World and Town (50 page)

Yet none of this is evident as the boys rib one another. Rainbow of browns that they are, they all appear to hail from Southeast Asia in some way—their differences, as best Hattie can tell, forming the basis of many jokes. It’s hard to tell at first because of the way they talk:
He’s ’ite
, she remembers, is “He’s all right”; and
Whaazup nigga?
she gets just fine, too, unfortunately. It takes a while for her to realize, though, that
Sowegit i’de caaw
is “So we get in the car,” and there’s much she simply cannot catch. Still, she’s picked up teen talk before; no one had a better ear for the cafeteria than she did, once upon a time. And so slowly now she begins to make out jokes about Siem Reap, for example—a Cambodian city whose name apparently means “Trample the Thais.” She hears them call a Lao kid
Lao Dang
, which she is pretty sure is like calling him Khmer Rouge—a Communist. And everyone jokes constantly about the Vietnamese—the
Youen—
the one group explicitly excluded from this gang. Much else seems less worth deciphering.

Sarun, in any case, presides over all of this from his kitchen chair. His stiffness lends him a regal air, but he slurs his words with the best of them, ragging good-naturedly on different
puak maak
until, watching him, Mum begins to enjoy herself a little, too, it seems. As if it’s nice to have company for a change, even this company. She does not abandon her post. However, she does shoo Hattie with some force out of the kitchen. Hattie protests, but when Mum brandishes a kitchen knife at her—treating her like family—Hattie surrenders, smiling.

   She knocks on Sophy’s half-open door; Sophy pulls forward her red bookmark.

“Don’t stop,” says Hattie. “What are you reading?”

“The Psalms.” Sophy closes her Bible. She is sitting on the mattress, back against the wall—her knees pressed together, her bare feet splayed. No toenail polish today, but she’s wearing lipstick and eyeliner, and a gold metallic headband with her T-shirt and jeans.

“Which one?” asks Hattie.

Sophy hesitates, but finally waggles her head, opens her book back up, and reads, “ ‘For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.’ ” She closes the book again.

“Psalm 109.”

Sophy nods. Her face is a little pale, as if she is coming down with something; she does not seem bothered by the noise in the living room.

“ ‘I am gone like the shadow when it declineth; I am tossed up and down like the locust,’ ” recites Hattie.

Sophy opens the book back up, hunching her shoulders like a beginning reader. “ ‘As the locust,’ ” she says.

“ ‘As the locust,’ thank you.”

Sophy looks thoughtful then—as though she could ask Hattie something—but she picks her book back up instead. Her forefinger moves; she puzzles; she crosses and uncrosses her toes. Hattie watches for a moment, then plunks herself down on the mattress, too, leaning back against the opposite wall. She means to ask if that’s okay, but the wall is warm with sun, and before she knows it, she is taking a nap.

A
makeup-less Sophy comes to visit the next day; Hattie shows Annie off.

“Sit,” she says.

Annie sits.

“Stay,” she says.

Annie stays, sort of.

“Stay,” Hattie says again, and—giving up—“Lie down.”

Annie lies down, her tail sweeping back and forth as if the real command had been Sweep!

“She is, like, all grown up!” says Sophy, kneeling down to pet her; her hair glints almost silver in the sun. “Just like that!”

Hattie smiles. “
Guā mù xiāng kàn
,” she says.

“What does that mean?”

“It means ‘You’re rubbing your eyes to see someone!’—amazed as you are at her progress.”

“Gua—?”

“
Guā mù xiāng kàn.
”

“
Guā mù xiāng kàn.
”

“Excellent!” Hattie claps but then says, “This may be the last dog I train.”

“How come?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I met someone the other day who doesn’t train her dogs because she doesn’t like how it distorts their personalities. She says she doesn’t like how the dogs are always looking to their masters for cues, and I thought she had a point.”

Sophy rubs noses with Annie, who bows, tail wagging, wanting to play. “Only you would ever say something like that,” she says.

“That’s not true. I’m just repeating what this other woman said. And I should add that some people think dogs like training—that they’re bred for it and uncomfortable without it. So I don’t know.”

Still, Sophy insists, her eyes wide, “You know everything. You do.”

