Lily (Ly)
Quick Facts
Lily (Ly) is a young Vietnamese housemaid and gifted seamstress working for the Case family in Saigon. Introduced in Part 1 as a seemingly peripheral figure, she becomes the quiet engine of the Americans’ doll–ao dai charity project and, by the novel’s end, its moral counterpoint.
- Role: Housemaid and seamstress; catalyst for the doll–ao dai fundraising project
- First appearance: Part 1, in the Case household (Saigon)
- Also known as: “Lily” to Americans; corrects her name to “Ly”
- Age: Roughly the same as Tricia
- Key relationships: Patricia “Tricia” Kelly, Charlene, Rainey, and her cousin at the leprosy colony
Who They Are
Ly is the novel’s model of quiet dignity—plain-spoken, deft, and unassuming—whose work literally stitches together the Americans’ grand plans. She is initially seen through the eyes of others, especially Tricia, yet her small acts of care and startling skill expose the limits of American benevolence. The charity that springs from her talent reveals both the consolations and the compromises of doing good, placing Ly at the crossroads of Morality, Good Deeds, and Absolution and the blind spots of American Naivete and Imperialism. By the end, her private loyalty—not American largesse—determines the most consequential choice in the book.
Personality & Traits
Ly’s presence is soft but decisive. She practices care without flourish, mastery without pride, and self-assertion without confrontation. The novel repeatedly frames her as “plain” to American eyes, only to reveal the extraordinary—artistry, composure, and love—that her plainness conceals.
- Kind and comforting: After Rainey’s baby brother vomits on Tricia at a garden party, Ly cleans her tenderly, whispering, “All will be well.” The gesture mothers Tricia and reverses their social roles, exposing how compassion outranks status.
- Exceptionally talented: In minutes, she drafts and hand-stitches a perfect ao dai for a Barbie—Tricia calls it “a fairy tale.” This single act powers Charlene’s entire fundraising enterprise, proof that Ly’s labor is the project’s true capital.
- Shy yet quietly assertive: She ducks her head at praise, but corrects her own name with grace and humor: “My name…is Ly…L, Y. Just Ly.” Even her modesty has a spine.
- Loyal and loving: Her foremost allegiance is to her cousin, described as her “twin” and “heart.” That intimate bond becomes the compass for Ly’s ultimate, life-altering decision.
- Physicality that misleads: Tricia notes a round face, chipped tooth, slight overbite, and “quick and homely” hands. The contrast—plain appearance, perfect work—undercuts American assumptions about value and beauty.
Character Journey
Ly moves from an almost invisible servant to the quiet center of meaning in the novel. At first, she is the help: making, mending, and soothing—her presence felt most strongly in the restorative aftermath of small disasters. Charlene’s plan elevates Ly’s gifts but reduces her to a means; Tricia sees the “resignation” in Ly’s agreeable smile, a grief-tinted consent that hints at how power works in Saigon. The journey culminates at the leprosy colony, where Ly’s private history surfaces. There, she steps beyond American frameworks of charity and choice to make a decision entirely her own: she stays with her cousin. In refusing to be ferried back into American service, she turns from object to subject—claiming a form of love, duty, and freedom that the Americans talk about but cannot enact.
Key Relationships
- Patricia “Tricia” Kelly: Tricia is both observer and beneficiary of Ly’s care. She is dazzled by Ly’s skill and calmed by her tenderness, yet she also recognizes how her admiration exists within a hierarchy that privileges her American position over Ly’s agency.
- Charlene: Charlene sees Ly’s talent clearly—and instrumentalizes it. She learns Ly’s name and praises her work, but her relentless purpose treats Ly’s labor as raw material for a charitable brand, turning recognition into exploitation cloaked as opportunity.
- Rainey: Rainey’s Barbie prompts the first ao dai, the seed of the entire project. Through Rainey’s child’s-eye wonder, the book captures Ly’s art as magic—while also showing how a child’s play becomes an adult’s machinery of fundraising.
- Her cousin: This is Ly’s defining bond, described as twin-like and absolute. The reunion at the colony reveals a life of shared hardship and devotion; Ly’s decision to stay translates love into action that no American plan can match.
Defining Moments
Even Ly’s quietest scenes carry structural weight: her care knits community, her craft births the project, and her final choice redraws the book’s moral map.
- Comforting Tricia (Part 1): After the garden-party mishap, Ly cleans Tricia and murmurs, “All will be well.” Why it matters: It reverses the caregiver/cared-for hierarchy and establishes Ly’s moral authority through gentleness.
- Creating the Barbie ao dai (Part 1): Ly drafts and hand-stitches a flawless miniature áo dài in minutes. Why it matters: This “fairy tale” of making becomes the origin story of a charity—proof that American benevolence rides on Vietnamese skill.
- Gently correcting her name: “My name…is Ly…L, Y. Just Ly.” Why it matters: A small insistence on self-definition within an unequal relationship, foreshadowing her ultimate assertion of agency.
- Reuniting with her cousin (Part 3): At the colony, their embrace reveals a history deeper than Ly’s American employers can see. Why it matters: It shifts Ly’s motivations from service to kinship, reframing the novel’s stakes.
- Choosing to stay (Part 3): On the third trip, Ly remains at the colony for good. Why it matters: She rejects the life scripted by American need, choosing love and shared suffering over security and spectacle.
Essential Quotes
Although I think we were about the same age, I felt entirely mothered. “All will be well,” she said.
This moment captures Ly’s peculiar power: she soothes across lines of age, class, and nationality. Tricia’s sense of being “mothered” exposes how care can invert social order—and how Ly leads through tenderness rather than authority.
A fairy tale: the elves and the shoemaker or Cinderella before the ball. Lily’s quick and homely little hands, her dark head bowed as she hand-stitched the final touches.
The fairy-tale comparison elevates ordinary labor into enchantment, yet the focus on “homely” hands keeps the work grounded in the body. The scene both romanticizes and honors craft, spotlighting the quiet genius that American plans will later commodify.
The poor girl was agreeing to it all, not reluctantly, pleasantly, eagerly, in fact, but with a kind of resignation that looked to me a little like grief.
Tricia registers the coercion embedded in cheerful consent. Ly’s “eager” agreement thus reads as survival within unequal power, an ethical complication that shadows the entire charity.
On this third trip, Lily stayed behind.
She would not be parted from her twin, your mother said. Her heart. Her own. And the Sisters gave up trying to dissuade her.
The blunt finality—“stayed behind”—marks Ly’s turning point from instrument to agent. The repetition of “twin…heart…own” makes love not a sentiment but a command, one strong enough to silence even well-meaning authority.