Living With an Inmate’s Wife
while studying abroad in a small town in France
It was a freezing winter in 2019 toward the end of my first semester in France. I received a call from Du, a Vietnamese classmate, as I was making my next move in a Monopoly game with my classmates. The call wasn’t a big surprise since she often missed classes and asked to borrow my notes. I muted the phone and told my friends it wasn’t a big matter and leisurely moved my game piece. The phone rang one more time. Although it was the same ringtone, I felt a weird sense of urgency that compelled me to pick it up. I excused myself and went inside the bathroom.
“Hi! Can I stay at your flat? Maybe one week!” She was sobbing on the other side.
“What happened? Are you ok? Where are you?” I felt both nervous and curious.
“On the street. I have no place to stay now. I’m homeless,” she sobbed harder.
“Where is your husband?”
“I can’t tell you. It’s tragic, a real tragedy. I can’t believe I’m homeless now.”
I asked for her current location, apologized to my friends for leaving the game unfinished, and darted my bike through the freezing air of Aix-en-Provence. In my callow mind, all I could assume was that her husband had mistreated or betrayed her. I bought into this assumption so quickly that my heart…