And as Annie suddenly dashes off—a squirrel outside the window!—Sophy asks Hattie how to turn her father in. “Can we file a 51A on him? Do they have that here?”

Hattie makes her sit down. Pours some coffee; puts out some orange slices, not having any cookies.

“There is probably something along those lines,” she answers, finally. “But are you sure you want to do that?”

“My dad wants us to.”

“He wants you to turn him in?”

“He says he’s an animal, and should be in a cage.”

An animal who should be in a cage.

“And what does Sarun think?” Hattie cradles her coffee mug, trying to encourage Sophy to drink by example.

“Sarun was too mad to think anything before. But now he thinks it might make my dad feel better.”

“And your mom?”

“She thinks he might kill himself otherwise.”

“Is that what you think?”

Sophy blinks. “Maybe. His face is, like, so shattered.”

Shattered.

“Does that matter here? With no other Cambodians around?”

“I don’t know.” Sophy does not even frown. “But if he kills himself, I’m going to kill myself, too.”

“Don’t say that.”

Sophy stares. Where is Annie to rouse her?

“Don’t even think that. Please. Look. I want to show you something.” Hattie stands and takes one of the urns down from the bookshelf. Her mother. Sliding the plate of orange slices aside with her elbow, Hattie places it on the table. Then she turns and retrieves her father. Sophy frowns as Hattie explains; her lips part.

“Wow,” she says, finally. “That is so wack.”

“It is. It is wack. But this is what you’re talking about, when you talk about killing yourself. This is what you will be. So please don’t.”

Sophy moves her head.

“It would be so wack of you. It would be—” Should Hattie bring up what Sophy’s sisters would say? No. “It would be a terrible choice.”

Sophy nods, her color rising.

“It’s not as though this is all your fault. You made some bad choices, yes. But you had help, don’t forget. And the person you hurt most is Ginny’s husband. Sarun and your dad were hurt”—Hattie thinks—“incidentally.”

“Do you think Everett will do something?”

“Press charges, you mean?”

Sophy nods again.

“I don’t know.”

“Would they definitely be against Sarun? Could they be against me?”

“I doubt they’d be against you.”

“But could they be? Since I’m the one who set the fire?” Sophy lifts her chin.

“I suppose that could be arranged. But if you want to end up in a girls’ group home, you can just go back to your old town and skip the trial, you know.”

Sophy slumps. “Do you think it would make my dad feel better?”

“If you were charged and found guilty?”

She nods.

“No. I think it would make him feel worse. I think he would only blame himself even more if you were in trouble again. But you know him better than I do.”

Sophy touches an urn. With just her fingertip, and just for a moment. Then her finger lifts up like a drawbridge.

“Honestly, I think”—Hattie improvises, the way she does with Josh—“I think it would be selfish of you to take all the blame, when only one part of it is yours.”

Sophy reaches for her coffee as if just for a warmer ceramic surface.

“You did contribute, but it was your father, finally, who injured your brother.”

“He had a choice,” she says.

“He did. Yes. He’s a damaged man who might not have understood his choices as well as he might have. But he had a choice.”

“He reacted.”

“Overreacted, we might say.”

“If I had never gone to the church, none of this would have happened.” Sophy leans back a little, resting her mug on her stomach; it rises and sinks with her breathing.

“True,” says Hattie. “Although many people go to church without anything like this happening, either. You know how many people have kitchen knives, but only a few threaten others with them? Some people find that churchgoing increases what we used to call
rén
when I was little—our human-heartedness. But with other people, it seems to have the opposite effect. So I suppose it depends on the person, and on the church.” She tries to be delicate. “On what the church teaches.”

“And if I turn myself in or kill myself, that will just be what my dad calls a reaction.”

“Is that what he calls it?”

Sophy nods after a fashion, balancing her mug with one hand so she can chew a hangnail on the other.

“As opposed to—?

“An action.”

“I see. Yes. It will be a reaction. And wrong, do you see?” Hattie has an orange slice; she spits out the pit. “It will not help anything—it will just say how bad you felt. As if this is all about you. And who knows, it could well lead on to something else bad.”

“One reaction after another.”

“Exactly.”

Sophy frowns. “But what would an action be?”

“How about apologizing to Everett?”

