For Minh we had from Saturday afternoon to Sunday at three. Just over twenty-four hours.
Ready, set, go!
Bruce happened to find a twin bed frame at a garage sale for a couple bucks, and Ivan bought a brand-new mattress for it at Sears, something we were to keep a secret from Hilda for the time being. A neighbor lent us an old dresser they no longer needed, and a couple from church filled our fridge and pantry with groceries.
Sweet mercies every one of them.
Sweetest yet, Sonny was staying over at Amelia’s house until Monday after school. That way little Minh could dip her toe in the water of our family before being plunged into the deep end.
It took some doing, but we managed to arrange and rearrange Sonny’s bedroom to make space for Minh, setting up the beds toe-to-toe along the far wall and dressers on either side of the closet. It was tight, but it would work.
When we were done, Bruce and I stood in the doorway, dreaming of the little girl we were about to meet. It was much the same way we had in the days before Sonny was born.
In that moment I felt no anxiety, no hesitation, no question about what in the world we thought we were doing.
“Are you ready to be a daddy to another little girl?” I asked, leaning my head against Bruce’s shoulder.
“Can’t hardly wait,” he answered, tightening his arm around me.
My heart felt full to bursting.
Over the past few months I’d seen more than a dozen news stories about Babylift families meeting for the first time. Every one of them showed a man and woman in a crowded airport terminal with flashing cameras and far too many people looking on.
The poor children seemed overwhelmed by all the hustle and bustle, not knowing where to look. Then the stranger that was to become his or her mother or father scooped them up, holding them tight.
Just the thought of meeting Minh that way made my palms sweaty and my head spin.
Fortunately, we’d arranged with the adoption agency to meet them at our house. They were driving up from Lansing; it was hardly worth taking an airplane.
What a relief.
Bruce and I started out waiting for them in the house, but being confined only made both of us anxious. So we put lawn chairs in the shade of our maple to wait.
Bruce stayed in his chair for less than a minute before getting up to deadhead the morning glories in the lattice by the front door and check on his tomatoes in the backyard garden. He found half a dozen things to do, which I supposed made the wait more bearable for him.
As for me, his constant movement only made me more nervous, and I wished he’d just sit next to me and hold my hand.
All the calm from before had dissipated, leaving behind trembling hands, shallow breaths, and a thumping heartbeat.
When a car came down the road, turning its blinker on well before our driveway, I stood, holding my hand at my brow line to block the sun from my eyes.
“Bruce,” I called.
“Is she here?” he asked, rushing to my side.
We waited there together, the two of us, the seconds feeling like little eternities.
But the car stopped on the road, parking just north of our driveway. A man got out, the car’s only occupant, a camera around his neck. A minute later two more vehicles trundled along, kicking up dust behind the tires. Then another. And another.
Out of one van a man hauled a television camera.
“Reporters?” I asked. “How did they find out?”
“No,” Bruce said. Then louder, so they could hear him from where they gathered at the end of the driveway, “Nope. Not happening.”
“Come on, man,” one of the reporters called, jerking his head so his long hair flipped out of his eyes. “Just a couple pictures.”
“No thanks.”
“But we got a press release,” another said.
“That’s not an invitation to come to my house.” Bruce put his hands on his hips.
“We’ll stay off your property,” said the first one that had shown up. “Honest.”
“Don’t you all have enough stories on this?” Bruce asked, shaking his head.
I could tell he had more to say, but there was no time to get it out. A dark-colored Lincoln was making its way toward our house. It slowed as it neared the drive, waiting for a few reporters to step out of the way so it could turn in.
“Can you ignore all those people?” I whispered. “Pretend they aren’t here. Okay?”
“I’ll try,” he answered, huffing out a lungful of air.
“We’re about to meet our girl,” I said, grabbing his hand. “Are you excited?”
His grin was all the answer I needed.
The very first I saw of Minh was through the windshield of the Lincoln. She sat on the lap of a woman in the passenger seat, eyes wide and face completely stoic. I could tell two things about her, even through the windshield. First, that she was so much smaller than I’d expected, and I worried that all the clothes we had for her would be far too big. Second, she wasn’t missing a thing, the way she looked all around her with those big eyes.
“Would you look at her,” Bruce said, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles.
I couldn’t have taken my eyes off her if I tried.
Car doors opened and the people inside stepped out. The woman from the passenger side slipped Minh up and onto her hip like she weighed nothing at all before pushing the door closed.
“Hi, Linda?” the woman asked, extending her left hand to me, her right being occupied in holding Minh. “I’m Jan. We spoke on the phone.”
“Of course, hello.” I took a step toward her, taking her hand. “This is my husband, Bruce.”
“Nice to meet you both.”
“You too.”
“And this,” Jan started, turning her face toward the little girl. “This is Minh.”
At the sound of her name, Minh perked up and glanced at Jan.
Her dark, shiny hair was cut just to her jawline, and she wore a pretty pink dress with ruffles down the front of it. Her shoes looked brand new, patent leather and without so much as a single scuff on them. She even had on fancy socks with a lace trim.
She wrapped both arms around the middle of a blond-headed baby doll, tapping the fingers of one hand against the doll’s back as if to comfort it.
