“You don’t have to eat them if you don’t want to,” I said.
She answered me by stuffing another in her mouth, both cheeks round with grapes, looking like a little chipmunk.
“I think we might get this figured out,” Bruce said, shaking a few red dots of hot sauce onto his plate and dipping his sandwich into it.
Minh caught his eye and then nodded at the bottle of Tabasco.
“Oh, honey,” I said. “I don’t think you’d like that. It’s spicy.”
She put her hands back in her lap and nodded at the bottle again.
“Maybe just a little bit,” Bruce said, tipping the bottle over her plate.
Minh picked up a square of sandwich and dabbed up the sauce, taking a bite and nodding as she chewed.
“More?” Bruce held up the bottle.
She kept nodding, so he shook out more for her.
“I’m worried she’ll get a sore stomach,” I said.
“I don’t know, Linda. I think she likes it.”
By the time she was done, she’d eaten three of the four pieces of sandwich and left only a few grapes.
Not too shabby.
By seven that night, Minh’s eyelids had grown heavy and she yawned, hardly able to stay awake for the end of the story Bruce read to her on the couch. I didn’t think she’d even stay awake if we put her in the bath, so we decided to hold off on that until the next day.
I found an old nightie that Sonny had just grown out of and turned down the covers of her bed. While helping Minh out of her dress and into her jammies, I saw the hint of impetigo on her face, nearly healed up.
I wondered that there were people in the world who would reject a child over such a small thing as a rash. What mercy that this precious little girl didn’t end up in that home.
Bruce and I were far from perfect, the Lord was well aware of that. Possibly he was more acquainted with our faults than even we were. But we would love Minh past our imperfections. We would love her and cherish her.
Kneeling there on the girls’ bedroom floor, the shag carpeting scratchy against my bare knees, I gave my thanks to the God who cared enough to sometimes use a rash for the good of one of his dear ones.
“We love you, Minh,” I whispered, smoothing down her hair that got tousled when I pulled the nightie over her head. “Now let’s go brush those chompers, okay?”
I got her teeth clean—finding that her top front teeth were worn down nearly to nubs—and had her use the potty before calling for Bruce to help me tuck her in.
She looked so small in the bed, her hair so dark on the white pillowcase. I pulled the silky trimmed blanket up to her shoulders when she shivered and wondered how much hotter Vietnam was than Bear Run.
“Don’t forget your baby,” Bruce said, handing her the doll.
She nodded and kissed the yellow head of it. Then she peeked at us, as if unsure what we would make of such a thing.
I put my hand on her forehead, moving the bangs that someone had trimmed recently to one side.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” I whispered, smiling at her. “Sleep tight, sweet girl.”
Bruce woke me in the morning with a cup of coffee, setting it on the bedside table before pushing the curtains open, letting the sunshine into the room.
“Good morning,” I said.
He put a finger to his lips. “She’s still sleeping,” he whispered.
“Did you check on her?” I asked, sitting up before taking a sip of coffee.
Just the right amount of cream and sugar. The man loved me so well.
He shook his head. “Didn’t want to disturb her. I thought she needed the sleep after yesterday. It was a big day for her.”
“She slept through the night, didn’t she?” I said. “I didn’t hear her at all.”
“I think she did.”
He climbed into bed, grabbing a book and leaning back against the headboard.
It was Monday and his boss had given him the day off. I was grateful that he was there; still, I tried not to think of what a day without pay would do to our budget. I tried—unsuccessfully—not to tally up the cost of taking Minh to the doctor for a checkup and the dentist for an examination, let alone if we decided to enroll Minh in school for the coming fall. Just thinking about paying two tuitions made my head swimmy, especially knowing we couldn’t rely on Hilda helping us.
Not anymore.
I wondered if she’d ever forgive us for going against her will. As much as I wanted not to care what my mother-in-law thought of me, I just couldn’t calm the panic that pressed hard on my chest when I knew I’d displeased her.
