I ask, “How old are you?” She says, “27 and you?” I say, “29” There is silence again.

Then she and the man speak Vietnamese back and forth with some broken English. I hear the words $5,000 and then 10,000 and then the woman says $5,000 just for the headstone. The man gasps. And the woman says $25,000 for everything. They are very nonchalant. I but in and say. “$25,000 for a funeral?” And the woman says, “Yes they can get so expensive. You would not believe.” I say, “I’m getting cremated and thrown in the lake where my husband proposed to me.” She says, “Me too. I want to be cremated too.” And the man says, “Sounds good to me.” There is some silence again.

I ask, “Whose funeral?” And she looks up at me and says, “My husbands.” I lock eyes with her and say, “Oh my God.” Then she puts her head down and goes back to my nails. I feel tears rush to my eyes and hope that they don’t fall out because I don’t want her to cry or feel bad or make her upset. Plus for some reason I am embarrassed because I don’t really know her.

It’s silent.

She and I are staring down at my nails. The man breaks in and says. “She’s able to speak about it now because it’s been six months.” He goes away to the back room.

It is silent again.

“I am so sorry. I’m just so sorry that happened to you.”

The woman says, “My husband and I got married in March our daughter was due in August and my husband died in July. We were married for 4 months. We didn’t take a honeymoon because my daughter was and accidental pregnancy and we were going to wait a year to take the honeymoon. We were together for 3 years before we were married.”

She looks up at me and she is crying and I am relieved because I am too and we just stare at each other as tears roll down our faces and onto my nails and all over her hands. She reaches down and pulls out an entire roll of paper towels. She takes a couple pieces and gives some to me and then to herself. We wipe our faces. She goes back to my nails

“I will never forget the day the policeman came to my door. He said my husbands name and that he died on the job. He had a massive heart attack and that’s all I remember the policeman saying because I fell to the ground..”

I ask her, “What did he do?”

“He was in Texas he works with the oil and he was moving something and he just died. He died at 2p.m. and the police man came to my door at 4pm and I knew all day something was wrong because I just had this feeling,.”

We cry. We hold hands. It goes silent.

“Thank God you have your daughter. Thank God for her.”

And she says, “She is me and my husband.” It occurs to me that I don’t know her name so I ask, “What is your name?” Just then the man shouts out from the back “Ham!”. The woman starts to laugh very hard and she says, “Don’t listen to him! It’s Amy” and he says, “What? The American Government calls you “Ham”: She explains, “My Vietnamese name is Hame and when I came over here they did not put the E so it says Ham. My American name is Amy. You can call me by Amy. Everyone thinks it’s so funny to call me “Ham”. And I say, “Well it is. It’s kinda like “Jail” nails.” And we laugh. The man says. “When a husband calls looking for his wife I always tell him I am nailing them and they will be done in about and hour.” This sets us in the hysterics and we laugh the kind of laugh that’s just keeps going out of something being funny but then sad and then uncomfortable and then unusual and then just crazy and then back to funny. We laugh for a while. There are even tremor laughs as she continues on with my nails and then. (silence)

“Sometimes I think. Why did God take him? He was a really nice person. I even thought about taking my life to be with him because I couldn’t see life without him. But he came to me in a dream and he told me I had to live for my daughter.”

I ask her, “Are you taking medication? Any sleeping pills?”

“I take pills for depression, but I have to get up in the night to take care of my daughter. We live with my mom and dad now and my mom is older so she gets tired. I take care of my daughter and then I come and do nails. It helps me. I don’t know what else to do”

I tell her, “I can’t imagine that I would be as strong as you are. Your daughter will realize one day how much you love her and how much you loved your husband.” She smiles and tears fill our eyes once again. We grab paper towels and wipe our faces. I look down at my nails. They look good. She says, “These look very nice on you.” I say, “You nail people very well “Ham”. We all laugh again. The man goes to the back.

“I bring him a rose every Sunday because he would always bring me a rose. That’s why I didn’t care what it costs to bury him. I would pay any price. I go to see him every Sunday with my daughter. I can’t wait until the spring so I can plant flowers for him.”

My nails are done. And they do look good. But I don’t even care. I don’t want to leave. I ask, “What is your daughters name?”

“Tammy. It is a mixture of my husbands name, Tom, and my name Amy. Would you like to see a picture?” She reaches into her purse and pulls out pictures and I slowly shift through them. Tammy is a beautiful baby with lots of black hair and enormous dark eyes. I think about Amy’s delivery. “Did your mother go in the room with you when you had her?”

“Just me and my mother, she says I pushed for 8 hours. And had to have a c-section because my daughter was 8 ½ pounds. I was 98 pounds before I was pregnant and I gained 45 pounds with my daughter. Now I am back to 98.” I tell her, “I don’t think I ever weighed 98.” She is a tiny person. And I just now realize how tiny she is and think, “How can a person who weighs 95 pounds deal with what you have given her God? How can she possibly be sitting here at ProfessioNails on some idle Monday giving me gel nails? What is the reasoning behind that?”

She says, “You are all done.” The man is back he shouts out, “Now, when you come back you ask for Ham!” And we all laugh. I look at Amy and say, “I don’t have a choice now.” She tells me, “You have to come back and fill them every 2 weeks.” All of the sudden I rush behind her counter and hug her. She really is tiny. I tell her, “You are a very strong person and you do really good nails.”

And then I get in my car and call my husband. I ask him how his ski trip is going. I tell him I hope he is having fun. I tell him I miss him and that it’s hard to sleep in our house without him because it’s so quiet. He asks, “What have you been doing, baby?” I tell him I got gel nails and they look really good because they are more natural than acrylic. And he says, “Cool.” I tell him Amy’s story and he just says, “Oh my God.” I tell him to be careful. He tells me to be careful. “I love you so much” I say. “I love you baby.” He says. I drive home and lock all the doors in the house and take a shower and think and think and think. Then I hop out of the shower and sit down to write this.