My Other Heart

In May 1998, Mimi Truang, a Vietnamese woman living in Philadelphia with her sister, waits at a gate in Philadelphia International Airport with her one-year-old daughter, Ngan, for a connecting flight home to Saigon. Mimi steps away briefly to set her coffee cup on a nearby table. When she reaches back under her seat, the child is gone. Mimi screams for help, but airport officials restrain her and sedate her with an injection. She wakes on a plane back to Vietnam with her arms tied to a chair, powerless and without her child.

Seventeen years later, Kit Herzog is an eighteen-year-old adopted mixed-race girl raised by white parents, Sally and Terry Herzog, in the affluent Philadelphia suburb of Chestnut Hill. Kit has long claimed Japanese heritage, a conviction that took root in eighth grade when a classmate compared her to a Japanese anime character, though her adoption documents list her birth mother's ethnicity only as "Asian" with origin "Unspecified." Her best friend is Sabrina Chen, the hardworking daughter of Lee Lee Chen, a Chinese immigrant single mother. When Sabrina reveals plans to travel to China before college to connect with her heritage, Kit impulsively decides she will travel to Japan. Kit's parents arrange for her to stay with Rick Buchanan, an old family friend and diplomat in Tokyo, and his Japanese wife, Yuriko.

Sabrina's summer plans collapse when a burst pipe forces her to spend her entire travel savings on home repairs. While Kit flies to Tokyo, Sabrina takes a job at the local country club and begins an internship under Eva Kim, a sharp attorney at the Asian American Immigration Coalition. Eva pushes Sabrina to confront uncomfortable truths: that she has never had a passport, that her mother likely never applied for one, and that Sabrina is almost certainly undocumented. Sabrina has also been hiding an acceptance letter from Princeton under her mattress, afraid of the financial obstacles and of telling Lee Lee.

In Tokyo, Kit is captivated by the city's beauty and anonymity. At a cocktail party at the Buchanan Residence, she meets Ryo Buchanan, Rick and Yuriko's son, who is her age, confident, and mixed Japanese-American. Ryo's younger sister, Amy, asks Kit if she is ha-fu, a Japanese term for someone who is half Japanese. For the first time, someone asks Kit if she belongs rather than demanding she explain herself. Kit falls deeply for Ryo, who is attentive and direct about his feelings. They begin a romance that culminates in Kit's first sexual experience. Ryo announces he wants to transfer from the University of California, Berkeley, to be near her. Yet as her summer ends, Kit realizes she has not found the Japanese identity she came looking for.

Meanwhile, Dave Harrison, a boy from Kit's social circle with whom she previously had secret physical encounters, begins seeking Sabrina out. They spend the summer together, and Sabrina challenges Dave about the invisible lines of class and race at their school. When Sabrina confesses romantic feelings, Dave tells her he cares about her but does not feel romantic attraction. Sabrina is devastated. She later confronts both Dave and Kit at the country club, blurting out the truth about her feelings before storming off.

The novel interweaves two crucial backstories. After losing Ngan, Mimi remained in Saigon and eventually married Toan, a kind driver who courted her patiently. A sympathetic employer helped her compile a list of adopted Asian girls in Philadelphia who might be Ngan. Four attempts to return to America failed. In 2015, her American employers offered to bring her to New Jersey. Mimi realized Philadelphia was next door and began taking the bus there every weekend, methodically working through her list.

The novel also traces Lee Lee's history. She arrived in Philadelphia illegally in 1996, having taken a massive debt from a snakehead, a smuggler who facilitates illegal immigration. She met Daming, a kind man with a green card from Fujian province. They planned to marry, which would have given Lee Lee legal status, but Daming died suddenly of a heart attack before the wedding. Lee Lee lost her path to a green card, her companion, and the promise of a child. Too ashamed to tell her mother in China the truth, she continued lying, pretending Daming was alive and a baby was coming.

In August 2015, Mimi narrows her search and takes the bus to Chestnut Hill. She appears at the Herzog front door clutching her worn yellow paper and tells Sally and Kit that her baby was taken from under her chair at an airport seventeen years ago. Kit is terrified. Just then, Dave and Sabrina arrive together. Sabrina steps to the door and sees Mimi. Everyone recognizes the unmistakable physical resemblance between Sabrina and Mimi: the same round dark eyes, the same jaw, the same hair. Mimi breathes, "Ngan." Sabrina, overwhelmed, grabs Dave's car keys and tries to flee. Unable to control the vehicle, she accidentally reverses into Mimi, who falls against a stone wall. Kit watches from her mother's arms, shaking with relief that she is not the lost child and guilt over that relief.

Eva Kim arrives at the hospital and takes charge. She meets with Lee Lee and Sabrina and lays out the legal reality: The worst case is a kidnapping charge; the best option is for Lee Lee to voluntarily accept deportation, meaning she can never return to the United States. Lee Lee agrees. Eva applies for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) on Sabrina's behalf and secures her path to a green card. She also recovers Sabrina's Princeton admission with full financial aid. Sabrina moves in with Eva.

The novel then reveals that on May 18, 1998, Lee Lee found the baby alone at an empty gate at the end of her airport shift. She heard a woman wailing in the distance but did not turn back. She carried the child out through the staff exit, and nobody stopped her. Her invisibility, the very quality that had made her life in America so painful, was what allowed her to walk out of an airport with someone else's child. In their final visit at the detention center, Lee Lee asks whether Sabrina will still go to college and whether she will be safe. She places her hand on the glass divider and says, "This is the best way." Sabrina presses her palm against her mother's through the glass.

Back in Saigon, Mimi finds a bittersweet peace. Sabrina begins texting her, and Toan secretly arranges a surprise visit. Kit and Sabrina meet once more during Kit's midterm break; Kit reveals she and Ryo have broken up, and their friendship has shifted permanently, though a bond remains. Sabrina arrives alone in Ho Chi Minh City at dusk, gazing at the pink sky over the sprawling city with exhilaration and fear. She takes out her phone and begins to type to Dave: "I've arrived."