All names, places and references are fictional. All characters are over eighteen.
The story of An.
Something I learned when I married into my wife's family is that the terms Uncle and Auntie are used for more than blood relations, but generally in the same context. Someone near the age of your parents or at least older than you are but that showed the same love and concern that your parents did, or maybe should have.
I met my wife Lan when I was stationed in Houston and we hit it off. Her family worked several fishing boats in the Gulf. I'm not sure they were terribly happy with her meeting a white guy, but they let her decide and we married within the first year of dating. We didn't waste too much time in that we had our son and daughter in the two years following and had bought a small house in a nice neighborhood in Augusta Georgia,.
We'd been living in our house for about two years, when Larry and Julie moved into our neighborhood. My wife met Julie one morning when she was walking through the neighborhood and they hit it off as they were both Vietnamese. When Julie got pregnant, my wife helped her. As her daughter got older, my wife watched her while Julie worked. Her daughter's name was Beth An. But her mom called her An, so that's how we knew her as well.
After about three years, Julie and Larry divorced. Come to find out, Julie was his fourth wife, and as far as the Army was concerned, he was not fully divorced from his third wife when he married Julie. He was busted and kicked out of the Army for fraud, which was somewhat surprising for a Captain. Julie stayed in the area and had worked her butt off to raise An as a single mom.
My wife and I had watched An grow up over the years and quite often attended school functions she was in, especially if Julie had to work. During high school, I will say that the pandemic almost crushed her. She wasn't driven in school, for her it was more about the social aspect of seeing her friends and interacting with people.
When she was forced to homeschool it hurt her more than just academically. Julie couldn't help her with some of her homework, so I volunteered to help. I'd not go so far as to say I tutored her as that implies that I could teach her. It was more like we figured the material out together along with the help of Google. We were thick as thieves for most of that year. As soon as I got off work, she'd be at the house and we'd knock out all of her classwork and homework. She was a very smart girl, but didn't care for the structure of school, especially the homeschool stuff. Luckily she had a sense of humor because aside from help researching stuff on Google, all I could really offer was a laugh every now and then.
An graduated, but I think that she was burnt out on school and wanted so she got a job as soon as she could. Given her need to be around people, it wasn't a surprise to learn that she'd gotten a job at Applebee's. She loved to meet people and her naturally bubbly personality meant she did pretty well in tips. It does bear mentioning that her looks alone could have easily gotten her the tips, she was a stunningly beautiful young lady.
She had some of her dad's height which put her at around five foot six or so, but her mom's build which combined with her raven hair and light brown eyes made her hard to miss. But the one thing most people noticed first was her warm smile. She had a very natural understanding of human interactions and could distinguish between playful, friendly flirting and what would cross into harassment and had a natural way to defuse most situations.
The last time I had seen her since her graduation was on my birthday a couple of years ago. She had been working there for several years and had just turned 21. I got one of those free birthday entree coupons in the mail and my wife wanted to go... so we went. We ordered and she and my wife spoke in Vietnamese. I understood enough to learn that she wasn't happy with her boyfriend. Apparently, he was a young Army soldier and while they lived together with her mom, he spent the majority of his time playing video games.
An was her normal bubbly self. She took our orders and even brought out a beer for my wife. Their conversation turned to what sounded like my wife asking about him taking care of her and based on An's color, she didn't expect that question. She would nervously glance at me as if trying to see if I could understand what they were talking about. I had learned to not react to what I heard, as that would give too much away in that I could understand most of what they discussed. I couldn't speak it, but understanding it allowed me to be an unassuming fly on the wall.
An shared that her boyfriend was almost scared of intimacy and would frequently lose his erection mid performance or finish well before she really got started. I ate my burger and thought to myself, that poor guy had no idea what he was missing out on. Based on An's appearance alone, she was stunning and I knew from her mom's discussions with my wife that she was like her mom in as much as she needed good hard sex to get off.
Honestly the conversation was depressing. My wife had lost her libido quite a few years back, so the mere mention of sex was grounds for a fight. She wasn't comfortable with that topic and I felt she was too embarrassed to go to a doctor. I had tried early on to convince her to go for her benefit, but she only saw me as trying to get her to go to the doctors for my benefit. That led to many fights, that were if anything, really irrational and that led to me dropping the subject all together.
What we later learned, albeit too late, was that she had Stage 4 Cervical cancer that had metastasized. She was beyond hard headed and hated the idea of losing her hair, so much so that she refused any cancer treatments, except for pain meds in her last days of hospice care.
My kids saw it as her being vain. She was a complex woman and while I'd love to say I knew her reasoning, I didn't. We'd stopped being intimate well before her diagnosis and she had closed down and didn't like talking about her health. I had a feeling she knew something was wrong, but refused to get checked. I could second guess all of the things I could have done, but it wouldn't have changed her mind or brought her back.
My son and daughter were heartbroken that their mom passed away and I felt they wanted to stay with me, but both of them had their own families and both lived out of state. Life had to continue for all of us. They both called daily for most of a year before we settled back into our normal weekly calls.
It took me about eighteen months to start to feel sort of normal. I still missed how comforting it was to have her near me and to hear her laugh, even though it was mean spirited occasionally, mostly at my expense.
It had been a full two years since I'd last been in the restaurant, and honestly I was only there for the free entree and a shake. I wasn't dressed up, but had on a nice shirt and some jeans. I got there and was greeted by An at the door. It sort of looked like she was a manager now. She smiled and gave me a huge hug. "Happy birthday Uncle Dave!" She was so bubbly that I had to smile. She walked me over to a booth and told the young lady that came up that she'd take care of me. The last time I had seen her was at my wife's funeral.
She asked how I was doing and I managed to say that I was finally getting out of my funk and starting to get out more. I asked how her boyfriend was and she rolled her eyes and sat down next to me in the booth. "He's the same, but still better and safer than most options, so he's good for now, sometimes, almost..." She giggled and put her head on my shoulder and asked what I wanted for lunch. She quietly said, "don't worry, anything on the menu for my favorite Uncle."
I laughed, "I'm easy, just a cheeseburger with no onions and a vanilla shake please."
She leaned over and gave me a peck on the cheek and ran off to put my order in. I should have known what was coming, but by the time I noticed, literally every employee in the restaurant and a few patrons were headed to my booth and began to sing Happy Birthday with An leading it all. I swear she looked like the leader of a marching band as they came over with her huge smile leading the way.
I took it in stride and because of An's personality, I was actually laughing and enjoying it. They brought out a small scoop of ice cream with a candle and An asked me to blow out the candle and make a wish.
I blew it out and thanked everyone as An sat down next to me. "It's bad luck to share your wish, but I hope you're happy, regardless. Love ya... I'll be back out with your food in a minute."
I laughed and gave her a hug thanking her for everything.
She brought my food out and sat with me for a few minutes before leaving to help some of the other staff. I sat there eating and watching her interactions with customers and staff and she never lost her smile. It was so genuine and it seemed like she cared about every single person. It stung a bit when I thought back about how inviting she had been when I came in earlier.
I finished and An was pushing back pretty hard on the tip I was leaving, but I insisted that she could use it to buy a round for her friends after work. She reluctantly took it, but I did hear a few choice Vietnamese words. She held my hand as we walked to the door. "Uncle Dave, please tell me you need change for this?" As she waved the hundred dollar bill in my face.
"That is for you. Share it with your friends if you want, but I wanted to thank you for the smile you put on my face today."
"Hold on, here put this on, I'm getting a picture to send to mom and I'll send you a copy as well."
She put a little birthday hat on me and took the picture and sent it to me.
