Heaven and Earth Chapter 12

After Red left, Le Ly needed to find another regularly-paying job.  She began working at a small bar and casino as a waitress where she later met Jim, an Asian-looking American.  She bought an apartment with him after knowing him for only one day, and he expressed great interest in her mother and son; they even began calling her son "Jimmy."



Domestic Violence Awareness
Ribbon



However, Jim soon began to drink heavily and lost his temper many times.

"Little things set him off--made him lost his temper--and my suggestion that he cut down or stop drinking was always met with either sullen silence or wild accusations about my seeing other men.  Of course, I was sure his problem was my fault.  A Vietnamese wife, even an unmarried one, was always responsible for the happiness of her man."

In 2007, Ludacris and Mary J. Blige collaborated for a song titled "Runaway Love," about three young girls who suffer from domestic violence and who eventually "run away" when they cannot take it any longer.  Their mothers also suffer from abuse, much like Le Ly did when she moved in with Jim.  In fact, he was so drunk and angry one night that he almost suffocated her; the next day, Le Ly contacted the police, and Jim was taken into custody and was soon deported back to the United States.  From then on, she vowed to "never get involved with another man unless marriage was part of the plan."
This song also includes a young girl, only about a year younger than Le Ly, who becomes pregnant with an older boy whom she loves, but he abandons her like Anh did.


After Jim fired a gun into the ceiling during an argument with Le Ly, their landlord came to talk to her, and he told her to leave him.  She was still convinced they were in love, so she told him that she could handle it.  This was an Understatement, a deliberate representation of something as lesser in magnitude than it actually is because Le Ly obviously could not handle Jim when he was drunk or excessively angry.