by Ann E. Burg
pick him up.
Suddenly
I feel like crying again.
It’s that fastball,
let loose,
an unexpected
wild pitch,
rolling in my stomach.
After dinner, I help Dad
clear the dishes
while my mother
gives Tommy his bath.
When she comes down again,
instead of watching TV,
I ask them
if we can talk.
We sit at the kitchen table
with its ragged lines like
jagged sideways mountains.
I step back into the jungle
and let the words lead me
where I don’t want to go.
I tell them everything
and before they can respond,
I say, I understand
if you hate me and
want to send me away.
Hate you? Send you away?
My mother
moves closer to me.
She touches my face
with her soft hands.
Matt, you’re our son.
We love you.
Nothing, nothing
will ever change that.
What happened to your brother
wasn’t your fault,
Dad says.
The war wasn’t your fault.
War is a monster
with a mind of its own.
My brother—
My mother—
I start to say,
my other brother—
my other mother—
The words
choke in my throat.
I breathe deep
and force them out.
Do you think we can
ever try to find them?
And with the words,
hot tears flood my face.
My mother pulls me so close
I can hear her heart.
We will try,
she whispers.
That night
she comes
into my room
and sits at the end
of my bed.
I’ve just turned off
the light.
Are you sleeping?
she asks.
Not yet.
She leaves the light off,
but the moon shines
through the window,
so I can see her soft,
open face.
I’m glad we talked,
Matt, she says.
I love you so, so much,
and of course,
loving you
doesn’t mean
I love Tommy
any less.
She pats my leg.
You can love us both,
Matt. It won’t mean
you’ve forgotten her
or that you didn’t care.
The heart always
has room
for more love.
It won’t mean
that you’ve forgotten.
When I see Rob
in the hall
the next day,
I almost look away,
out of habit,
but I don’t.
We nod at each other
and keep walking.
In the lunchroom, he asks
if I’m going to practice.
I haven’t missed one practice
since the season started.
Neither has he.
Yep,
I answer.
Are you?
We win our division
and will be heading for
the league championship.
The day we win the
final division game,
Coach Robeson
is in the hospital
recuperating
from his operation.
The whole team goes
to Victory Memorial
to visit him.
We have to take turns
going to his room,
two visitors at a time.
Rob and I go upstairs.
Coach’s whole face smiles
when he sees us
together.
I hear you two have been
doing great things, he whispers.
I’m proud of you.
Rob and I look at each other.
I nod.
Rob reaches into his jacket pocket
and gives Coach a baseball.
The whole team signed it, he says.
Coach’s face isn’t so pale anymore,
and his eyes are back
to their old shade of blue.
Thanks, Coach—for everything, I say.
Mr. Brennan was right.
You shouldn’t wait
to thank people
for the good they do.
Words are messy,
but sometimes,
words are all you’ve got
to show what matters most.
I can’t believe how easy
the scales are getting.
Sometimes my fingers
just fly over the keys,
and Jeff has to tell me
to slow down,
to pace myself.
You’re good, he says,
but music is not simply
playing notes.
You have to play
the silence too.
I’ve been thinking
of saying something
at the next VV meeting,
nothing important,
nothing about
my mother in Vietnam
or what happened to
my brother,
but something,
something that would
show them I was there,
that I remember.
Vietnam is beautiful,
I say and
I am not remembering
stories someone told me
or pictures from books.
I am just remembering.
White cabbages grew
as big as pumpkins.
And before a storm,
the purple-blue of the
sky was the same
purple-blue as my
mom’s favorite shawl.
My father squeezes
my shoulder.
Caveman Joe nods
like he remembers too.
A couple of the vets
smile.
On Sunday, it rains.
Alex calls and asks
if I would like to go
bowling with the team.
All of my balls end up
in the gutter.
It’s okay to get strikes
in bowling, Rob says,
and we laugh.
We eat french fries
and drink Coke,
then bowl
some more.
Maybe you’d better
save your arm
for pitching,
someone says,
and we all
turn around.
Coach Robeson
stands behind
the blue-and-white
plastic chairs
in our bowling corner.
He’s still thin,
but his voice
is stronger,
and he’s smiling.
The dinner dishes
are still on the table,
but Mom and Tommy
are already splashing upstairs.
Sometimes cancer goes
into remission, Dad explains.
