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Mr. & Mrs. Lap
Mrs. Lap’s head felt empty. She still did not have a complete understanding of what had happened. Mrs. Lap had thought all along that her family would be headed toward safety together. The reassurance of having her children and Mr. Lap by her side had kept her in one piece. Now he was gone. She could not get the last image of Mr. Lap out of her head—standing outside the bus, crying. That was the second time she had ever seen him cry. The first time was when he proposed to her and she didn’t quite say yes.
Mr. Lap and Mrs. Lap met at the ages of five and six, respectively. Living across the street from one another, their parents had been longtime friends. Mrs. Lap remembered how the two had spent their childhood days playing house and pretending to cook. As they got older, Mr. Lap would come over to her house strumming on the guitar while her younger sister, who had a beautiful voice, sang. Mrs. Lap considered the visits completely innocent and certainly did not see her childhood friend as a romantic companion. Plus, she always saw girls filtering in and out of his house. He was quite the social butterfly.
Suddenly, Mrs. Lap began to notice that Mr. Lap had been coming over more than usual. She did not pay him much attention. Then one day he approached her with a proposition. He said, “I want to get to know you.” Mrs. Lap was confused. “But you already know me,” she said. He responded with something corny like, “But I want to get to know you in a different way.” He meant he wanted to be her boyfriend. Shortly after, he boldly asked her out to the movies. Hesitant about being alone with him, she said that she would go only if one of her girlfriends went, too. Mr. Lap of course yielded to her wishes and the three of them went to the movies and had dinner.
After several more group dates, Mrs. Lap became more comfortable going out with her suitor alone. Her strict parents demanded to know where she had been when she came home later than usual. Like a good student, she told them she was studying at her friend’s house.
On one particular date, the couple ate dinner and went to the movies. Then Mr. Lap took Mrs. Lap to a park located next to the Notre-Dame Basilica, a landmark cathedral in downtown Saigon with heavy French influences.
Sitting on a bench in the park, Mr. Lap said, “I want to marry you.” Mrs. Lap was silent so he continued. “I’m going somewhere far away.” After another long silence, she finally asked him where. “To Nha Trang, which is far away from Saigon. I’m joining the Air Force and they want me to train out there. If you agree to marry me, I will ask to be stationed closer to home. If not, then I will leave and never come back.” Mr. Lap ended his dramatic speech. Mrs. Lap did not move. She feared marriage for many reasons. At 20, she was still going to school and studying architecture. Also, she only liked him as a friend; she certainly was not in love with him. Things might have been different if they had not grown up together. Maybe she would have seen him in a more romantic light, rather than just the boy she played house with. Mrs. Lap finally broke her silence and expressed all those uncertainties to the man who wanted to marry her. That moment marked the first time she had ever seen him cry. Stunned by the tears he shed for her, Mrs. Lap reconsidered. She thought about how strict her parents were and how marriage would be her ticket to freedom. Plus she really did like him, and she felt terrible for making him cry. After mulling it over in her head, Mrs. Lap, while sitting on the bench in the park next to the biggest Catholic church in Saigon, agreed to the proposal. Mr. Lap stopped crying. The two were married a year later, in 1966. She was 20, he 21.
Mr. Lap stood there until he could no longer see the bus. It made him uneasy not to know where the plane would take his family. In truth, he had only told Mrs. Lap those last reassuring words to ease her fears and possibly his own. He struggled with the reality that he might never see his family again. But the urgency of the situation did not allow Mr. Lap to dwell. He quickly composed himself and thought about his next step. He needed to return to his office at Tan Son Nhat. When he arrived there, he went straight to his collection of vital classified documents and burned them. In the time of war, any information could be used in a dangerous way if it got into the wrong hands. After Mr. Lap burned as much as he could, he went home for dinner.
The bus carrying Mrs. Lap and her children reached the plane that would fly them to Subic Bay, an island in the Philippines. Once again, Mrs. Lap and her children were one of the first to board, so they got a spot in the back. She looked around and noticed the same expression of worry, sadness, and fear clouding everyone’s faces. Mrs. Lap wished things would slow down so she’d have time to think. Then she felt the plane begin to move and take off. Mrs. Lap watched with despair as the ground below her disappeared.
After being in the air for an hour, Mrs. Lap found the flight to be extremely turbulent. Oddly, she did not vomit even though she usually suffered from motion sickness. In a daze, she clung on to some netting as the plane plunged up and down. She tried to digest the fact that today might be the last time she would ever see her husband or her country.
Then something happened and Mrs. Lap snapped out of it. She suddenly felt the magnitude of her responsibility as a mother. She needed to care for Quoc and Uyen, as Mr. Lap instructed. After nine years of marriage, this was the first time she had ever truly been away from him. In the past, Mrs. Lap had spent several nights alone because Mr. Lap’s duties in the Air Force prevented him from coming home in the evening. Those nights made her realize how much she truly loved him. A day was the longest time they had been apart. Now she had to learn to care for herself and her children without her husband. Knowing she could no longer depend on him, Mrs. Lap stopped being sad and looked ahead to their next destination.
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