Jan let go of my hand and then bent down to set Minh’s feet on the ground. Minh was quick to lean into Jan’s leg, pressing her face into the fabric of her skirt.
“It’s all right,” Jan said, her voice even soothing me a little bit. “Come meet Mommy and Daddy.”
She coaxed Minh out and kept a hand on her shoulder.
“Hi,” I said, lowering down to my haunches. “Hi there, Minh.”
Bruce reached out for her as if asking for the hand of a princess.
“Hello,” he said, his voice soft as velvet.
She didn’t take his hand, so he let it fall to his side. But he kept a winning smile on his face.
Jan bent at the waist to whisper in Minh’s ear. “Mommy and Daddy.”
Minh nodded as if she understood, but her eyes still looked confused, frightened.
“Minh,” I said in a soft voice, hoping that I was saying it right.
She turned her eyes to mine for a second before lowering them to my nose.
“It’s okay,” I said, ducking my head so she’d look into my eyes again.
She did, but only for the flash of a second.
After Jan was gone and the reporters at the end of the driveway dispersed—likely very disappointed—Bruce, Minh, and I stood in the living room. She still held her baby doll and Bruce had the envelope that contained what few documents she’d come with. I held a bundle of nerves in the pit of my chest.
We showed her around the house—kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms. Bruce carried her from room to room, pointing to different things—piano, bookcase, toilet—keeping his voice gentle and low.
She’d blink at him, watching his mouth move but betraying no emotion.
>
“So serious,” I whispered.
“It’s a lot to take in.” Bruce turned toward Minh. “Isn’t it?”
She nodded, but I doubted she understood what he’d said.
“What now?” I said when the tour was over after only a couple of minutes.
“No idea,” Bruce answered.
That was when the phone rang.
The suddenness of it made Minh flinch and make the slightest whimpering sound.
“Oh, sweet pea,” I said. “It’s just the telephone. It’s okay.”
Bruce handed her to me and went to answer it, his back to me and hand on his hip. Minh kept her eyes on him, watching as he talked to whomever was on the other end of the line. When he moved his hand, she watched it. When he turned toward us and smiled at her, she cocked her head to one side as if trying to figure him out.
“Daddy’s silly, isn’t he?” I asked.
At the sound of my voice, she turned and looked up into my face as if surprised that I was there.
“I wonder what you’re thinking about all this,” I whispered. “This must be so confusing for you.”
“Yup,” Bruce said to the person on the other end of the line. “Thanks for understanding. Bye, now.”
He hung up and turned around.
“Who was that?” I asked.
He opened his mouth to tell me but couldn’t get it out before the phone rang again. It went on like that for a full hour, people wanting to drop over to meet Minh. How did they already know about her?
It was a good thing Bruce was the one to answer the calls because he didn’t flinch when he had to tell them “not today.”
“It’s hard to keep secrets in a town this size, I guess,” Bruce said, shaking his head as the phone rang again.
Eventually he took it off the hook.
“There,” he said. “Now, how about we read a couple books to her?”
He squatted beside the shelf next to the TV and pulled out a few Berenstain Bears and another few by Dr. Seuss.
We sat on the couch, Minh between us, and took turns reading aloud, pointing things out in the pictures like the fishbowl balanced on the end of the rake or the bee hovering around the daisy in Mama Bear’s hat.
All the while my chest felt tight, and sitting still like that was near agonizing. I felt ready to jump right up out of my skin.
I looked at the clock, watching the second hand make its spasmodic circle past the numbers. In thirty minutes, I would start dinner. In an hour, we’d eat. Then I’d get Minh in the bath, and we’d read her another story. In three hours, she’d be in bed.
In the morning we’d get up and move our way through the day, half an hour at a time.
The ticking of the clock sounded louder than usual and made the tightness in my chest close to crushing.
Forcing myself to look away, I turned my eyes on Minh. Her mouth was open, just slightly, as she watched Bruce’s finger move along under the words as he read them. He stumbled as he went, tongue-tied by Fox in Socks.
I took in a breath that seemed to reach all the way to the soles of my feet.
The tightness was still there, but it was easing as what felt like a warm rush spread all the way through me.
I wanted that moment to last. I didn’t want to shoo it away.
CHAPTER
Eighteen
Sonny, 1988
The first few days of working with Mrs. Olds were dusty, exhausting, and like super sweaty. Before doing anything else we had to scrub every window, wipe down every cupboard and shelf, sweep and mop every floor in every room. One morning we even took old toothbrushes to the most stubborn stains on the tile floors in the bathroom.
One thing I learned about old houses was that they had lots of places for dirt and grime to build up. Another thing I learned was that ancient houses had a way of collecting grody things over the years like mouse turds, cobwebs, and other assorted creepy-crawlies. And I only got a little embarrassed that I’d scream when happening upon such things that totally barfed me out.
On the third day we rubbed oil into all the woodwork, then went back through to wipe it clean. Banisters and trim and floorboards and doors. From all the wood in the place I wondered how many forests Old Mr. Huebert had chopped down just to build his own house.
