Digging to America (14 page)

What would Connie have said to Bitsy's new plan?

Oh, probably Go ahead, dear. I'm sure it will turn out wonderfully.

He missed Connie more than he could say. He tried not to say, in fact. She had died in March of '99, over a year ago. Almost a year and a half. He could see people thinking that he must be past the worst of it. Time to buck up! Time to move on! But the truth was, it was harder now than immediately after her death. Back then he had felt so grateful that she no longer had to suffer. Besides which, he'd been just plain exhausted. He'd just wanted to get some sleep.

But now he was as lonely as God. He was rackingly, achingly lonely, and he rattled around the house with far too much time on his hands and not enough to do. It was summer. School was over not only for the year but forever, in his case, because in June he had retired. Had this been a mistake? He had always had other interests his hobbies and his volunteer work and community concerns but now he couldn't get up the energy. He sighed a lot and he spoke aloud to Connie. He said, Going to fix that door lock, finally, and Well, drat. I meant to buy eggs. Once or twice he thought he caught a glimpse of her, but in situations so unlikely tha
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he couldn't pretend they were real. (On a hot July afternoon, for instance, she stood by the backyard bird feeder tugging off a snow-flecked mitten with her teeth.) More satisfying were the memories of past events that popped up out of nowhere, as vivid as home movies. The time soon after they married when she drove their VW Beetle into the driveway with smoke pouring from the back seat (something to do with the engine) and flung open the door and jumped out and threw herself into his arms; or the time she sent in his name for a local TV station's Hero of the Day award and he had been so gruff and ungracious when she told him (his heroism had involved carpooling three children at all hours of the day and night, not any rescues from burning buildings), although now his eyes filled with tears at her gesture.

He thought, Why, this is just unbearable.

He thought, I should have been allowed to practice on somebody less important first. I don't know how to do this.

He forgot that he had practiced, on four grandparents and two parents. But there was no comparison, really.

He had tended her illness for so long that it had become second nature, and now he couldn't believe that she could manage without him. Was she comfortable where she was? Did she have everything she needed? He couldn't stand to think she might be feeling abandoned.

Yet he was completely unreligious and had never conceived of an afterlife.

He kept her voice on the answering machine because erasing it seemed an act of violence. He knew some people were disquieted when they heard her cheery greeting. It's the Dickinsons! Leave a message! He could tell by their initial Uh . . . when he played back their calls. Bitsy, though, said she found it a comfort. Once she phoned him and said, in a quavering voice, Dad? Can I ask you a favor? Can I just dial this number a few times and you not answer?

I'm having a kind of blue day today and I wanted to hear Mom's voice.

It was Bitsy who was his partner in mourning, much more so than her brothers. Remember your mother's silk pie? he would ask her, or Remember that song she used to sing about the widow with her baby? and he wouldn't have to offer any excuse for bringing it up. Bitsy fell in with him unquestioningly. Her tomato aspic, too, she would say, and Yes, of course, and what was that other song? The one about the lumberjack?

Even with Bitsy, though, he rationed these conversations. He didn't want to worry her. He didn't want her sending him one of her probing glances. Are you all right, Dad? Are you really all right? Would you like to come to dinner this evening? We've invited the next-door neighbors but you're more than welcome, I promise. It would do you good to get out.

It would not do him good to get out. That much he was certain of. In social situations, now, all he could think was, What is the point? The chitchat about the weather, politics, property taxes, children useless, every bit of it. And the neighbors dropping by his house with casseroles and cookies. Guess what! Tillie Brown told him from behind a Saran-wrapped platter. I'm another grandma!

Pardon?

My daughter just gave birth to her fourth little boy!

Good God, he said, and he gazed down at the platter. Salmon loaf, from the looks of it. He was touched by these offerings but puzzled. What did they imagine he could do with it all? There was only one of him! And anyhow, food tasted to him like sawdust these days.

