Just hours from now, Ngo and Cerghizan will drive far away from Minnesota. They’re moving to Texas, to the town where Ngo was stationed in the Army. They’ll leave behind all the doctors, therapists, friends and family they’ve counted on.
“It’s a real big step in my life ”” moving,” Ngo says. “And a really big step in a relationship, ’cause we’re both going down there just by ourselves and it’s just gonna be us.”
Friends and family are here to help them pack up, but there’s one person missing ”” Ngo’s mother. She had been at his side throughout his injury. She hurried to the Army hospital in Germany and saw him with his head swollen grotesquely. She didn’t know if her only child would live or die. Then, at Walter Reed, she’d sit by his hospital bed and hold his hand till he fell asleep at night. And she would sneak back into his room early the next morning to hold his hand when he woke up.
Ngo and his mother don’t talk to each other anymore.
“She’s got to apologize to me and Ani before any contact will happen,” Ngo says.
A haunting reminder of the personal and emotional cost of the war. Read or listen to it all.
And just before Christmas, his disability check arrived from Social Security, with $18,000 in retroactive benefits — enough to make the move to Texas.
To Cerghizan, Ngo is the sweet and romantic boyfriend who lavishes her with presents. She’s 22 and has just graduated from training to be a veterinarian’s assistant.
That image of him will wear off after the money runs out and she decides she doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life taking care of a disabled guy. It’s only a matter of time before he treats her the way he treated his mom.
He’ll be back with his mother when the girlfriend decides she’s had enough.