Sometimes it even
disappears completely
and people get
a second chance.
We start scraping the dishes
and piling them in the sink.
Will that happen
with Coach Robeson?
I don’t know, Matt,
but we can hope.
Everyone deserves
a second chance.
The days are getting
really warm.
Summer is sitting
on spring
and squeezing out
all the wetness.
Tommy and I
spend a lot of time
outside
tossing the ball.
His plastic yellow bat
is bigger than he is,
but he’s using it
like a golf club anyway.
He hits the ball,
drops the bat,
and toddles away.
Run, run, I say,
and he waddles
around the yard,
laughing like a
babbling, bubbling,
quickly tumbling
brook,
and I remember.
His name is Huu Hein.
He followed me everywhere.
He follows me still,
and one day,
we’re going
to find him.
I am grateful to the countless veterans, war correspondents, and photographers whose brave, unflinching recollections aided me in my research. Thanks to my editor, Tracy Mack, whose winding blue paths helped me find my way deeper into the story. Thanks also to her assistant, Abby Ranger, and to Marijka Kostiw for her beautiful cover design. Thanks to Steve Fraser for his encouragement and to Jodi Reamer for her support and guidance. Thanks also to Daniel Marotta, the finest baseball player I know, for his expertise and advice, and to Rosemary Marotta, who always listens to my stories and asks others to listen too. As always, I am most grateful to Marc, Celia, and Alex for their love and support.
Ann E. Burg was born in Brooklyn and spent her early years surrounded by a large, loving extended family. She lived in a rambling three-family house with a wide armchair stoop, and a big, beautiful sycamore tree out front. Spring and summer meant stoopball, hopscotch, and waiting for the ice-cream man to ride by on his bicycle with the freezer in front. Fall meant walking to the library in her favorite red corduroy jacket, and winter — winter was the best season of all. Winter brought birthdays and holidays.
When she was eight, Ann and her family moved to New Jersey. Seasons hurried by — some sparkled, some did not — and the world grew bigger. Eventually, Ann became a teacher and married her best friend. She wrote stories and lullabies for her students, her nephews, and her own two children. After ten years, Ann gave up teaching to write full time.
Ann’s first novel, All the Broken Pieces, has received numerous awards and accolades, including the prestigious Jefferson Cup Award. It has been cited as an IRA Notable Book for a Global Society and received the Booklist Editors’ Choice citation. All the Broken Pieces has also been named one of the American Library Association’s Best Books for Young Adults and was included in the New York Public Library’s 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing.
Ann now lives with her family in Rhinebeck, New York, and you can visit her online at www.annburg.com.
Q: What were you like as a child?
A: I was a pretty quiet child who fell in love with words at an early age. My mother had a beautiful — really beautiful — singing voice. She also wrote poetry, so I was always aware that words carried a weight and rhythm. Even before I could read or write, I spent a lot of my time stringing together words and marveling at my own creativity. None of those poems and songs were actually marvel-worthy, but my parents thought so!
I was quiet, but also pretty confident and comfortable with myself during my earliest years in Brooklyn. Things changed a bit when we moved to New Jersey. Transferring schools in the middle of the school year and making new friends wasn’t always easy. A timid shyness and awkward self-consciousness often enveloped me.
Q: Can you describe your writing process?
A: Unlike many authors, I don’t necessarily agree that one must write every day to be a writer. To me, being a writer suggests a certain way of experiencing the world. There are always what I call gathering days. These are the days when I gather thoughts and ideas, much as a chef gathers ingredients. Some days I visit schools. Maybe I’ll go to a museum or library, or spend an afternoon with friends. Stories and ideas for stories are everywhere, and even on my non-writing days, I’m gathering ideas and letting thoughts percolate. That being said, I do write almost every day. During the school year, I sit down before 7 a.m., which is when my son leaves for school. I usually start out in the kitchen, where I breakfast with the birds, check my email, reread what I’ve written the day before, and begin my new day of writing. When my computer battery runs low, I move to my desk in the library. Once I’m deep into a story, the main characters follow me everywhere, and I can write anytime and anywhere.
Q: Where did the idea for All the Broken Pieces come from?
