Finding a Family

After quitting her hospital job, Le Ly soon found work as a waitress.  Through this job, she came into contact with a man named Jim.  Le Ly shows that the war and her experiences have truely humbled her when she expresses, "I had learned, if nothing else, that a "regular life"-one with work and wages and self-respect-if not very glamorous, was for me."  Jim says he has been looking for a woman that would take care of him in the city and he had found Le Ly.  Though they live happily together, Le Ly cannot get over the emotional insecurities that she developed with Red.  She would often have a dream where Jim would disregard Le Ly's option and continue to drive a jeep at an extremely fast pace.  One night, after Jim had been drinking, he came into their room and physically assaulted Le Ly.  She told somebody about it the next day, and he was promptly relocated away from Le Ly.  The reader can connect with Hayslip because everybody has made the same mistake twice.  They can think back to the time when they feel extremely foolish for messing up when just a short time before they had done the same thing.  She uses a metaphor in this chapter that compares respecting people to sowing crops.  She means to convey the message that people get kindness in return for kindness and karma punishes those who are mean people.