By noon each day Mindy and I dragged ourselves to the car. Filthy, exhausted, and sore, we’d go home and take a nap after lunch like a couple of toddlers.
Who wasn’t wiped out every day after work? Mrs. Olds. That little old lady did every job we did in those four hours. Only she did it faster, better, and with a smile on her wrinkly face. She had to have been at least seventy-five years old. Maybe even older. But I was pretty sure she was going to outlive Mins and me by a couple of decades.
“You girls did such a good job,” she said on Friday, writing out a check to each of us in the pretty penmanship that all women her age had. “Same time on Monday, all right?”
“Yes,” Mindy said, folding her check and slipping it into the pocket of her jeans. “Thank you.”
“I’ll walk you out.” She straightened up, passing my paycheck to me before heading to the foyer and out the front door. “Next week we’ll begin to unpack the artifacts.”
“Sounds interesting,” I said, and I totally meant it.
Looking at treasures was way more exciting than sweeping up petrified spider carcasses.
“Ah yes.” She pointed back inside. “Those boxes are full of them. This and that from the citizens of Bear Run and a few things from other places in Michigan. Some of them even older than I am, if you can believe it.”
“Oh, I can believe it,” Mindy said.
I resisted the strong urge to roll my eyes at my sister’s blatant attempt to earn brownie points with the boss. Instead, I made my way off the steps and onto the gravel walkway.
Mrs. Olds took one last step on the porch, one of the boards creaking under her foot.
“Did you hear that?” she asked, eyes wide behind her wire-rimmed glasses. She moved her foot, causing the old wood to groan again. “Do you know what that is?”
I shook my head, no idea how to answer her question.
“It’s history,” Mrs. Olds said. “Saying ‘thank you, girls.’”
I glanced at Mindy, thinking that maybe our boss was a few artifacts short of a museum.
“You’re welcome, history,” Mindy said, cupping her hand to her mouth.
Mrs. Olds clapped once and grinned. Mindy laughed.
I was working with a couple of lunatics.
Mindy hated going to the mall. But we both had a pocket full of money to spend after cashing our checks and I had no one to go shopping with, so I dragged her there with me. That was, after we both cleaned up and changed into cool clothes.
The parking lot was so full I had to drive around looking for a space for the old El Camino that wasn’t in the wing where Casual Corner and Hickory Farms was. I gave up after a while and parked near Sears, telling Mindy that she had to remember which entrance we came in.
“Granny bras,” she said when we stepped in through the automatic doors. “That shouldn’t be too hard to remember.”
“Oh my goodness,” I said, walking past a rack of exceptionally sized brassieres. “Do you remember when Teddy snooped in Grammy’s underwear drawer?”
Mindy threw her head back in a laugh. “Yes. The little booger.”
We’d all been at Grammy and Grumpy’s for someone’s birthday and Teddy wandered off, which wasn’t unusual for him. He was four years old at the most and always getting into something. Uncle Chris found him in Grammy’s room with one of her bras on his head like a hat.
“I’ll never forget the look on Grammy’s face when Uncle Chris brought him out to show us all,” Mindy said.
“Yeah, who knew she could ever be embarrassed.”
I wondered if anybody’d gotten a picture of him like that. It would have made for some pretty righteous blackmail material if they had.
The undies
section eased into the ladies’ wear section, which led us to the opening of the mall. Stores lined every wall with neon lights over their doors. One way was the food court with every kind of greasy snack you could ever want. The other way was the theater with movie posters for Big and Willow. The smell of buttered popcorn made my mouth water. People filled every nook and cranny of the mall, some of them carrying bags of what they’d bought, and others just milled around, window shopping. “Time After Time” played over the loudspeaker, and I had to really try not to sing along with Cyndi Lauper.
Not that anyone would have noticed or cared. It was Friday afternoon and the whole place was buzzing with people from the whole Tri-County area with plenty of money to spend.
Oh my gosh, I loved the mall.
I promised Mindy that if she went to Deb with me and didn’t complain while I tried stuff on that I would go to Waldenbooks with her. After waiting outside the fitting room while I tried on a hundred pairs of jeans, she’d totally earned a little time browsing the fiction section.
“Wanna play a game?” Mindy asked when we stepped into the bookstore. “It’s kind of nerdy.”
“Sure,” I said. “Maybe.”
“I get to pick out a book for you and you get to pick out a book for me,” she said. “Like, we try to find the very most perfect book for each other.”
“Okay.”
“We only get ten minutes.” She raised her eyebrows at me. “Ready?”
“Yup.”
“Go.”
Mindy went to one end of the store and I went to the other. I knew within two minutes which book I’d pick for her, so the last eight, I pretended to be rummaging about for her sake. I checked my watch, making my way to our meeting spot, the book hidden behind my back.
But always-on-time Mindy wasn’t there. I thought maybe her own challenge was harder for her than she’d expected. I decided to give her another minute, but when she still hadn’t come back after that time, I went looking for her. She was backed into a corner, a woman about our mom’s age holding a book out to her.
“The reason I ask,” the woman was saying when I walked toward them, “is because my book club is looking for an author from China. You see, we’re trying to read a book from each of the continents.”
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