Digging to America (28 page)

I sure hope we don't regret this, Jin-Ho's father said.

Whom to invite? Anyone who would come, Jin-Ho's father said. They discussed it over supper. He said, Invite the damn mailman, if you want. Invite the garbage guys.

Yes! Alphonse! Jin-Ho said.

Who's Alphonse?

He's one of the garbage guys.

We'll ask my dad, of course, Jin-Ho's mother said. And your parents. And my brothers and their families. Well, it's an excuse for a get-together! The pacifier issue is incidental, really. And the Copelands, because little Lucy will be company for Xiu-Mei. And maybe ... what do you think? The Yazdans? Or not.

She was looking at Jin-Ho's father, but Jin-Ho was the one who answered. She said, We always have the Yazdans! I always have to play with that bossy Susan.

We do not always have them, in fact, her father told her. We haven't seen them in nearly a month. We don't want things to get uncomfortable, Bitsy. I think we ought to invite them.

Well, it's no fault of mine we don't see them, Jin-Ho's mother said. She handed Xiu-Mei a chicken wing. Xiu-Mei was no longer allowed to suck her pacifier at the table, but even so she just turne
d
the wing this way, turned the wing that way, and then set it down on her plate. You know, somehow Ziba's acted differently toward me ever since the breakup, Jin-Ho's mother said. She's seemed ... I don't know. Strained.

She feels anxious; that's all it is. She worries you hold it against her.

Well, that's absurd. She knows I'm a fair-minded person. Why would I blame her for something her mother-in-law did?

Maryam, she meant. Susan's grandma. Who was once about to marry Jin-Ho's grandpa; and if she had, then she would have been Jin-Ho's grandma as well. (Jin-Ho's father had pointed out that also, Jin-Ho's mother would have been Jin-Ho's aunt. You could start calling your mom 'Aunt Bitsy,'
he'd said. Jin-Ho had said, Huh? I don't get it.) But Maryam had changed her mind, and now they didn't see her anymore. She didn't give her New Year's dinner in the spring and she was out of town during this year's Arrival Party. Conveniently out of town, Jin-Ho's mother had said. Jin-Ho wished she could have been out of town. She hated Arrival Parties.

Here's a thought, Jin-Ho's father said. He was talking to Jin-Ho now. We do invite the Yazdans, but we invite a friend from your school besides so you'll have someone not bossy to play with.

Oh! Brad? Jin-Ho's mother said. Why go complicating my guest list? That's just one more complication!

Now, hon, you remember what it was like when you were a kid your parents always pushing their friends' kids on you, even if the friends' kids were dorks.

Susan Yazdan is not a dork!

What I meant wa
s
I would invite Athena, Jin-Ho said in a definite voice. Jin-Ho's mother said, Oh.

Athena was African-American, which Jin-Ho's mother approve
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of.

Well, all right, she told Jin-Ho. But promise me that you won't make Susan feel left out. She's a guest. You promise?

Sure.

Anyhow, it was the other way around. Susan was the one who could make a person feel left out.

Jin-Ho's mother said, Someday, sweetie, you're going to value that friendship. I know you don't think so now, but you will. Someday you might even travel to Korea together and look up your biological mothers.

Why would we want to do that? Jin-Ho asked.

You could do it! We wouldn't mind! We would support you and encourage you!

Well, getting back to the subject
Jin-Ho's father said.

Jin-Ho was not about to travel to Korea. She didn't even like the food from Korea. She didn't like wearing those costumes with the stiff, sharp seams inside, and she never, ever, even once in her life had watched that stupid videotape.

Jin-Ho's grandpa said he thought they should do this more gradually. It's like giving up cigarettes, he said. You can't expect XiuMei to go cold turkey all in a single day.

Well, I see your point, Jin-Ho's mother said. Maybe you're right.

They were in the TV room. It was Monday afternoon, and she was folding laundry while they waited for Xiu-Mei to finish her nap. So, she said, let me see how we could work this. Maybe today I could tell her no binkies in the car anymore. Only when we're home, I'll say; not when we're out and about.