Blinking hard, I tried to shoo away those thoughts. We’d be okay. With or without Hilda’s approval.
“I can’t wait for Sonny to meet her,” I said, forcing myself to think about something else. “What will she think of Minh, I wonder.”
“No idea.” He put the book on his lap. “I think I’m more worried about what Minh will think of her.”
“They might be good for each other.”
I finished that first cup of coffee and got up, deciding that I should probably get some breakfast made. I didn’t think I should let Minh sleep all day or she wouldn’t ever sleep that night.
Still in my nightie, I peeked into the girls’ room on my way to the kitchen.
“Rise and shine,” I sang through the doorway.
Minh wasn’t in her bed. The covers were rustled, like they’d been pushed off, and there was still a divot from where her head had been on the pillow. But she wasn’t there.
“Minh?” I called into the room.
I checked the bathroom. Empty. The living room and kitchen. Both empty. Then went back to my bedroom to find Bruce, nose in his book.
“Did she come in here?” I asked.
It took him too long to respond, so absorbed was he in what he was reading.
“Bruce.” I said his name in a half shout so he’d come to attention.
“Yup?” he asked, looking up. “What’s wrong?”
“Minh isn’t in her room. I can’t find her.”
He about jumped out of bed and I turned, rushing toward the back door to make sure it was still locked. It was. So was the front door.
The house just wasn’t that big. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where she could have gone.
Then I heard Bruce’s voice, gentle and deep, from the girls’ room.
“Well, what are you doing under there?” he asked.
My heart still pounding far harder than was comfortable, I went to the doorway. Bruce was on hands and knees, the skirt around Minh’s bed frame pulled up. Underneath, two very large, very dark eyes peeked out.
“Did you sleep down there last night?” Bruce asked. “Is that more comfortable for you?”
She pushed the baby doll from under the bed first and then shimmied out, the back of her hair in snarls.
I leaned on the dresser, my legs a very wobbly form of jelly.
“I’ll get breakfast started,” Bruce said.
I shut the door behind him, taking a deep breath in and out before turning back toward Minh.
“Let’s get you dressed,” I said.
I pulled open the bottom drawer of her dresser for a pair of overalls. There, with the hand-me-downs from Sonny, was a square of grilled cheese and a handful of grapes—leftovers from dinner the day before.
“Oh, sweetheart,” I whispered, looking at her over my shoulder.
She was so small, so thin. And her eyes were so frightened.
“It’s okay.”
I closed the drawer.
CHAPTER
Twenty-One
Sonny, 1988
When I was in middle school, I got up early every day in the summer so I could have breakfast with my dad before he went to work. We even had a whole routine where he’d make the coffee and I’d scramble the eggs. I got out the jam for the toast he made. We would sit at the kitchen table, keeping our voices low so we wouldn’t wake up Mom and
Mindy.
He was being considerate of them.
I, on the other hand, didn’t want them crashing the party.
It was probably super selfish of me, but I liked having that time with him all to myself.
At some point I’d stopped getting up early on summer mornings. It wasn’t like I did it on purpose or anything. It just slipped my mind.
I wondered if he missed those mornings. I wondered if it hurt his feelings that I didn’t get up with him anymore.
So, since it was my last summer at home, I thought maybe I’d try and get up a few times to have breakfast with him again. Not every day, though. The man got up ridiculously early and I was in desperate need of my beauty sleep.
On a Tuesday morning my alarm went off half an hour before Mindy’s was set to, and I got up, tiptoeing down the stairs so I could surprise him.
Once I got to the bottom of the steps, I heard the running of water in the kitchen. He was already making coffee. I picked up the pace, making it to the swinging door before I heard Mom’s voice.
Bummer.
It wasn’t like her to be up that early. Then again, she wasn’t really acting like herself much these days.
I was about to slump my way into the kitchen for a bowl of Cheerios but then stopped, deciding that maybe I should eavesdrop a little first.
