Dana came to spend the day with Mom, giving Dad a pass for a few hours.
That means the men have the day to eat junk, smell bad, and burp without the expectation of us excusing ourselves.
My dad’s the worst offender of that last one.
When we found out that Zach had never been fishing before, we decided to remedy that while the girls were away. Mike had all the live bait we could need, Chris brought an extra pole, Dad lent the kid one of his bucket hats, and I drove all of us and our gear—including Mike’s motorboat—out to a lake not too far outside Bear Run.
There’s nobody else out here today. It’s too cold for most people to even think about fishing. But we’re plenty bundled up and have a couple of thermoses of hot coffee. We’ll be just fine.
Zach’s not necessarily comfortable putting a worm on the hook yet, and his cast leaves a little something to be desired, but his willingness to try is impressing the socks off me. When he reels in his first bite and we snap a shot of him with it before tossing it back in—it was on the small side—the pride on his face makes me like him even more than I already did.
We eat a lunch of the fish we caught this morning, sitting at a picnic table in Mike’s workshop so we don’t stink up the house while the girls are away. Dad’s in the middle of telling about a time he nearly got dragged downstream by what he thought was an enormous catfish when he was a kid.
“Hardly old enough to shave, even,” he always said when he started the story.
The way the tale goes, he went out with his line and a bucket to catch a few sunfish for his mother to cook up for dinner. They were poor in those days, still recovering from the Depression, even though it seemed the rest of the country had moved on, all their attention on the war in Japan and Germany.
“We couldn’t afford to buy meat at the market most of the time,” Dad says. “My father always said it took an idiot to starve in a place like this, though. Deer and squirrel and raccoon all over the place.”
“You never ate raccoon,” Mike says.
“Sure did, smarty pants.” Dad shakes his head. “It’s stringy and has got a strong flavor, but it’ll do in a pinch.”
“Probably tastes like garbage,” Chris says.
“Well, that’s what it eats, isn’t it?” Dad says. “Well, anyways . . .”
He moves on to the part of the story where he stands in the stream all day long without a fish so much as swimming past his line.
“It was starting to get dark,” he goes on. “And I wanted to go home. But my mother said I better not without something for our supper, so I stayed put.”
Soon it was so dark he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. Not even the moon offered any glow. He got nervous, knowing he’d never find his way home with no light.
“What did you do?” Zach asks, sitting on the edge of the bench.
“Well, I stayed where I was,” Dad says. “I sure didn’t want to make my mother mad by coming home without anything for her to cook.”
“Were you there until morning?”
“Nope.”
Dad tells us how that was when he felt the first tug on his line. It was slight but got his attention. Then another pull and another. Each stronger than the one before it.
“Back in those days there was a rumor around that a monster-sized catfish swam through the waterways of Bear Run. So terrified were folks around here, they wouldn’t let their kids swim in the rivers because they were sure the freak of nature was a man-eater,” Dad says. “We even had a name for it. We called him Hans.”
Chris and Mike meet eyes and both shake their heads, knowing how this story goes.
“Hans?” Zach asks. “Why?”
“Some kid claimed to have seen it moving down a deep run of river,” Dad says. “Here’s the crazy part. The kid swore that the fish yelled ‘Hans!’ as it went.”
Zach scratches his head, and by now I think he’s wondering how much baloney he’s being sold.
“Anyway, I was sure it was Hans that I’d caught on my line,” Dad goes on. “I thought how this beast could feed my entire neighborhood for a week if I managed to bring it in, so I held on, determined not to let it go.”
It dragged him for a mile down the river, and he was afraid it would take him clear into Lake Michigan if he didn’t dig his heels in and hold it firm.
“There was no way I’d let it get away with my pole,” Dad says. “I got myself wedged on the other side of a boulder and held on for dear life.”
Hans struggled against the hold of the line but couldn’t break free. Dad reeled it in, slow and steady, until his catch was in reach.
“I put my hand in the water, feeling of its tail. It was smooth, but not exactly fishlike,” Dad says, letting his voice get quiet. “Boy, was it ever big. I ran my hand along it, thinking it felt more like metal than anything. When I got about halfway down . . .”
Zach doesn’t blink, his eyes focused on my dad’s face.
“POP!”
Zach flinches.
“Up comes a man from the top of the fish,” Dad says. “He had his hands up in the air and he was yelling all this stuff I couldn’t understand. That was when I realized I hadn’t caught a fish after all.”
Dad pauses, takes a long drink of his iced tea, luxuriates in the quiet. The man knows he’s got Zach on the line and is toying with him right before he reels him in.
“What was it?” Zach asks, desperate.
Dad turns his eyes one way and then the other as if making sure no stragglers are listening to his story, even though it’s just the five of us sitting there.
“A German,” he says. “I hadn’t caught myself a catfish. I’d caught myself a U-boat.”
“What?” Zach squints his eyes and crinkles his nose. “I don’t get it. Is that real?”
“He’s pulling your leg,” Chris says, nudging Zach.