You'd better get rid of all the binkies in the back seat, then, Jin-Ho told her.

Yes, yes, I know ... They're everywhere! I can't believe I actually went out and bought those infernal things!

She shook a pillowcase with a snapping sound and folded it in half. Then tomorrow, she said, I'll say no binkies in the yard, either. You know how she loves the swing set. She'll have to do without her binky if she's planning to use the swing set, I'll say. And Wednesday she can't have her binkies anywhere except her crib. And not at nap time next, on Thursday; and then Friday will be her last binky at night before the party on Saturday.

I had in mind more like a month or two, Jin-Ho's grandpa said. What exactly is your hurry?

I can't wait a month! I can't stand it anymore! Those damn things are driving me crazy!

Jin-Ho and her grandpa looked at each other. Sometimes Jin-Ho's mother did get sort of crazy.

In school today we talked about planets, Jin-Ho said.

Did you! her grandpa said in a brighter-than-usual voice. And which planet do you like best, Jin-Ho?

Pluto, because it looks kind of lonesome.

I could put up with it if she ate better, Jin-Ho's mother said. But I think she finds her pacifier so satisfying that she doesn't feel the need for food. It's discouraging to have a child who won't eat! Here I make such healthful meals, whole-grain and free-range and organic, and she just ... spurns me!

Jin-Ho's grandpa was bending over to get his rain hat from under his chair. It had been sprinkling when he arrived, although now it seemed to have stopped. As he stood up he said, I'll just leave you with one thought, Bitsy. Have you ever seen a teenager who still has a pacifier? Think about it.

Yes! Yes! Jin-Ho said. I have!

You have?

Those girls from Western High, she said. Sometimes they wear gold pacifiers on a chain around their necks.

Well, thanks a lot for bringing that to our attention, her grandpa told her. But you see what I'm saying, Bitsy. Sooner or later, Xiu-Mei will give it up on her own.

Then he left in a rush, as if he didn't want to hear what Jin-Ho's mother would answer.

Jin-Ho's grandpa didn't use to visit so often, but after Maryam changed her mind he got to dropping by almost every day and talking, talking, talking to Jin-Ho's mother. He would start out discussing politics or his volunteer tutoring job or a TV program he'd watched, but before you knew it he would have moved on to Maryam. Sometimes I'm walking toward my house, he would say, coming back home from your house or the mailbox or whatever, and just before I turn onto my block I think, What if I find her waiting there for me? She could be waiting on my porch, planning to say she was sorry and she didn't know what had come over her and begging me to forgive her. I don't look up as I'm rounding the corner because I don't want her to think I'm expecting her. I feel a little self-conscious knowing she might be watching me. I have a sense that my posture doesn't seem entirely natural. I want to act nonchalant but not, you know, too nonchalant. She shouldn't think that I'm carefree; she shouldn't think she hasn't harmed me.

When he talked like this, Jin-Ho's mother would first pat his hand or make a low murmuring sound but in a sort of hurried way, as if she couldn't wait to get past that part. Then she would start in on Maryam. Why you give her a thought, Dad ... why you ever gave her a thought, I honestly can't imagine. She's not worth it! She was wicked! Oh, not that I'd have blamed her if she'd simply said
,
'No, thank you.' It's true that you'd been dating for just a few months. And besides, a lot of women that age feel they simply can't remarry because of their late husbands' health insurance or pension payments or some such. Plus you didn't show the best judgment in springing it on her; admit it. With no warning like that; out in public. But she should have made herself clear right away dismissed the subject tactfully, brushed it off, made light of it. Instead, she told you, 'Yes.' And we all celebrated! We offered all those toasts! Jin-Ho and Susan started figuring out how they would be related! Then, bam. Just ... bam. She tells you to get lost.

Well, not exactly to ge
t
Why couldn't she have kept seeing you, at least? You could still have gone on dating, you know. It didn't have to be all or nothing.

Ah. Well, in point of fact, Jin-Ho's grandpa said, I believe that was more my decision tha
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From the start I felt she was a very cold person. I can say that now that it's over. Very cold and aloof, Jin-Ho's mother said.

