Má and Bố’s hands-off parenting style, far from typical in the United States (although closer to the norm in the 1980s than today), shows that they are embroiled in their own concerns—Má in work and providing for her children, and Bố in his world of memories, parties, and astral projection. Bui realizes that this is not normal or healthy but does not understand why; when she begins to brave the apartment’s unspoken dangers, she sees that Bố’s concerns reside in his mind. But the constant sense of danger and fear that hangs over the family, a relic from their time in Việt Nam, is the “gray stillness” Bui talked about in the previous chapter. Bố’s interest in astral projection—escaping his body at night—is a way of seeking freedom from himself and his past. At the end of the chapter, Bui realizes that she, too, has similar dreams of freedom—but freedom from the dark present, full of invisible threats that she cannot understand.