“This baby does not want to let me sleep,” Mom said.
“It’s just getting you ready for two a.m. feedings,” Dad said.
I almost let out a huge sigh of relief that I would miss all of that newborn stuff while I was away at college. Sure, I’d miss all the snuggles and baby smiles and stuff. But changing poopy diapers and waking up to a screaming infant at all hours of the night were not my idea of fun.
“It’s too early to be up,” Mom said. “I need a cup of coffee.”
“Didn’t the doctor say you’re not supposed to have any? It’s not good for the baby.”
“Oh, who cares what that old fuddy-duddy said? My mother drank a beer every week when she was pregnant with me, and I’m fine!”
There was a tinkling sound that I guessed was mugs tapping each other.
“Linda,” Dad said.
“I’m only going to have half a cup,” Mom said. “And it will be mostly cream and sugar. I promise, it won’t hurt the baby. Remember, I drank four cups of coffee a day when I was pregnant with Sonny. She’s fine.”
“Well, that’s debatable.”
I rolled my eyes. So rude.
“She’s a wonderful young woman and you know it, Bruce,” she said. Then, “After this baby’s born, I’m going to drink a whole pot of coffee by myself.”
“I have a hunch you’ll need to,” Dad said. “I think this one is going to put us through the drills.”
“Oh, I know it.”
“And too bad Sonny won’t be here,” he said. “You know how she likes to run the show.”
My mouth dropped open and I wanted to shriek an extra loud “as if” in Dad’s direction. It wasn’t the first time somebody had implied that I was bossy, and I doubted that it would be the last.
Still, it bugged me.
It wasn’t my fault that I knew how things should be done.
They didn’t talk for a few minutes. The only sounds from the other side of the door were of slurps—gag me—the clearing of a throat, and dishes being put into the sink.
Ugh. Parents could be so boring.
“I can’t believe Sonny’s almost out of the house,” Mom said. Then her voice started to warble like she was crying. “It just . . . she grew up too fast.”
Dad said, “Babe, I know.”
“I’m going to miss her so much.”
I pressed the palm of my hand against the door and was about to push it open when Mom started sobbing. Not just crying. She let out full boo-hoos and wails.
Over me.
I clenched down on the spot in my throat where the bawling threatened to erupt and blinked hard against the stinging that always came right before I started crying.
“I’ve just really loved being her mom.”
“It’s hard to let go, isn’t it?” Dad asked.
Mom said something that was so garbled I couldn’t understand it.
“She’s going to be all right, Lin.” His voice was so gentle it made my heart hurt a little. “We’ve got to let her go. She can’t stay in our nest forever.”
I took my hand off the door and leaned back against the wall.
For years I’d been looking forward to moving away to college. I’d visited a couple of different schools, hoping to find the very best one for me, and dreamed of the classes I could take. In the middle drawer of my desk, I even had a diagram of how I wanted to set up my dorm room. I’d colored it in and everything.
It was my chance to start over without anyone having expectations for me.
I might have considered telling everyone to call me my real name, Sondra. But then I worried that I wouldn’t respond to it. I’d decided to just go by Sonny.
It was easier that way.
But for all my excitement, I hadn’t even taken a second to think of how hard it would be to leave everybody behind.
Mrs. Olds met us at the door, tugging a little red wagon behind her. She had on a pair of overalls that she wore when she expected the work to be extra grimy, and her hands were covered by a pair of garden gloves.
“Oh man,” I whispered to Mindy. “Is it going to be a day for champions? I don’t think I’m up for that.”
Over the past few weeks I’d come to learn that when Mrs. Olds declared it a day for champions that it really meant it was a day in which we were going to get our butts kicked. On our first day for champions we had to carry a hundred-million boxes of books from the attic to the study only to carry as many boxes filled with tools from the study to the basement.
On the second, Mindy and I took turns mowing the yard. It wouldn’t have been so bad if we’d had something other than an old rusty push mower that somebody donated.
