Calling Home Without Good News

My mother answered the call and immediately turned the camera toward the floor. She was looking for a sandal. One had been beside the kitchen door, she said, and the other had gone somewhere unreasonable.

I waited while the phone showed me a chair leg, a patch of tiles and the side of her hand. Then my father said something from outside, and she carried the phone out to ask him. For nearly a minute nobody was speaking to me. I could hear them looking for the sandal together.

I was in our flat in Hanoi, with our nine-month-old daughter working her way toward an object my wife had just moved out of reach. It was Sunday. I had nothing particular to tell my parents in Đồng Hới. The call had begun because I had seen their names on my phone and, for once, hadn't decided to wait until I had a better reason.

When my mother came back, I asked where the sandal had been. Under the chair, apparently. She blamed the chair.

The news I used to prepare

At university I called home most comfortably when I had passed something. An exam result gave the conversation a purpose. I could say what had happened, answer the questions, then return to the room I shared with Khoa in Cầu Giấy.

On ordinary weeks I sometimes put it off. I imagined my mother asking how I was, and my answer seemed too small to justify a call. The truth was usually that I had attended classes, spent more than I intended on food, and been awake too late. I could summarise the whole week without taking a breath.

I was also concerned with how I sounded. A tired evening could make a normal problem seem serious. If I told my mother I was eating noodles again, she would begin planning what to send from Quảng Bình. If I mentioned a difficult assignment, she would tell me not to stay up so late. I wanted to be treated as independent and kept presenting a carefully edited version of independence.

Later, in Moscow, the distance made each call feel more important. I checked the time difference, looked for a quiet place and sometimes rehearsed the update while waiting for the connection. There were things I wanted to explain properly, and things I left out because explaining them would take too long.

My mother often used her first question on the weather. I could have prepared a detailed account of a lecture, and she would ask whether I had worn the thick coat. I thought she was starting too far from the important subject. She thought the coat was the important subject.

Back in Hanoi after 2021, I continued behaving as though a call needed an agenda. I could be close enough to visit more easily and still postpone a conversation for several days. Distance had been a convincing excuse, but it wasn't the whole habit.

I began noticing how often the reason for not calling was simply that the day had been ordinary. That left rather a lot of days without a call.

What is happening in their kitchen

When I give my parents room to talk, their account of the day has a different shape from mine. They don't begin by deciding which event will make the best update. My mother describes the market, then remembers something a neighbour said, then returns to the price of the fish she was buying when the neighbour said it.

I used to listen for the point. I wanted to know where the account was going so I could make the appropriate response. If the same person appeared in a story twice, I would explain that I remembered. My mother was rarely asking whether I remembered. She was telling me what had happened this time.

On a call last month she described moving a plant because the afternoon sun was too strong. My father objected to the new place. She turned the camera to show me both places and asked for my view. From Hanoi I was promoted, briefly, to a position of authority over a pot I could barely see.

I chose a place. They ignored me and moved it somewhere else. The next week I asked about the plant. That produced a much longer answer than my usual question about whether everything was fine.

It helps to have something specific to remember. I can ask whether the handle my father was repairing has stayed on, or whether the fruit my mother bought has ripened. These are small invitations. They give the conversation somewhere familiar to begin without requiring anybody to produce news.

Sometimes they really do have nothing much to say. The television stays on quietly in the background. My mother goes to fetch something and my father takes the phone, holding it far enough away that I can see the ceiling. We sit for a little while in the rooms we are already in.

I am learning that a pause on the phone doesn't always need rescuing. At home in Đồng Hới we can sit together without a continuous supply of sentences. The phone doesn't have to make that impossible.

The person outside the update

The part I miss most easily is how my parents spend time when they aren't being my parents. My father has a way of examining a repaired hinge with more interest than I have ever given a hinge. My mother can spend ten minutes choosing which fruit to open first.

When I was small, those details were everywhere and therefore hardly visible. As an adult visiting for a short stay, I often arrive with errands to complete and questions to settle. I ask where something is, carry a bag, discuss when I am leaving. Then I go back to Hanoi and say I didn't have enough time at home.

On a recent visit I sat beside my father while he sorted a box of screws. He had kept several that didn't appear to fit anything we owned. I asked what they were for. He said that was something we would discover when we needed them.

