Digging To America Part 6

He had felt the same about his own children. He had embarked on parenthood reluctantly, sending regretful backward glances at his carefree young-married days, and although the first baby had proved a delight he hadn't hankered for more. If not for Connie's lobbying, Bitsy would have been an only child. Then of course the two boys were delights as well, and he wouldn't have traded them for anything, but still he could remember quite clearly sitting in the melee of tantrums and wet diapers and little sharp-edged building blocks and thinking, Too many children and not enough Connie. He had felt almost childlike himself as he angled for Connie's attention, s.n.a.t.c.hed the smallest stray bits of her, competed for her ear and for her thoughtful, focused gaze.

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 G.o.d. 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 that 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 d.i.c.kinsons! 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 ca.s.seroles 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 G.o.d, 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 them 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 gla.s.s 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.

But 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 shock 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 that 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 d.a.m.n-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 b.u.t.ton 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 up 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 pa.s.sed 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 from 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.

Pardon?

The Yazdans have brought an extra guest.

Oh.

They didn't ask me first.

Well, I guess maybe in their culture ...

Then he all but b.u.mped into Ziba, who was standing just inside the door. h.e.l.lo, Ziba, he said, and he accepted her kiss too. As usual, she was packed into a tight T-shirt and tighter jeans, and her heels were so high that she teetered slightly as she stepped away from him. Happy Arrival Day, she told him. She gestured toward a cavernously thin teenaged boy who stood next to her with his hands clamped in his armpits. This is Siroos's son, Kurosh, she said.

Dave had no idea who Siroos might be, but he said, Well, h.e.l.lo. Happy Arrival Day to you, and the boy unclamped one hand to shake his.

Thank you, sir, he said with no accent. And many happy returns, which didn't quite suit the occasion if you thought about it long enough.

Brad ambled up, sweating and grinning. More or less the same weather as the first Arrival Day, right? he said. He led Dave into the living room, where Mr. and Mrs. Hakimi sat next to one of Ziba's brothers (the oldest one, who could almost have been her father with that bald head and leathery face) and his motherly-looking wife. The four of them formed a decorous row down the length of the couch, the men in suits and the women in good black dresses, and it was probably their general stiffness that made Brad so eager to add Dave to the mix. You remember Bitsy's dad, he told them. All the Hakimis smiled brightly and made a motion as if to stand, even the women, but then kept their seats a gesture Dave had grown to expect from earlier occasions.

Sami, who seemed to be in charge of the drinks, was over by the deep windowsill that was serving as a bar. Hey there, Dave! he called. Can I offer you a Scotch? I was just fixing one for Ali.

Well ... why not? Dave said. He was glad to be reminded of the brother's name, although he still couldn't think of the wife's.

You have seen the pictures? Mr. Hakimi asked in his booming voice. Take a look at the pictures! Very nice!

The pictures lined the mantel and the top of the built-in bookcase beside it photos from Arrival Parties One and Two, most of them unframed and curling in the middle. Dave turned his face toward them in a perfunctory way, but Mr. Hakimi said, See the one on the right! You are standing with Jin-Ho! so that Dave had to walk over there and pull his gla.s.ses from his shirt pocket to demonstrate his interest. The photo on the far right showed him lifting Jin-Ho by the waist to light a candle with one of those propane wands meant for lighting stoves. It might have been just the effort of lifting her that caused his face to seem so ropy and strained, but all he could think was, I look like h.e.l.l! I look ruined! All his adult life he had been a few pounds overweight, large-framed and loose and shambling, but in the photo he had a haggard appearance and the tendons showed in his neck. Connie had been dead just five months when that picture was taken. He saw now that unbeknownst to himself he must have progressed somewhat from those days, because he felt so thankful not to be back there. And he was almost certain he had regained the lost weight.

See the grandfather-granddaughter! Mr. Hakimi was saying.

A toast to the grandfather-granddaughter! Your good health, sir! And Sami pressed an icy tumbler into Dave's hand.

That Bitsy was bothering with c.o.c.ktails suggested she was going ahead with her plan to serve a full meal. He supposed she'd had little choice, once she had scheduled the party for a weekday evening. So he resigned himself to a late night, and to seeing very little of Bitsy since she would be occupied with the food. He settled in a rocking chair and listened with what he hoped was an attentive expression as Sami and Brad discussed the Orioles. He didn't follow the Orioles anymore. Once you lost touch with a baseball team its gossipy human-interest stories, its miniature dramas of heartbreaking personal slumps and miraculous comebacks it was hard to work up much enthusiasm. And the Hakimis felt even less connected, if you judged by their glazed smiles. Only when Maryam emerged from the kitchen, where she must have been helping out, did they come to life. She was carrying a tray of something, and when she bent over the row of guests on the couch they leaned forward eagerly and there was a murmur of foreign phrases, a quick back-and-forth and a patter of soft laughter that made Dave realize how much went on inside these people's heads that he would never have guessed from their stunted, primitive English.

