything she found. That was how he put it. You might not like everything you find.
The next morning they met again at unit 47. Worked mostly in silence but it was different now. When they found their parents' wedding album, they looked through it together. When they found the notebook where their mother had practiced writing English, they both cried a little.
"Look at this," David said.
He'd found a recipe box. Their mother's recipes, some in Vietnamese, some in English, some in both. Pho. Bun bo hue. The lemongrass chicken she made for special occasions. But also spaghetti with hot dogs, the thing she made when money was tight. Tuna casserole from a church cookbook.
"She was trying to be American," Maria said.
"She was American."
"You know what I mean."
They divided the recipes. Copies for both of them, Maria would handle it. They divided the photos too. The jewelry they'd decide later, after they knew what it was worth.
By afternoon they'd emptied the unit. Swept it out. David did that, wouldn't let Maria help. When he finished, they stood in the empty space. It looked smaller now. Just concrete and metal and fluorescent light.
"Feels wrong," David said. "Like we're erasing her."
"We're not. We're just moving her somewhere else."
They turned in the key to the manager, a young Sikh guy who said he was sorry for their loss. In the parking lot, they stood awkwardly again.
"That coffee," David said. "We could do that now."
They went to a place on Park Boulevard. Sat outside even though it was cold. David had black coffee. Maria had a latte.
"I want to write to him," Maria said. "Tuan."
"Okay."
"Will you help?"
"I don't know what help I'd be."
"You were here with her at the end. You could tell him about that."
David was quiet for a bit. "She talked about Vietnam at the end. A lot. Places I'd never heard of. Cu Chi. Vung Tau. She talked about swimming in the river as a kid."
"She never talked about that stuff before."
"No. But at the end, it all came back. Like she was young again. She kept asking for her mother. In Vietnamese, but I understood that much."
"What did you tell her?"
"I told her she was coming. That she'd be there soon."
Maria reached across the table. Took her brother's hand. He let her.
"We should go to Vietnam," she said. "Take some of her ashes. Meet Tuan."
"That's a big trip."
"Mom never went back. Maybe she couldn't. But we could."
"Maybe."
They finished their coffee. The sun was going down again. The coffee shop was filling with young people on laptops.
"I should go," David said. "Got an early job tomorrow."
"David?"
"Yeah?"
"Can we not wait another three years?"
He looked at her. "I can't do that again. The three years. Especially not now."
"Me neither."
They hugged in the parking lot. First time in three years. David still smelled like cigarettes and sawdust. Like their father had, actually, though Maria didn't say this.
Driving home, Maria thought about their mother. Linh. Who had arrived in America at twenty-two with nothing. Who had built a life, raised two kids, kept her secrets. Who had sent money to a brother she'd never mentioned. Who had saved everything, even the things that hurt to save.
At home, Tom had made dinner. The kids were doing homework. Normal life. But in Maria's trunk sat boxes of another life, a life her mother had lived parallel to the one Maria had known.
That night, she started one of the letters to Tuan with Google Translate. It was clunky but she got the gist. He was asking about America. What it was like. Whether their mother was happy. Whether she'd married a good man. Whether her children spoke Vietnamese.
No, Maria thought. We don't speak Vietnamese. But we're learning.
She texted David: "Uncle Duc can meet us Saturday to translate."
He texted back: "Ok."
Then, a minute later: "We should bring him lunch. Mom would want us to."
"Yes," she wrote. "She would."
Saturday they met at Uncle Duc's apartment in Alameda. He was their mother's cousin, not really an uncle, but that's what they'd always called him. He made tea. They sat at his kitchen table with the letters spread between them.
"Your mother," he said, picking up one of the old letters from Vietnam. "She never told you about Tuan?"
"No," Maria said.
"Never told us about a lot of things," David added.
Uncle Duc nodded. "That was her way. She thought if you didn't know about Vietnam, about the family there, you could be fully American. No divided loyalty."
"But she sent money," Maria said.
"Of course. Family is family. Even with an ocean between."
He read them some of the letters. Tuan talking about their grandfather, who had fought for the South and spent five years in reeducation camps. About their grandmother, who had died while Linh was on the boat to Malaysia. About the coffee shop Tuan had opened with the money Linh sent. About his daughter, who wanted to study in America.
"She never told him she was sick," Uncle Duc said, looking at the last letters. "He doesn't know she's gone."