“How can I do that? I mean, I can’t exactly, like, walk up to him.”

“We’ll find a way. How’s your guitar these days? Is Carter still giving you lessons?”

“I quit.”

“Too busy cleaning, I guess.”

“I guess.”

“Why don’t you start playing again? That would be an action.”

Sophy waggles her head.

“An action that might lead to more action,” says Hattie. “That might increase your capacity for contributing to better days.”

Annie reappears and, when Sophy just looks at her, preoccupied, sits.

“Good girl!” Sophy pets her automatically, then has an orange slice. She spits out a pit.

S
arun goes to talk to Chhung after all. Hattie and Mum watch as best they can out the bedroom window, as does Sophy, leaving Gift to toddle around busily. If only Chhung would move his chair a little, they say. Why doesn’t Sarun get him to move his chair? They draw a curtain against the worst of the glare; the lilac curtain shines pink.

Finally Sarun returns. He reports first to his mother, tersely and quietly, in Khmer. She nods. Then he turns to Hattie and Sophy and, in a louder, more measured voice, gives his English report.

“I told him he was a great dad. I told him I was looking forward to Father’s Day already. I told him I’d dig him the biggest pit he ever saw, if he wanted. I told him I’d dig night and day and that I wouldn’t take a break until this place was the Sahara Desert.” He stares at the TV, though it’s off. “I told him I wasn’t mad at him, and that I wished he’d come in. I invited him, in fact, to come in. Fucking begged him. But, you know, he never even looked at me, the asshole.”

Silence.

“Did you tell him you forgave him?” asks Hattie, finally.

“It just made him feel worse,” says Sarun.

“
Bong,
” says Sophy patiently. “It can’t have made him feel worse.”

“He was using me!” Sarun’s face is contorted and red except for his scar. “To make himself feel worse! I’m telling you, he was using me, my forgiveness, everything! To make himself feel fucking worse!”

No one thinks he can be right, but that night Chhung refuses to come in even to sleep. Sophy goes out to talk to him, then returns with the wheelbarrow.

“For blankets,” she says, throwing bedding down into it from the front door. She trundles back off, leaning hard into the handles; Hattie recognizes that squeak of the wheel.

It’s a cold night.

And in the morning, when they find Chhung curled up at the bottom of the pit, Sophy wishes she hadn’t encouraged him. “His hair was iced up,” she cries.

“He would’ve stayed out there anyway, the asshole,” says Sarun. “Believe me. He would’ve stayed out there so he could freeze to death.”

Gift squeals at something on TV, but no one looks to see what it is.

“What would happen,” says Hattie, “if you stopped bringing him cigarettes and alcohol?”

“Whatta you high?” Sarun bugs his eyes.

“It’s just an idea.” Hattie proffers a chopstick.

Sarun takes it—his neck—but Sophy is outraged.

“That would be, like, starving him,” she says.

B
y day, Chhung mans his station. By night, he heads into the pit. Mum keeps him company, huddling beside him as he lies there, though he refuses to open his eyes or speak to her. He does, however, allow her to help him go to the bathroom, and thanks to his diabetes, Sophy says, he does pee and pee.

“Diabetes?” says Hattie.

It’s the first she’s heard about that—how worrisome. Although, yes. At least it gets him up. At least it gets him to drink. At least it gets him to let Mum stay with him. Mum prays and prays, her white shawl wrapped around her jacket; Sophy brings Mum blankets for the night, too, and warm drinks. Hats for both of them; the temperature at night is in the twenties now. And crates, to make it easier to climb in and out.

In the morning, Sophy brings Sarun and Gift along with her. Hattie watches, moved, as the whole family helps Chhung out of the pit for the day. Mum supports one arm, Sophy the other, as he steps slowly up the shaky crates; they pass him on to Sarun, who, awkward as he is in his collar, manages to help Chhung up onto solid ground. The family works together, too, to settle Chhung in his chair—Mum and Sophy on arm duty again, Sarun supporting his back. Even Gift grabs a leg, trying to help. And there—mission accomplished. Chhung is seated. Never mind that his hat is on funny, or that his jacket has hiked up, affording a bright glimpse of his brace. He’s seated.

Father ’n’ son braces!