A: When I was a teacher I noticed that girls often read stories with male protagonists, but boys seldom read stories with female protagonists. I simply wanted to write something a boy might read. In particular, I wanted to write something that recognized that boys have deep feelings and thoughts, even if they have a different way of expressing them. I began to explore the bond between brothers. I originally thought Rob and his brother would be the main characters. Since Vietnam was the backdrop for much of my early life, I decided to explore the Vietnam War as a possible setting.
Q: How did Matt’s character come to you?
A: Once I decided to explore the Vietnam era as a possible setting and backdrop to my story, I read many books about Vietnam and studied countless photographs. I read about the Amerasian (a person born in Asia to a US military father and an Asian mother) children left like dust in the road. I read about the last days of the war and recalled my own experience teaching a child who had been airlifted out of Vietnam as an infant, and who continued to have nightmares five years later. I was surprised to find that not all the children airlifted out of Vietnam were infants. Not all were orphans. Gradually, a story took shape in my mind. A boy’s voice began to speak.
Q: Why did you decide to tell Matt’s story in verse?
A: I’ve been asked this question many times! I didn’t intend to write a verse novel, but once I started writing, it was almost as if Matt were sitting beside me dictating his story. Whenever I tried to impose a more conventional structure, I seemed to destroy the clarity of Matt’s voice. Poetry tends to cut to the heart of the matter. This seemed the best way for Matt to express himself.
Q: What do you like to do when you’re not writing?
A: I love to read, research, travel, and visit museums. I love exploring history, learning things I didn’t know, and discovering people the world may have forgotten. I also love working outside in the garden (though I’m not too fond of bugs) and hiking the nearby mountains (though nothing too strenuous). I enjoy entertaining family and friends, and particularly enjoy cooking with my daughter. Most recently, I’ve been known to waste a few blinks playing Angry Birds.
Q: How did your own interests influence All the Broken Pieces? Are you a baseball fan? Do you play the piano?
A: I like baseball, but I think I’m more of a Yankees fan than a baseball fan. I also took piano lessons but never played as well as Matt! I do, however, tend to rescue broken pencils.
Q: The Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” runs throughout your book and becomes an important part of Matt’s story. Were there other songs you drew from as you were writing?
A: I like quiet when I write, but I did try to listen to an oldies station when I was driving. It’s always helpful to engage all the senses when researching a particular time period.
There are two other musical allusions in All the Broken Pieces. At one point in the story, Matt practices playing “Oh Shenandoah.” Lots of piano students receive this piece to study and I thought it was particularly appropriate that Matt would be practicing a traditional American folk song that expresses a longing for home. “Oh Shenandoah” reflects Matt’s struggle — t
he struggle of all immigrants who so earnestly try to become American while, at the same time, longing for their homeland.
Later in the story one of the Vietnam vets is wearing a shirt that says “Box of Rain.” This early seventies song recorded by the Grateful Dead also reflects a sense of loss and longing. I liked it because of the emotions it evokes, and also because rain as a metaphor is explored elsewhere in the story.
The Vietnam War is considered by many to be the most unpopular war the United States ever fought in, and it is the only war the country has ever lost.
The history of this controversial war reaches back to 1946, when Vietnamese communists and nationalists in eastern Indochina rose up against their French colonizers. This was called the First Indochina War (1946–1954), and ended with the defeat of the American-backed French. Chaos in Vietnam was temporarily resolved by a conference held in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1954, which divided the country into the communist North and democratic South. This division was supposed to be a temporary solution, but elections to reunify Vietnam were never held, and many people in the West feared for the future of South Vietnam.
In the United States, president after president decided that South Vietnam should not be allowed to fall under control of communists. For twenty years, the US supported South Vietnam with this purpose in mind. At first the US intervened only as advisors, training South Vietnamese troops to defend themselves from attack, but eventually, in 1965, the US became involved in the Second Indochina War — what Americans refer to as the Vietnam War. This bitter military conflict lasted eight years and took the lives of almost sixty thousand American soldiers, one million Vietnamese troops, and four million Vietnamese civilians. Many Americans, especially young people, protested US involvement in the war through demonstrations across the country. Their anger was in part because of a draft that involuntarily inducted young men into the military, and in part because of the violence against Vietnamese civilians.
In 1973, US leaders, swayed by escalating opposition to the war among the American people, withdrew their troops from South Vietnam. Two years later, just as the US government had feared, North Vietnam invaded the South and declared the birth of a communist Republic of Vietnam.