Anne Tyler - Digging to America

There was a problem unfastening the straps that held the baby in her carrier. The new parents had to do it because the Asian woman's hands were full, and the parents were flustered and unskilled the mother laughing slightly and tossing back her explosive waterfall of hennaed curls, the father biting his lip and looking vexed with himself. He wore tiny, very clean rimless glasses that glittered as he angled first this way and then that, struggling with a plastic clasp. The grandmother, if that was who she was, made sympathetic tsk-tsking sounds.

But at last the baby was free. Such a little bit of a thing! The father plucked her out in a gingerly, arm's-length manner and handed her to the mother, who gathered her in and rocked her and pressed her cheek against the top of the baby's feathery black head. The baby quirked her eyebrows but offered no resistance. Onlookers were blowing their noses again, and the father had to take off his glasses and wipe the lenses, but the mother and the grandmother stayed dry-eyed, smiling and softly murmuring. They paid no attention to the crowd. When someone asked, Is yours from Korea too? neither woman answered, and it was the father, finally, who said, Hmm? Oh. Yes, she is.

Hear that, Bitsy and Brad? Here's another Korean baby!

The first mother glanced around she was allowing the two grandmas a closer inspection and said, Really? Her husband echoed her: Really! He stepped over to the other parents and held out his hand. Brad Donaldson. That's my wife, Bitsy, over there.

How do you do, the second father said. Sami Yazdan. He shook Brad's hand, but his lack of interest was almost comical; he couldn't keep his eyes off his baby. Uh, my wife, Ziba, he added after a moment. My mother, Maryam. He had a normal Baltimore accent, although he pronounced the two women's names as no American would have Zee-bah and Mar-yam. His wife didn't even look up. She was cradling the baby and saying what sounded like Soo-soo-soo. Brad Donaldson flapped a hand genially in her direction and returned to his own family.

By the time the transfers had been made official both Asian women proving to be sticklers for detail the Donaldson crowd had started to thin. Evidently some sort of gathering was planned for later, though, because people kept calling, See you back at the house! as they moved toward the terminal. And then the parents themselves were free to go, Bitsy leading the way while the woman with the stroller wheeled it just behind her like a lady-in-waiting. (Clearly nothing would persuade Bitsy to give up her hold on that baby.) Brad lumbered after her, followed by a few stragglers and, at the very tail end, the Yazdans. One of the Donaldson grandpas, the rumpled one, dropped back to ask the Yazdans, So. Did you have a long wait for your baby? Lots of paperwork and cross-examinations?

Yes, Sami said, a very long wait. A very long-drawn-out process. And he glanced toward his wife. At times we thought it never would happen, he said.

The grandpa clucked and said, Don't I know it! Lord, what Bitsy and Brad had to put themselves through!

They passed to one side of Security, which was staffed by a lone employee sitting on a stool, and started down the escalator all but the man with the bassinet. He had to take the elevator. The woman with the stroller, however, seemed undaunted. She tipped the front end of the stroller back smartly and stepped on without hesitation.

Listen, Brad called up to the Yazdans from the lower level. You-all feel like coming to our house? Joining the celebration?

But Sami was absorbed in guiding his wife onto the escalator, and when he didn't answer, Brad flapped a hand again in that oh-well, affable way of his. Maybe another time, he said to no one in particular. And he turned to catch up with the others.

The exit doors slid open and the Donaldsons streamed out. They headed toward the parking garage in twos and threes and fours, and shortly after that the Yazdans emerged to stand on the curb a moment, motionless, as if they needed time to adjust to the hot, humid, dimly lit, gasoline-smelling night.

Friday, August 15, 1997. The night the girls arrived.

Sometimes when Maryam Yazdan looked at her new little granddaughter she had an eerie, lightheaded feeling, as if she had stepped into some sort of alternate universe. Everything about the child was impossibly perfect. Her skin was a flawless ivory, and her hair was almost too soft to register on Maryam's fingertips. Her eyes were the shape of watermelon seeds, very black and cut very precisely into her small, solemn face. She weighed so little that Maryam often lifted her too high by mistake when she picked her up. And her hands! Tiny hands, with curling fingers. The wrinkles on her knuckles were halvah-colored (so amusing, that a baby had wrinkles!), and her nails were no bigger than dots.

Susan, they called her. They chose a name that resembled the name she had come with, Sooki, and also it was a comfortable sound for Iranians to pronounce.

Su-san! Maryam would sing when she went in to get her from her nap. Su-Su-Su! Susan would gaze out from behind the bars of her crib, sitting beautifully erect with one hand cupping each knee in a poised and self-possessed manner.

Maryam took care of her Tuesdays and Thursdays the days her daughter-in-law worked and Maryam did not. She arrived at the house around eight-thirty, slightly later if the traffic was bad. (Sami and Ziba lived out in Hunt Valley, as much as a half-hour drive from the city during rush hour.) By that time Susan would be having breakfast in her high chair. She would light up and make a welcoming sound when Maryam walked into the kitchen. Ah! was what she most often said nothing to do with Mari — june, which was what they had decided she should call Maryam. Ah! she would say, and she would give her distinctive smile, with her lips pursed together demurely, and tilt her cheek for a kiss.

Well, not in the first few weeks, of course. Oh, those first weeks had been agony, the two parents trying their best, shrilling Susiejune! and shaking toys in her face and waltzing her about in their arms. All she did was stare at them, or worse yet stare away from them, twisting to get free, fixing her eyes stubbornly anywhere else. She wouldn't take more than a sip or two from her bottle, and when she woke crying in the night, as she did every few hours, her parents' attempts to comfort her only made her cry harder. Maryam told them that was natural. In truth she had no idea, but she told them, She came from a foster home! What do you expect? She's not used to so much attention.

Jin-Ho came from a foster home too. She's not acting like this, Ziba said.

They knew all about Jin-Ho because Jin-Ho's mother had telephoned two weeks after the babies' arrival. I hope you don't mind my tracking you down, she'd said. You're the only Yazdans in the book and I just couldn't resist calling you to find out how things were going. Jin-Ho, it seemed, was doing marvelously. She was sleeping straight through till morning, and she laughed out loud when they played This Is the Way the Lady Rides, and already she had learned to stop clamoring for her bottle once she heard the microwave starting. And Jin-Ho was younger than Susan! She was five months to Susan's seven, even if Susan was smaller. Were the Yazdans doing something wrong?

No, no, no, Maryam told them. Slightly altering her story, she said, It's better that Susan's sad. It means the foster family took good care of her and now she's homesick for them. You wouldn't want a heartless, heedless baby, would you? She's showing she has a warm nature.

Maryam hoped that this was true.

And it was, thank heaven. One morning Ziba walked into the nursery and Susan gave her a smile. Ziba was so excited that she telephoned Maryam at once, although it was a Tuesday and Maryam was due to come over very shortly; and she phoned her mother in Washington and later her sisters-in-law in L. A. It seemed that some switch had clicked in Susan's head, for she smiled at Maryam as well when she arrived her smile already that charming, pursed V that made you feel the two of you shared some merry little secret. And within the week she was chortling at Sami's antics, and sleeping through the night, and showing a fondness for Cheerios, which she pursued single-mindedly around her high-chair tray with her dainty, pincer fingers.