A couple of the unattached women had told him they would love to go out some evening for dinner although not nearly as many women as the folklore would have you believe. He always put the
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off. Even if he'd had any interest, which he didn't, the effort of adjusting to a new person was beyond him. It had been hard enough the first time. He said, Well, now, isn't that nice of you, and never followed up. They didn't pursue it. He suspected they were just as glad not to have to bother. More and more of the world seemed to be barely trudging along, from what he had observed.

Bitsy said they hoped to adopt this second child from China. There was a greater need in China, she said. But applying was more complicated than it had been for Korea, and physically obtaining the child would be more complicated too. They would have to travel there to get her. And it would definitely be a her, she said. She gazed off at Jin-Ho, who was playing in the sandbox some distance from the patio where they sat. Two little girls, she told Dave. Won't that be sweet? Luckily, Brad has never been the type who thought he had to have a son.

Will you take Jin-Ho with you to China? Dave asked.

Oh, my Lord, no! With all those unfamiliar germs? Besides, the trip will be so difficult. It isn't just the flight; we'll have to stay for several weeks while we go through the paperwork. She set her iced-tea glass down with a sudden, decisive motion and looked at him directly. In fact, I've been meaning to ask you, she said. Do you think we could leave her with you?

With me?

Now that you're retired.

Bu
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You know how she adores you.

But, honey, it's been a long time since I took care of a threeyear-old.

Unfortunately, Bitsy told him, she'll be more like four or five. Maybe even in kindergarten. This whole process could take a couple of years, we hear.

Oh, Dave said. Well, then.

It crossed his mind that he might very well be dead in a couple of years. He was surprised at how the thought cheered him.

It was the Donaldsons' turn to host the girls' Arrival Party. Bitsy was already debating the best day for it. The fifteenth falls on a Tuesday this year, she told Dave, and so Ziba's asking why not have the party the Sunday before. But ... I don't know. Granted Sunday is more convenient, but I'd prefer to celebrate on the actual date, wouldn't you?

Well, either way, Dave said.

I mean the real, actual date the girls arrived in our lives! Right, he said hastily. Sure. The actual fifteenth.

He felt he'd been backed into a corner. He often did, with Bitsy. Oh, this daughter of his had always managed to make life harder than it needed to be, for herself and for everyone around her. From earliest childhood she had held fierce, unbending opinions, and even though she tended to be right he could see that there were times when people wished they disagreed with her. Maybe global warming was not so bad after all! he could hear them thinking. Maybe world peace was less desirable than they had imagined!

Connie used to say that Bitsy's problem was, she doubted her own goodness. At heart she was insecure; she worried she was unworthy. Dave found it helpful to remind himself of that, on occasion. (And what would he do without Connie's forgiving slant of vision to guide him in the future?)

Then after the date had been settled Tuesday, what a shoc
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there was the issue of the menu. Apparently Bitsy felt that the Yazdans had changed the rules, as she put it, when they'd served a full meal the year before.
I mean, look what we did the first year, she told Dave on the phone. We put out the simplest refreshments, tea and coffee and cake. But last year! Last year we had enough food to feed a homeless shelter for a month. Jin-Ho got a stomachache and slept clear through the movie; never saw a bit of it.

So? Dave said. This year you do it your way again.

The Yazdans might feel that was inhospitable, though. You know how they focus on food. And then if I do serve a meal, I could never cook so many dishes. I don't have enough pots and pans! I don't have big enough pots and pans.

Make your nice tart lemonade with the little bits of peel, Dave said in his most coaxing voice, and get a sheet cake from the bakery ...

But Bitsy wasn't listening. She said, My vegetable lasagna, do you think? Or my Pakistani dish? No, wait; nothing with rice. Talk about a big pot! Remember the time I served habichuelas negras? The first Yazdan to spoon out some rice took almost the whole platterful!