Maria and David looked at each other.
"We'll write to him," Maria said.
"Yes. You should. He's family."
They spent the afternoon going through more letters. Uncle Duc translated, sometimes crying at parts he wouldn't translate fully. "Just sad things," he'd say. "War things. You don't need to know."
But they did need to know. That was becoming clear. They needed to know all of it, even the parts that hurt.
When they left Uncle Duc's, they had pages of notes. Addresses. Names. A family tree Maria had sketched while Uncle Duc talked.
"It's a lot," David said in the parking lot.
"Yeah."
"Mom carried all this. Her whole life here, she carried it."
"Now we carry it."
David nodded. "I guess we do."
They met more often after that. Coffee every couple weeks. Dinner sometimes with Maria's family. David was good with her kids, taught them card tricks, fixed their bikes. Things got easier between them. Not fixed, but easier.
They wrote to Tuan together. Told him about their mother's death. About her life in America. About finding his letters. He wrote back, in broken English, saying he was sad but grateful to hear from them. He sent more photos. His daughter did look like their mother. Same sharp cheekbones. Same careful eyes.
Six months later, they scattered some of their mother's ashes in the bay, off the Berkeley Marina. It was May, foggy and cold. Uncle Duc came. Some ladies from their mother's church. David's ex-wife, surprisingly, who had loved their mother.
Maria saved some ashes for Vietnam. She and David had started planning the trip. Looking at flights. Booking time off work. They'd stay two weeks. Meet Tuan. Visit the village where their mother was born. See the river she swam in as a child.
"She wouldn't approve," David said after the ceremony, as they sat in Maria's car watching the fog roll in.
"No. She'd say we're wasting money."
"She'd say Vietnam is the past."
"She'd be wrong though."
"Yeah," David said. "She'd be wrong."
But they both knew she wouldn't be entirely wrong. Vietnam was the past. But the past lived in the present, in storage units and letters and jewelry hidden in drawers. In brothers across the ocean and stories never told. In the space between what was said and what was kept secret.
They drove back into Oakland as the fog lifted. The city looked clean and bright in the afternoon sun. David had Maria drop him at his apartment, a new place near the lake. He was doing better. Working steady. Not drinking.
"Next week?" he said.
"Coffee Wednesday."
"See you then."
Maria drove home thinking about their mother. How she'd crossed an ocean at twenty-two. How she'd made a life from nothing. How she'd protected them from things they were only now discovering needed no protection.
At home, she found Tom helping their daughter with a school project about immigration. They were supposed to interview someone who had immigrated to America.
"Can we interview Grandma Linh?" her daughter asked.
"Grandma Linh died, honey. Remember?"
"Oh. Right."
Maria sat down with them. "But I can tell you her story. Parts of it anyway."
She told them what she knew. What she was learning. About the boat. The refugee camp. The factory jobs. The brother in Vietnam they'd never met but would, someday soon.
Her daughter took notes in careful handwriting. Like her grandmother's, actually. That same precision. That same care.
That night, Maria looked through the photos again. Found one of their mother from maybe 1990. Standing in front of the old apartment on 23rd. Holding David on her hip, Maria beside her, holding her mother's hand. Their mother looked tired but smiling. She was maybe thirty-two. Younger than Maria was now.
She texted the photo to David.
He texted back: "Look how young she was."
"She was always young," Maria wrote. "We just couldn't see it."
"See you Wednesday."
"See you Wednesday."
Maria put the photos away carefully. Tomorrow she'd start scanning them. Make copies for David. For Tuan. For her kids when they were older and wanted to know where they came from.
Outside, Oakland went on with its Saturday night. Music from someone's backyard party. Sirens in the distance. A train horn from down by the port. The sounds of a city that had taken them all in, their mother and father first, then Maria and David, now Maria's kids. A city of immigrants and children of immigrants and children of children of immigrants, all carrying their storage units of memory, their untranslated letters, their jewelry hidden in drawers.
She thought about unit 47, empty now. Someone else would rent it soon. Fill it with their own secrets. Their own past. Their own things too precious to throw away but too painful to keep close.
That was all right. That was how it worked. You held what you could. You let go of what you couldn't. You translated what was possible and accepted that some things would always remain in another language, another time, another country across an ocean that some people crossed and never crossed back.