Anne Tyler - Digging to America

The onscreen voice Abe's voice, now said, I started counting up who was here and lost track at thirty-four. So Jin-Ho, honey, if you're watching this from some point in the future, you can see how eager your new family was to meet you.

Everybody glanced at Jin-Ho, but she was sound asleep.

Connie appeared, looking healthier than she had in months, and Dave beside her and then Linwood, propped against a wall intently punching a Game Boy. Abe was introducing people as he filmed them. Now, here is your Aunt Jeannine. Here's Bridget, your cousin, and here's your cousin Polly. The camera careened past two strangers, rested briefly on Laura, and swooped back to Linwood. You could get carsick watching this. Bitsy closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them she found that whoever had spliced the tapes must have felt the same way, because now it was no longer Abe speaking but Mac again. All right, folks, it's quite a while later. Been a bit of a delay. But the plane has landed, finally, and we're watching the first passengers come in off the jetway. Big moment! Big, big moment.

Bitsy saw a very tall young man and realized that she'd seen him before. She saw two businessmen, a boy with a backpack, a woman dropping her briefcase to hug two children in pajamas. How odd: these people were so familiar, and yet she hadn't given them a thought since that night and had certainly not been aware that they were stored in her brain. It was something like rereading a book and coming across a passage where you can recall every word a split second before you see it, even though you could never have summoned it up on your own.

The woman from the agency, for instance. The Korean woman in the navy suit that resembled an airline uniform, with her broad cheekbones and her stern, official manner. Bitsy had mentally dismissed her the instant she and Brad took possession of their daughter she'd exorcized her, you could almost say and yet now the two fine creases below the woman's eyes were so well known to her that she wondered if she had dreamed about her every single night of this past year. And the diaper bag! Oh, look. Pink vinyl, cheap and poorly made, already beginning to peel along the edges of the strap. They had discarded it immediately in favor of the one that Bitsy had sewn from her own handwoven fabric, but here it was, back again, like a statesman's casket reappearing on the evening news after you have spent the day watching it being buried.

And Jin-Ho. Ah, there: the camera zoomed in on her face and held steady. She was so much smaller! Her features were so much closer together! Look at you, Jin-Ho, Brad murmured, but to Bitsy, the child asleep in Polly's lap bore almost no connection to the baby on the screen. The sudden ache she felt was very like grief, as if that first Jin-Ho had somehow passed out of existence.

The woman from the agency was handing the baby to Bitsy. Bitsy was hugging the baby close and her relatives were smiling and dabbing their eyes with tissues. Everybody, both onscreen and off, was making soft cooing sounds like a barnful of mourning doves.

Oh, wasn't adoption better than childbirth? More dramatic, more meaningful. Bitsy felt sorry for those poor women who had merely delivered.

Evidently someone else was filming now, because Mac could be seen making googly eyes at the infant Jin-Ho. Maybe it was Uncle Oswald who was sweeping his camera across the assemblage one last time and then drawing back, back to take in the jetway door and the final trickle of passengers, the man with the cane and the gray-haired couple and oh!

There was Susan.

We did get her in! We did! Bitsy cried. There she is in her carrier!

And there were Sami and Ziba, too. There was Maryam following behind with her faultless posture and her imperious, bugle-clear Here we are. Yazdan. All three were remarkably free of appurtenances. No cameras, video cameras, or tape recorders. They traveled light, these people. (I have the memory in my head wasn't that how Ziba had put it? All at once Bitsy felt envious.) The photographer tracked their progress toward the jetway and then focused again on Susan, or on what little could be seen of her, which was mostly a pink T-shirt and a tuft of scanty black hair. Bitsy leaned past Brad to search out Ziba in the audience. She found her sitting next to Sami on the floor near the bookcase. Doesn't this bring it all back? she called, and Ziba said, But she's tiny! without taking her eyes from the screen. She's like a whole other person! she said.

I know.

It makes me sad.

Oh, I know! Bitsy cried, and if she'd been nearer to Ziba she would have hugged her, and hugged Sami too with his sweet little glasses glittering like tears in the light from the TV.

Then she turned back to the movie and found it had ended without her. Credits were gliding across the watered silk. Special thanks to the Loving Hearts Korean-American Adoption Center. Brad clicked the remote control and rose to open the curtains, and light flooded the room. People blinked and stretched. Jin-Ho was still asleep, her head lolling against Polly's chest, but that was all right; she would have many more chances to watch this movie in years to come. Bitsy patted Jin-Ho's satin-draped leg and then struggled to her feet and made her way toward Sami and Ziba. Sami was holding a wide-awake, squirmy Susan and listening to Mac's advice on the best brand of video camera, but Ziba turned to Bitsy and threw her arms around her. Why do I feel so sad? she asked Bitsy. Isn't it silly? She collected herself and wiped her eyes. She'd left a damp spot on Bitsy's shoulder. It was the happiest day of my life! It's a day I'll never forget.

Me either, but would you want to go back to it? Bitsy asked her. Never!

They both laughed.

Come help me brew another pot of tea, Bitsy told her.

They made their way through the crowd, which wasn't easy. Other people were damp-eyed too; other people wanted to hug them. Bitsy's mother said, It broke my heart to see our Jin-Ho arriving all alone like that, and Bitsy's father said, Alone? She had that nice Korean woman.

Yes, but you know what I mean.

Maybe that's why we're sad, Bitsy told Ziba as they entered the kitchen. We're so used to having the girls by now; we forget they haven't always been with us. We see them coming off the plane and we say, 'Oh, no, they made that long trip without us! Where were we?'

And they lived those first months of their lives without us, Ziba said. All alone! Coping for themselves!

They fell into each other's arms again, crying and laughing both.

Oh, Ziba, who else understands how it feels? Bitsy asked as she leaned back against the sink and fished in her pocket for a tissue. I wish you lived closer. I hate that I have to get in my car to go see you. I'd like to have you next door. We could call to each other over the fence, and the girls could play together whenever they wanted without all these formal arrangements.

She could see it in her mind: the casual comings and goings, the screen doors slamming as the girls raced out to meet the first thing after breakfast. Maybe the Sansoms at 2410 could sell to the Yazdans. They were getting on in years, after all, and their Cape Cod was much, much nicer than any McMansion out in Hunt Valley. She blew her nose and said, We could babysit for each other. Soon the girls would hardly notice if one of us was gone.

When they got a little older they could have sleepovers, Ziba said.

Maryam had joined them by now. She was gently setting Bitsy to one side so she could fill the kettle. Being together so much, Bitsy said, they would think adoption was natural. I mean, they would know it was. They wouldn't have any self-doubts or sense of inferiority.

Does this stove need a match to light it? Maryam asked.

Oh, I'm sorry! No, just that one burner; the others are fine, Bitsy told her. You know, she said, turning back to Ziba, when I was in that poetry group, I read about these two women poets who had so much they wanted to share with each other, they installed a separate telephone line and left their receivers off the hook at all times so as to keep in constant contact. Not that I'd want to do that myself, but don't you sympathize with the urge?