I would normally have suggested throwing half the box away. Instead I asked about the tool beside it. He showed me how an adjustment worked and told me which part used to stick. For a few minutes I could see him thinking about the object, rather than waiting to answer something about my life.

My mother has similar little occupations that I have dismissed too quickly as things she does for the family. Some of them she plainly enjoys. Cutting fruit is work, but she is also particular about the knife and pleased when a difficult peel comes away neatly. She will show me if I stay in the kitchen long enough.

"You don't have to have something to tell me," she said. "Just call."

I had been explaining why I hadn't rung for a few days. She didn't sound wounded. She sounded mildly puzzled by the amount of preparation I thought a conversation with her required.

I kept trying to produce a more impressive reason for being absent. The actual reason would have fitted into one ordinary sentence: I was tired, then I forgot, then I felt awkward about forgetting.

Our daughter on the screen

Our daughter is old enough now to become interested in the phone and too young to care about the conversation I have arranged around it. She watches my mother's face, then reaches for the edge of the screen. Occasionally my mother disappears because a small hand has found the right place to press.

My parents are delighted by things I might not have thought to report. She has discovered a cupboard handle. She has made a new noise. She is watching a spoon with the concentration I would like to bring to difficult work.

My wife brings her over during some calls and stays for a while. There are evenings when I do more holding of the phone than talking. My mother asks a question, my wife answers, and I adjust the angle so they can see each other without a thumb covering the camera.

I like that our daughter hears these voices without a special occasion around them. My parents live in Quảng Bình. They can't be in our flat for each small change. A call lets them join the room for a few minutes without me deciding which changes deserve an announcement.

It also lets them see the untidy parts I used to edit out. A pile of washing behind us. A cup that has been left on the shelf. My daughter refusing to look at the camera just when I say she has been smiling all afternoon. My mother recognises this kind of report immediately.

I don't want the phone to replace visiting. It doesn't make the distance disappear or let my father pick her up through the screen. But waiting until we can be together properly would mean missing a lot of ordinary afternoons.

On some calls my mother says very little to me and talks to the baby instead. I used to think of myself as the reason for the call. These days I am happy to be the person holding the device steady.

A call that does not fit

I don't manage this as reliably as the description might suggest. There are nights when I see an unanswered call after dinner and feel the familiar desire to postpone it until tomorrow. Tomorrow, conveniently, seems like a day when I will be more interesting and less tired.

Sometimes I postpone because I need a quiet evening. I don't think every spare minute has to become a duty. The trouble begins when I turn that reasonable need into a week of vague intentions and then tell myself that I am too busy for a ten-minute conversation.

What helps is keeping the call small enough to begin. I don't have to prepare a long account or find a perfect quiet hour. I can say that I only have a few minutes, then give those minutes my attention. If either of us needs more time, we can make a better arrangement.

I am also trying to say when I am distracted. It is kinder to admit that I am in the middle of something than to make the right noises while hearing only part of the story. My mother can usually tell anyway. She becomes practical and tries to finish before I have to ask her to.

Last week I told her I needed to put something away first and rang back afterwards. She was still in the kitchen. The second call began with exactly the sentence I had interrupted earlier. I knew who she was talking about this time and could follow the story without trying to catch up.

There is no interesting system here. I put the thing down, called back and listened. Some of my most useful improvements have been disappointing in that way. They have no complicated explanation to offer once I finally do them.

The sandal was under the chair

On today's call, after the missing sandal had been recovered, my mother asked what we were doing. I turned the phone so she could see our daughter. My wife waved from the other side of the room and asked about lunch.

My father came in, carrying the sandal as evidence that the search was over. He held it up to the camera. My mother told him to put it beside the other one before he created a second problem.

We talked about food for a while. I told them something small our daughter had done that morning and had to repeat it because I was laughing before I finished. My mother asked to see it. Naturally, our daughter had no intention of doing it again.

When we said goodbye, I hadn't given a single important update about my work. I couldn't identify anything they needed to remember from my side of the conversation. I knew where the plant was now, though, and which handle my father had decided needed replacing.

I put the phone on the shelf and went to help with lunch. A few minutes later it lit up with a photograph from my mother. The two sandals were standing together by the kitchen door, carefully arranged so that I could see the result.

— John