Dave laughed. He enjoyed the Yazdans. On the surface they seemed all primary colors, so innocent and impressionable, but he'd had glimpses of more complicated interiors from time to time. Mr. Hakimi, for instance. Now, there were some darker hues, for sure. Will the Hakimis be coming? he asked Bitsy hopefully.

Yes, and one of Ziba's brothers but I can't remember which. She's always got so many relatives staying there; wouldn't you think they'd be missed at work? While our own family, on the other hand ... I'm very distressed about Mac and Laura. They knew it would be Arrival Day; they could have taken Linwood on his college visits any other time this summer or this whole year, for tha
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matter. But oh, no. Oh, no. And then Brad's parents; well, typical, I guess. Them and their never-ending cruises: it's as if they didn't care! I wonder if they'd act differently if Jin-Ho were their biological grandchild.

If Jin-Ho were their biological grandchild this whole damn-fool Arrival Party would not have been cooked up, Dave thought. But what he said was, Ah, now. They're just scared they won't have enough to do with their time; that's why they overschedule.

Good Lord, he sounded like Connie. Maybe Bitsy thought so too, because instead of arguing she changed the subject. She said, Do you remember Guys and Dolls?

What? Guys and Dolls?

Do you remember a song they sang called 'I'll Know When My Love Comes Along'?

Oh. The song.

I've always felt 'She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain' lacks dignity, somehow, Bitsy said.

If Dave stretched the telephone cord to its very farthest limit, he found he could just reach the remote control for the television set. He switched on the evening news and then hit the mute button so that Bitsy wouldn't suspect.

Arrival Day dawned heavy and humid, with enough clouds building in the west to give hope for a cooling thunderstorm. None arrived, though, and by evening Dave was dreading the thought of putting on decent clothes and venturing forth in the heat. At home he'd taken to going about in just his swim trunks. He lumbered upstairs to his closet, where he stood idly ruffling the gray hairs on his chest as he contemplated his choices. Eventually he settled on a seersucker shirt and khakis. He should shower again, but he wasn't u
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to it. He went off to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face instead.

One thing he had learned about Bitsy's parties was that it didn't pay to be early. She grew very managerial just before her guests arrived. He would have been put to work folding napkins or rearranging chairs or something equally unnecessary. So he took his time leaving the house, and when he reached the Donaldsons' place he found several cars already parked at the curb. The girls were out on the sidewalk Susan industriously pedaling Jin-Ho's tricycle while Jin-Ho stood watching. (Somehow it was always Susan who got first dibs, Dave had noticed. She might be smaller and frailer, but she was laughably determined.)

Hey, there, he told them. You two ready for your party?

Jin-Ho said, Grandpa! and came over to give him a hug. Susan gazed up at him with her usual dubious expression. He cupped her head with one hand as he passed her. She wore her hair in two thin braids, nothing like Jin-Ho's thick, bowl-shaped bob, and there was something poignant about the perfect roundness of her little skull inside his palm.

We're waiting for Polly and them, Jin-Ho told him. Polly was the oldest of Abe's three daughters thirteen, now; just the right age to fascinate small girls. Mama said we could, if we didn't go near the street. Mama doesn't know about the hummet.

Hummet? Dave asked.

Susan's not wearing the trike hummet.

Ah, Dave said. Yes, he could see the helmet now on the top porch step a sleek black beetle-shaped object with racing stripes on the sides. Well, I imagine life as we know it will go on, he said.

Huh?

He waved at her and continued toward the house. As he reached the porch, the screen door opened and Bitsy said, Finally! She came out to kiss his cheek. She was wearing a sundress made fro
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one of her more attractive pieces of weaving purple bands threaded with blue although it billowed out from the bodice in a way that he found unfortunate. He liked for women's waists to be evident. (Connie used to claim that this preference revealed a masculine fear of pregnancy.) Everyone's here now but Abe, Bitsy told him. All the Iranians . . . and then she leaned closer to whisper in his ear. They've brought an extra.