I seriously didn’t want to know what it could be that day.
“Good morning, girls,” Mrs. Olds said, beaming at us from the doorway as we climbed up to the porch. “Today is . . .”
“Don’t say it,” I said under my breath.
“. . . a day for champions.”
Darn.
“Someone was”—she cleared her throat—“kind enough to donate a large amount of rocks.”
“Rocks?” Mindy asked.
“Yes.” Mrs. Olds smiled and widened her eyes. “A large amount of them.”
Double darn.
“Are they inside?” Mindy tilted her head to see around Mrs. Olds.
“Oh no. They’re in the backyard.” She relaxed her shoulders. “But they need to be moved because they’re currently right where I’d planned to plant a Victory Garden next summer.”
“What’s a Victory Garden?” I asked.
“What are they teaching in schools these days?” She shook her head and stepped out onto the porch, pulling the wagon behind her. “Never you mind, dear. I shall tell you. But first, kindly help me get this down the steps.”
Mrs. Olds hadn’t been joking when she said there was a large amount of rocks in the backyard. I was glad she’d thought to drop two pairs of work gloves into the wagon, otherwise Mindy and I were going to have blisters for days.
I wasn’t too stoked about the totally lame tan lines I was going to have, though.
“Let’s cart these to the far end of the yard,” Mrs. Olds said, pointing forever far away where the grass gave way to wildflowers. “We can build our own Robert Frost wall.”
“Oh, ‘Mending Wall.’ I like that poem,” Mindy said, picking up a rock in each hand and dropping them into the wagon. “I memorized it in ninth grade.”
I rolled my eyes. Such a teacher’s pet.
“Good for you,” Mrs. Olds said.
“Well, I memorized ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay,’” I said, shrugging.
“That was my father’s
favorite.” Mrs. Olds winked at me.
I didn’t tell her that the only reason I ever heard of that poem or of Robert Frost was because I’d watched The Outsiders at least a dozen times with Amelia. Even just thinking of Johnny telling Ponyboy to stay gold made my eyes sting.
“Would you girls believe that I got married when I was sixteen years old?” Mrs. Olds said. “It’s true.”
“Wow,” Mindy said, squatting down to get her arms around a rock as big as her head. “That’s really young.”
“Too young.” Mrs. Olds pointed at us. “Don’t even think of getting married that early.”
I didn’t remind her that I was already eighteen.
“But you must have been really in love,” I said, giving Mindy a hand with the giant boulder.
“I was in something.” Mrs. Olds shook her head. “More like deep doo-doo than love, though.”
Mindy and I both laughed.
“Take no offense, but sixteen-year-olds aren’t ready to make vows that are meant for the rest of their lives.” She nodded at the wagon. “It’s full enough.”
Mindy pulled the handle, and I pushed the back side of it, lifting it when it got stuck in the ruts of flattened molehills. Mrs. Olds walked alongside us, carrying a rock like it was a baby.
“Well, after about a year, he took off,” she went on. “I had no choice but to move back with my mother and dad. I read that poem—‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’—every day. Let me tell you, it was no comfort to me then.”
“Why did you read it?” Mindy asked, giving the wagon a tug.
“Everyone around me wanted me to put my chin up and get over the abandonment. They expected me to carry on as if nothing was amiss. But that poem, it allowed me to be sad for what I lost.” She stopped walking. “Right here, I think.”
We unloaded that bunch of rocks, making a neat pile for whoever Mrs. Olds would get to come and build her wall. Apparently, it took a certain amount of know-how to do it right, and I was totally cool with not having that skill.
“I’m an old woman,” she said on our trip back. “Seventy-eight years old, if you’d believe it.”
“You don’t look it,” Mindy said.
“Thank you, sweetie. I feel it in my bones some days more than others.” She nodded. “In my life, I’ve learned that the golden things usually fade. Often you find that they weren’t real gold in the first place.”
The Nature of Small Birds Page 14