The boy’s going to have to get used to the ways of old Grumpy. I’ll tell him on the way home that Dad only ever tells that particular big-fish story to the people he’s coming to love. It’s a rite of passage into the family.
It’s Dad’s way of saying, “You belong with us.”
Linda and I are both satisfyingly beat after the days we’ve had. We turn in at an hour we might have once thought obscenely early—it’s not even all the way dark yet. Exhausted as we are, though, we stay up a little longer, talking in bed.
“Dad told his Hans story,” I say.
“Oh. That’s good,” Linda says. “I’m glad he likes Zach.”
“He’s a good kid.”
I roll to my side so I can see her profile in the fading light coming in through the window. When she catches me watching her, she smiles and I inch over and give her a kiss.
For as much attention that new love gets in the movies and such, it can’t hold a candle to love that’s had time to age, to mature. A slow burn is always better than a flash in the pan as far as I’m concerned.
“I think everyone has a dress for the wedding now,” Linda says, yawning. “I can’t tell you how many Holly tried on. There are so many choices these days.”
“Can’t even imagine.”
“She found the perfect one.” She lets her eyes close. “Just you wait until you see it.”
The dress is currently hanging in the closet in the room that used to be Holly’s. I’ve been made to promise that under no circumstances am I to look at that dress. I’m to wait until the wedding day.
I guess that’s so the photographer can snap a picture of my first glimpse of Holly in her gown.
They always like to get a shot of the dad crying.
CHAPTER
Thirty-Two
Linda, 1975
The article about our adoption of Minh ran in the Bear Run Herald on the Thursday after she came home to us. It was right there on the front page along with a picture of the four of us standing on our front porch. Sonny and Minh held hands and looked so sweet together.
The editor of the paper promised u
s a copy of the picture by way of thanking us for letting them publish our story. I’d already figured out where I’d hang it in the living room.
That morning I loaded Minh and Sonny up in the Dart, and we listened to Carole King on the radio. While we might not have been able to feel the earth move like Carole did, we certainly did shake along with the car, and I hoped nothing was about to tumble down. From the way the muffler sounded, it wouldn’t have surprised me one bit if it did.
Minh pressed her face against the window when we pulled up in front of the school, watching all the kids running around the playground while they waited for the bell to ring.
We’d decided to hold off and not enroll her in kindergarten in the fall. Four months just wasn’t enough time to get her ready for school. Bruce and I hoped to teach her as much English as we could before sending her off for kindergarten.
I couldn’t begin to imagine how frightening it would be for her to be in a class full of kids, not understanding more than a word here or there that they said.
But from the way Minh watched those kids with such longing, I wondered if I’d done the wrong thing.
I was convinced that half of my time was spent second-guessing my decisions.
“Bye, Mom,” Sonny said, grabbing her bag. “Bye, Mindy.”
“Bye,” Minh said.
Sonny and I both looked at her, big smiles spreading on our faces.
I had no idea if she knew what the word meant, but it little mattered. It counted as a victory.
I held Minh’s hand, and she held her doll’s as we made our way across the parking lot, and when we reached a cart, I lifted her into the seat. She was so light. It surprised me every time I picked her up.
“Ready?” I asked, putting my forehead against hers.
“Bye,” she said.
“Oh, you silly.”
I rolled the cart into the store, a blast of cold air making gooseflesh prickle on Minh’s arms. I rubbed one hand on her skin, hoping to warm her up a little bit.
“It’s cold in here, isn’t it?” I said, pretending to chatter my teeth. “Brr.”
But her attention wasn’t on me. Her eyes darted all around the store at everything there was to see.
“See the bright lights?” I said, pointing up. “And, oh, do you see the red apples?”
When we neared the bananas, her eyes lit with recognition, and I grabbed a bunch, letting her hold them in her lap. When I turned my back on her for one second, she tore one of the bananas free and peeled it before I could stop her.
“Oh, we’re supposed to pay for those first,” I said, taking the rest of the bunch and putting it in the cart where she couldn’t reach it.
Apparently she’d had bananas before.
I sang along to the elevator music playing over the speakers as we moved from produce to meat to dairy to dry goods, and all the while I kept a running tally of how much I was spending so I’d stay within my budget. Things weren’t as tight as they’d been, but we still needed to be careful. Thank goodness for the stack of coupons in my wallet.
When Minh finished her banana, I took the peel, making a mental note that I’d need to ask the cashier to add a dime to our total to pay for it.
We meandered into the cereal aisle for a box of Wheaties. As soon as we rounded the corner, two women looked up at us. One was reading the side of a canister of oatmeal. The other had just dropped a box of Froot Loops into her cart.
“Linda Matthews,” the woman with the oatmeal said, pointing at me. “How in the world are you?”
“I’m well,” I answered, searching her face for a trace of familiarity.
She was an older woman, right around the same age as Hilda give or take a few years. I tried to place her. Church? No. The school? I didn’t think so.
