Anne Tyler - Digging to America

No Dave, Maryam said serenely. Susan, come look at my garden with me! I need to decide what flowers to plant.

Butter would not have melted in the canary's mouth; wasn't that the saying?

And if they are a couple, Ziba ventured to ask Sami once they were back in the car, how would you feel about that? Would you feel I'd feel fine, Sami said.

Because I know it might seem strange to you, seeing your mother with somebody new.

I would wish her every happiness. She deserves it, after all. It's not as if my father was an easy man to live with.

He wasn't? Ziba said.

Oh, no. He slowed for an intersection.

You never told me that.

Oh, he was very moody. Very up-and-down, Sami said. You just couldn't predict, with him. When I was a kid I'd check his face every morning to see if it was going to be a good day or a bad day.

That's not the way your mother talks about him at all!

On good days he was quite friendly asking about my schoolwork, offering to help with my projects. On bad days, he just… sank in on himself. He went all morose and dissatisfied; he demanded constant attendance. 'Maryam, where's my this?' and 'Maryam, where's my that?' Had to have his special tea and his English digestive biscuits. Demanding. A very demanding man. I always wished Mom would stand up to him more.

Ziba said, Really.

She wondered how it was that Sami hadn't mentioned this till now. Men! she thought. And then she felt a flood of appreciation for all the ways that he was different from his father. There was nobody steadier, more even-tempered and amiable than Sami, and he was so conscientious about helping with the housework and the child care. The women in her family marveled at that. She moved over as close as her seatbelt allowed and laid her head briefly on his shoulder. That must have been hard for you, too, she told him.

But he said, Oh, it wasn't too bad, and then, What time did you say this movie starts?

Men.

In May a new contraption appeared in Maryam's kitchen: an electric kettle with a teapot that matched it exactly both a modernistic brushed steel, the teapot's base the very same circumference as the kettle's top. No longer did she have to balance the one tipsily on the other. Oh! Where did that come from? Ziba asked.

From that import shop in Rockville, Maryam said.

You went to Rockville by yourself?

Bitsy's father drove me.

Ah.

Ziba waited. Maryam measured out tea leaves.

I thought you liked your Thousand Faces teapot from Japan, Ziba said finally.

Well, I did, Maryam said. But this is nice, too. And besides… it was a gift.

Ah, Ziba said again.

Maryam had her back turned, so Ziba couldn't see her expression.

It was a favorite subject now any time Ziba and Bitsy got together. What was happening? they asked each other. And why bother keeping it secret? Didn't Maryam and Dave realize that everyone in both families would be thrilled to see them dating? They cataloged the few clues they'd gathered: Maryam was less often available for babysitting duty; Dave had been caught playing an LP record of Iranian music sung by a woman named Shusha. Shusha! Ziba said. Maryam's favorite singer! And Maryam is the only person I know who still doesn't own a CD player.

Although she did own an answering machine now. After all the times that Sami and Ziba had urged her to get one! But she didn't seem to know how to work it. Her outgoing announcement kept reverting, for some reason, to the generic greeting provided by the factory Please… leave… a… message in a robot-like male voice without intonation. And then, mysteriously, a new announcement of her own would take its place, even though she had claimed to need Sami's help to record it. He would show up as requested and she would say, vaguely, Oh, it's back to normal again, I believe. But thanks. As if the new announcement had installed itself by magic, while she was looking elsewhere.

Dave must have done that. Dave must have bought the answering machine in the first place another gift. She used to say that an answering machine would just complicate her life. What are you implying: you can't be bothered calling me twice if you don't find me at home? she would ask. One of those Maryam-isms, those Her Highnessuisms, that always made Ziba close her eyes for an instant.

Oh, Bitsy said, they're dating, all right.

But if so, why not admit it? Ziba asked.

Maybe Maryam is embarrassed. She told me once she was past all that; maybe she feels sheepish now that she's changed her mind.

It's hard to imagine Maryam feeling sheepish, Ziba said. They smiled at each other.

Once upon a time, Ziba had been painfully shy in Bitsy's presence. Bitsy had seemed so much older and more accomplished; she was so creative; she was passionately involved in politics and recycling programs and such and she had very knowledgeable opinions.

But that was before she fell all over herself apologizing for her Americanness and her First Worldness and her white-breadness, as she called it. She was forever complimenting Ziba's exotic appearance and asking for her viewpoint on various international issues. Not that Ziba had much of a viewpoint, or any that was different from what she read in the Baltimore Sun if ever she could find the time. But somehow she was granted a kind of authority, even so.

And then lately, she had become Bitsy's moral support almost her elder as various difficulties arose with little Xiu-Mei. It seemed Xiu-Mei was having trouble taking root. She was a very sweet child, very warm and loving, but every germ that came along managed to lay her low, and twice since her arrival she had had to be hospitalized. Bitsy had the sagging, sleep-deprived appearance of the mother of a newborn. Sometimes she was still in her bathrobe at ten o'clock in the morning. She snapped at Jin-Ho over trifles and she seemed defeated by her own house. So Ziba ran her errands, and collected Jin-Ho for playdates, and offered what reassurance she could. Xiu-Mei's so much bigger now than when you brought her home, she said. And look at how she hangs on to you!

In the beginning, Xiu-Mei hadn't known how to hang on. It could be that she had never been held. She would arch her back in a stiff, rejecting posture when people tried to pick her up. But now she nestled in Bitsy's lap and clung to a twist of her sleeve, observing the scene narrowly over her pink plastic pacifier. They couldn't get that pacifier out of her mouth. Bitsy said she regretted ever introducing it, although what choice had they really had, with the flight home such a problem? Now we have a pacifier in every single room, she said, in case of an emergency, and three or four in her crib and half a dozen in her stroller. When I'm feeding her I have to unplug her mouth, pop in a spoonful of food, and then plug the pacifier back in again; and she objects the whole time. I think that's why she's so thin.

She was thin thin and wispy and small for her age, and at fourteen months she had not yet begun to crawl. But no one could doubt her intelligence. She watched one face and then another so closely she might have been lip-reading, and when Jin-Ho and Susan were playing nearby she grew especially attentive, following every movement with her tip-turned, bright-black eyes.

If only she would nap, Bitsy said, I believe I could get on top of things here. But she refuses. I lay her down in her crib and she starts shrieking. Not just crying shrieking, in this high sharp wailing voice. Sometimes late in the evening I think, There was something I meant to do today. What? What was it I meant to do? And then I remember: comb my hair.

Which reminds me, Ziba said. You know the Arrival Party: I think we should have it at our house this year.

Why? You had it last year.

Yes, but with Xiu-Mei and all That party is three months away, Bitsy said. If life isn't any better by then, I'll be on the psych ward.