She's just a woman with boundaries, hon.

If she's so fond of her boundaries, what did she ever immigrate for?

Bitsy, for goodness' sake! Next you'll be telling me she ought to love this country or leave it!

I'm not talking about countries; I'm talking about a basic ... character flaw.

Jin-Ho always worried that her mother might be hurting her grandpa's feelings when she criticized Maryam. But he kept coming back to visit; so it must have been all right.

When Xiu-Mei got up from her nap, their mother took the two o
f
them grocery-shopping without any pacifiers. Xiu-Mei cried th
e
whole way there. She cried in the store, too, but Jin-Ho's mother gave her a banana and that helped a little bit. She went on snuffling, but she did eat part of the banana. On the way home, when she started crying again, Jin-Ho's mother pretended not to notice and talked right over her, discussing the party. I've bought colored sugar, and chocolate sprinkles, and those little silver BBs ... I think cupcakes will be better than a single big cake, don't you agree?

Jin-Ho said, Mmhmm, with her fingers stuck in her ears.

As soon as they reached home, Xiu-Mei got herself a pacifier from under the hall radiator and went off to sulk in the TV room.

On Tuesday, when Jin-Ho's car pool dropped her off after school, she found her mother sitting on the front steps in her big thick Irish sweater. What are you doing here? Jin-Ho asked, and her mother said, Waiting for you, of course. But she wouldn't have been waiting there ordinarily. And then she said, I thought maybe we could have our snack on the patio today, which was odd because it was real fall weather sunny, but cool enough that Jin-Ho was wearing a jacket. It all made sense, though, once her mother had the tray ready to take outside. Coming, Xiu-Mei? she asked. Xiu-Mei was pushing her kangaroo mama and baby around the kitchen in her purple toy shopping cart. But you'll have to leave your binky in the house, her mother said, and Xiu-Mei stopped short and said, No! which caused her binky to fall to the floor. She bent to pick it up, jammed it back in her mouth, and started pushing her cart again. They had to go on outside without her.

Over their snack, which was peanut butter cookies and apple juice, Jin-Ho's mother talked some more about the party. She didn't like the sound of the weather forecast; a hurricane was heading up the coast. This is one time the weather matters, she said, because I've thought of a really good solution for the binkies. We're going to tie them to helium balloons and let them fly up i
n
the sky. Won't that be beautiful? Then we'll go into the house, and we'll find the present the Fairy has left.

Could a hurricane blow us away? Jin-Ho asked. (She'd just seen The Wizard of Oz on TV.)

Not this far inland it couldn't, but it could bring a lot of rain. We'll just have to hope it's over by then. They're predicting it for Thursday, which would give us two days to recover, but since when has the Weather Bureau known what it was talking about?

Then she turned toward the house and called, Xiu-Mei? Have you changed your mind? Yummy peanut butter cookies, honey!

They'd left the back door cracked open, so Xiu-Mei had to have heard her. But she didn't say a thing. The only sound was the squeak-squeak of her shopping cart. Jin-Ho's mother sighed and reached for her apple juice. She pulled her sweater sleeve over her hand like a mitten before she took hold of her glass.

Wednesday was No Binkies Outside of the Crib Day. Jin-Ho's father said all he could say was, he was mighty glad he had a job to go to. Then he left for work half an hour early. And Jin-Ho was glad she had school to go to, because already she could see how things were shaping up. By the time the car pool honked out front, XiuMei had thoroughly searched the house and found not a single pacifier. They were all in a liquor-store carton on top of the refrigerator, but she didn't know that. She curled into a ball underneath the kitchen table and started crying very loudly. Jin-Ho's mother was in the bathroom with the door closed. Jin-Ho called, Bye, Mama, and after a moment her mother called back, Bye, sweetie. Have a nice day. From the sound of her voice, it seemed she might be crying too.

So Jin-Ho sort of dreaded coming home again. But when she walked in, the house was quiet a cheerful, humming quiet, not a sulking quiet. She found her mother stirring cocoa on the stove, and her grandpa sitting at the table with the newspapers, and XiuMei in her booster seat sucking a pacifier.