“You don’t remember me.” She scrunched her nose.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.” She nodded at Minh. “I understand you have other things on your mind these days.”
“Well, yes.”
“I do your mother-in-law’s hair,” she said, touching her chest. “Dixie Chapman.”
“Oh, right.” I still had no memory of ever meeting the woman.
“You should come by the beauty parlor.” She looked at my hair with a hint of a scowl. “I could do something with that.”
“Maybe,” I said, glancing up at her football-helmet-shaped bouffant.
I determined never to get my hair done by that woman.
“Anyway,” Dixie said, “I saw you were in the paper this morning.”
The woman with the Froot Loops glanced at me before grabbing a box of Golden Grahams.
“Yes,” I said, cringing. “We didn’t realize we’d be on the front page.”
“And is this her?” The woman took a step toward our cart. “What’s her name again?”
“Minh.”
My little girl looked up at the sound of her name.
“I could never do it,” Dixie said, leaning toward me as if sharing a secret. “But good for you.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean raise a child that wasn’t mine.”
“Well . . .” I started, but then didn’t know what to say next.
I grabbed my box of Wheaties. There was no celebrity athlete on it that time. Just a normal person riding a bike. Minh gladly took it from me, letting it rest on her lap.
“My nephew was over there, you know,” Dixie said. “I’m sure Hilda’s told you about him.”
She hadn’t, but I nodded anyway.
“You know what he told me? He said that the countryside is real pretty. Lots of trees and flowers.” She sucked her teeth. “But he said those people over there just don’t know how to take care of it. Let it go all to trash.”
“Well, I don’t know how true that is,” I said, moving my cart forward in hopes of putting some distance between Minh and that woman. “They’ve had a war, you know.”
“I’m just saying what he told me,” she said. “My nephew’s no liar.”
“Well, I think I should . . .” I started, trying to move along so I could begin the process of forgetting what horrible things that woman was saying.
“He said they were backward people. Real primitive,” she interrupted. She tipped her head and raised her eyebrows. “Not quite with the times like people over here.”
“That’s just not true . . .”
“Well, I won’t keep you. She’s very cute,” Dixie said. “I just think of all the orphans in our own country.”
“If you’re so worried about them, why don’t you adopt one yourself?”
I looked up to see the other woman standing at her cart full of sugary cereal, arms crossed.
“Well, excuse me,” Dixie said. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“But it’s your business to bully this woman?” Froot Loops asked.
“I don’t like your tone.”
“That’s fine.”
“Can you believe this?” Dixie said, looking at me for solidarity, I supposed.
“Mrs. Chapman, what you said was unkind.” My hands shook, so I gripped on to the cart. “Someday soon my daughter will be able to understand English, and I hope she never hears anyone say such horribly mean things about her place of birth like what you said today.”
“Well, I . . .”
“There’s no need to apologize,” I said. “But please remember that she’s a person just like you or me, and she can be hurt by what people say.”
Dixie harrumphed and pushed her cart away from us.
Minh was completely oblivious to the entire affair. She just kicked her little feet and stared at the box of Wheaties.
As for me, I thought I was going to burst into tears I was so upset.
“You did good,” Froot Loops said.
“Thanks.” I swallowed.
“I think your mother-in-law’s going to have to find a new hairdresser,” she said.
“You’
re probably right,” I said, letting go of the cart and stretching out my fingers. “She’ll be furious when she hears how I talked to her friend.”
“Well, I’m proud of you.” She winked at me. “Don’t let people like that get to you, okay?”
I nodded.
“If anybody’s backwards it’s people who think they’re better than everybody else,” she said.
“Thank you.” I glanced down at Minh then up again.
When I rolled my cart away, Minh called out to the woman, “Bye.”
The girls were meant to be napping in their room after lunch. But when I came in after weeding the side flower boxes, I heard them giggling. It was fine with me if they didn’t sleep, just so long as they were on their beds not making a mess of anything.
An eruption of laughter came again and then shushing from Sonny, I had to imagine.
Sneaking to their bedroom door, making sure to avoid the creaky floorboard in the hall, I tried to hear what in the world was so funny in there.
“Say it again,” Sonny said. “Sonny.”
“Sonny,” Minh said, sending them both into giggles. “Sonny.”
“Now Mindy,” Sonny said. “Go on.”
“Minh-dee.”
More laughs.
“Minh-dee, Minh-dee.”
“Now say Daddy.”
“Daddy,” Minh said.
I stood perfectly still when Sonny told her to say Mommy. When Minh did, it stole the breath right out of me.
CHAPTER
Thirty-Three
Sonny, 1988
I’d seen it happen a million times. A girl would get her first boyfriend, and all the rest of the world would melt away into unimportance. All she’d want to do is talk to him on the phone, write gushy love letters to him, and practice writing their names together in her diary.
When a girl got her first boyfriend, she’d annoy everyone else by only ever talking about him—how much she missed him when he wasn’t around or worrying that he was upset with her or talking about how dreamy his eyes were.
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