Anne Tyler - Digging to America

In the intimacy of the kitchen, Mrs. Hakimi timidly ventured to call Maryam by her first name. Maryam, I don't know, does this have enough mint? she asked in Farsi. Unfortunately, Maryam couldn't think fast enough to remember Mrs. Hakimi's first name in return, but she compensated by saying, Oh, you would know far better than I using the familiar you. She wasn't sure why they were still so stiff with each other. By rights they should be as chummy now as sisters. She suspected that the Hakimis considered her too independent. Or too unsocial. Or something.

Ziba was discussing the guest list now. I wish we had more guests from our side, she said. I wish Sami had brothers and sisters. There are always so many Donaldsons! Could you invite Farah, maybe? Oh, Maryam said, well. . And she let her voice trail away. The thing was, Farah would probably accept. And William would come with her, as long as Mercury was not retrograde or some such New Age prohibition. They would stay with Maryam for a week or more and she would have to involve herself in their many group activities. Farah got along famously with the Hakimis. The last time she was in Baltimore Maryam had had to ferry her to Washington for three separate dinner parties, in addition to giving a dinner herself to pay everybody back.

It was true that she was unsocial.

She went home that afternoon happy to be on her own, grateful for the quietness and neatness of her life. For supper she had a glass of red wine and a slice of cheddar cheese. She watched a television program on the habits of the grizzly bear.

In the middle of the program, Dave Dickinson phoned. He said, I was thinking about this weekend. Could I offer you a ride to the party?

Thank you, but It seems silly to take two cars.

But I'll have to be there early, she said, helping with the preparations.

Couldn't I help too?

No, I don't believe you could, she said. Besides, you live right there in the neighborhood. It makes no sense for you to drive over here.

He said, I guess I was just thinking it would be nice to have your company.

Thanks anyway, she said.

There was a silence.

Goodbye now! she said.

She hung up.

The bear shambling through the woods had a matted, rough coat that made her sad, and she pressed the off button on the remote control.

The Chinese orphan was ready at last. (Like a muffin, Dave pictured when he heard.) Brad and Bitsy packed baby clothes in three different sizes, gift toys for the orphanage, money in red gift envelopes, disposable diapers, nursing bottles, powdered formula, strained prunes and peaches, zinc ointment, scabies medication, baby Tylenol, a thermometer, antibiotics for both infants and grownups, granola bars, trail mix, vitamin pills, water purification tablets, melatonin, compression kneesocks, electrical adaptors, a dental emergency kit, and pollution-filtering facial masks. Dave was the one who drove them to the airport, and he had some difficulty fitting everything into his car trunk.

He stayed with Jin-Ho at her house rather than his, because her parents felt three weeks was too long for a not-quite-five-year-old to be uprooted from her home. He slept in the master bedroom an intrusive-feeling arrangement, but Bitsy had insisted. (It was closest to Jin-Ho's room.) Every morning when he awoke, the first thing he saw was a photograph of Brad and Bitsy hugging on a beach somewhere. The second thing was Bitsy's earring tree, hung with big, crude, handcrafted disks of copper and wood and clay.

It was early February, so Jin-Ho had preschool every weekday morning. That was a help. And most evenings they were invited to supper at Mac's or Abe's house, or the Yazdans', or a neighbor's. But the rest of the time it was just the two of them, Dave and Jin-Ho on their own. He told himself that now they could really get to know each other. How many grandfathers were given such a chance? And he did enjoy her company. She was a lively, inquisitive child, full of chatter, fond of board games, crazy about any kind of music. But he never completely lost an underlying sense of nervousness. She wasn't really his, after all. What if something happened? When she went outdoors to play he found himself checking through the window for her every couple of minutes. When they crossed even the narrow, untrafficked street she lived on he made her take his hand in spite of her objections. My mom lets me cross without holding on, she said, as long as she's beside me.

Well, I'm not your mom. I'm a worrywart. Humor me, Jin-Ho.

Sometimes in the evening she would grow the least bit tremulous, once or twice even tearing up. What do you think they're doing now? she would ask. Or, How many more days till they're back? And occasionally she showed some impatience with his unBitsy-like ways. He didn't brush her hair quite right; he didn't cut her toast right. For the most part, though, she adapted very well. She knew her parents would be bringing her a sister something she very much wanted. She talked about how she planned to feed Xiu-Mei her bottle and push Xiu-Mei in her stroller. Xiu-Mei was pronounced something like Shao-may, to Dave's imperfect ear. (He'd first heard it as Charmaine.) He found the sound a bit harsh, but Jin-Ho was more accepting. It was me and Xiu-Mei this, me and Xiu-Mei that. Me and Xiu-Mei are going to share the same room as soon as she sleeps through the night, she said.

What if she gets into your toys? Won't that bother you? he asked.

She can play with my toys all she likes! And I'm going to teach her the alphabet.

You'll be the perfect big sister, he said.

Jin-Ho beamed, two little notches of satisfaction bracketing her mouth.

It amazed him that she had no definite bedtime no schedule whatsoever, almost. Modern life was so amorphous. He thought of the leashes people walked their dogs with nowadays: huge spools of some sort that played out to allow the dogs to run as far ahead as they liked. Then he chided himself for being an old stick-in-the-mud. He rubbed his eyes as they sat at an endless game of Candy-land. Aren't you sleepy, Jin-Ho? She didn't even deign to answer; just efficiently skated her gingerbread man four spaces ahead.

While she was in preschool each day he'd go home and check on his house, pick up his mail, collect his telephone messages. He missed his normal routine. The trouble with staying at somebody else's place was that you couldn't putter; you couldn't fuss and tinker. Although he did his best. He bled all of Brad and Bitsy's radiators and he planed the edge of a door that was sticking. He brought some neat's-foot oil from home and spent an evening rubbing it into the scarred leather knapsack that Bitsy used for trips to the farmers' market. What's that? Jin-Ho asked him, leaning on his arm, giving off the licorice smell of modeling clay.

It's neat's-foot oil. It's good for leather.

What's a neat's foot?

You don't know about neats? Ah, he said. Well, now. There's the shy brown neat, and the bold brown neat. This particular oil comes from. . He picked up the can and squinted at it, holding it at arm's length, . comes from the shy brown neat.

It was the kind of tale he used to tell his own children; he was famous for it. They would take on a look of suppressed glee and prod him to go further. But Jin-Ho knitted her brows and said, Did they kill the shy brown neat?

Oh, no. They just squeezed its feet. Neats' feet are very oily, you see.

Does the squeezing hurt?

No, no, no. In fact the neats are grateful, because otherwise they would slip and slide all over the place. That's why they don't make good house pets. Their feet would ruin the rugs.

Her expression remained troubled. She stared at him in silence. He was sorry now that he'd started this, but he didn't know how to get out of it. Maybe she was too young to know when someone was pulling her leg. Maybe she lacked a sense of humor. Or maybe this was it, really they needed an audience. Another grownup, whose snort would give away the joke. In the old days, that had been Connie. Connie would scold him good-naturedly: Honestly, Dave. You're terrible. And she would tell the children, Don't you believe a word of it.