Epigraph

Epigraph

Baan Chomsin, Hua Hin, 1941.

“… Chonlada leaned back against the railing, a frown creasing her eleven-year-old face. In her lap sat a small notebook where she had tried, with all the determination of youth, to copy lines of English. She had managed only a few, the letters uneven and stubborn.

Narisa, now seven, peered over her sister’s shoulder. “It looks like a little chicken walked across the page,” she declared, then clapped her hands over her mouth as though she’d said something far too bold. For a moment, silence hung between them. Then Chonlada’s lips twitched, and a small laugh escaped. It grew, against her will almost, until she was laughing fully. Narisa, delighted at her sister’s surrender, joined in. Their laughter rang out across the veranda, spilling into the dusk air. It was not the sort of laughter that mocked. It was the relief of sisters knowing they were safe, here, together, even as the world around them grew more confusing by the day. They laughed until Narisa leaned against Chonlada’s arm, the notebook forgotten.

This would stay with Chonlada all her life. Decades later, when war and loss had written themselves into their family’s story, she would remember that evening most of all, two sisters laughing as though nothing could ever touch them.…”