Wouldn't it feel like a permanent bereavement, to give up your native language?

Maryam wore a deeply V-necked top that revealed her polished collarbones. When she approached him with her tray, she said, It's good to see you, Dave. Would you care for a canapT?

Thank you, he said, taking one. It seemed to be some sort of fish paste.

Are you pleased you might have a new grandchild?

A new ... ? Oh. Yes, right, he said. Very pleased, because he supposed that was what was expected of him.

I wonder if this means that now there'll be two Arrival Parties, she said.

G.o.d forbid! he said before he thought. Maryam laughed.

By the time Abe and Jeannine had shown up with their daughters, everyone had eaten far too many hors d'oeuvres. The sight of the huge banquet waiting when they moved to the dining room made several people groan. Bitsy, what have you done? Jeannine asked. There were platters of cold chicken, cold salmon, and shrimp, along with half a dozen vegetable dishes and almost as many salads. If this was a compet.i.tion, Dave dreaded to think what the next year would bring.

The cake at the end of the meal was the usual Stars-and-Stripes sheet cake, and the song was the usual song in spite of all Bitsy's efforts. I'll know, she began hopefully in a high, sweet voice, but Abe's three boisterous daughters drowned her out. They'll be coming round the mountain when they come, Bridget led off, and Brad flung open the kitchen door to reveal Jin-Ho and Susan, who stood looking nonplussed as always instead of marching forth as they'd been instructed. Toot! Toot! Abe's daughters shrieked. Clearly they enjoyed the sound effects even more than the song itself. Scratch! Scratch! Whoa, back! Hi, babe! First Abe and Jeannine joined in and then Sami, then Ziba, and finally Dave, although he hated to seem disloyal. Even the Hakimis mumbled along as best they could, chuckling bashfully each time they came to the toots and sending each other shy peeks.

After cake it was time for the video. The Arrival of Jin-Ho and Susan, it began a whole new t.i.tle, in italics now rather than copperplate. People paid varying degrees of attention. The Hakimis, for instance, sat erect and kept their eyes fixed respectfully on the screen throughout. At the other extreme, Jin-Ho busied herself with a Tickle Me Elmo doll. Dave, who was standing at the back of the room, watched more closely than he let on because he knew he'd be seeing Connie. He didn't want the others to notice how much this mattered to him. They would worry; they would try to distract him. They would say he was being morbid.

Yes, there she was, smiling beautifully and clasping her hands in front of her chest as if she were praying. GRANDMA, her lapel b.u.t.ton read. It was true that she wore a baseball cap already she was ill but how full and rosy her face seemed! How st.u.r.dily she stood, next to him but not leaning on him! He kept forgetting that this was how she used to look. When he pictured her nowadays, she had the papery white skin and jutting bones of a dying woman.

Then she was gone. Oh, d.a.m.n. He wondered, as he had the year before, if he could somehow spirit this tape away and take it home to watch in solitude. He would play just the frames with Connie in them over and over and over. He would dwell on the dear slope of flesh beneath her jaw and the cozily embedded look of the wedding ring on her finger.

The infant Jin-Ho arrived in her courier's arms and was surrounded and engulfed. Various d.i.c.kinsons and Donaldsons behaved like total fools. Then Susan flashed by now you see her, now you don't but Dave barely noticed that part. He knew there wouldn't be any more shots of Connie.

It was difficult to watch Connie, no? Maryam asked.

She stood nearby, on his left. The foreign intonation of her no? struck him as irritating. He felt so far removed from this random a.s.semblage; he resented being dragged back to it. He kept his eyes fixed stubbornly on the TV screen (the credits rolling by in the original, copperplate font) as he said, Not difficult at all. I liked seeing her so healthy.

Ah, Maryam said. Yes, I can understand that. Then she said, I used to think that if someone had come to me out of the blue and told me, 'Your husband just died,' when he was in perfect health, I would have found it easier. It was watching him go down, down, down that made it so hard.

He looked over at her. He was often startled by Maryam's smallness someone so elegant should be statuesque, it seemed to him and now he had to lower his gaze a few inches to take in her profile, her eyes trained on the other guests and her fingers curved delicately around the handle of a teacup.

I thought, If only I could mourn the man I first knew! she said. But instead there were the more recent versions, the sick one and then the sicker one and then the one who was so cross and hated me for disturbing him with pills and food and fluids, and finally the faraway, sleepy one who in fact was not there at all. I thought, I wish I had been aware of the day he really died the day his real self died. That was the day when I should have grieved most deeply.

I'd forgotten his was cancer too, Dave said.

She was silent. She watched the others streaming out, the children heading toward the backyard and the grownups to the living room.

Connie in her final version was ... very demanding, Dave said. He had started to say something else but changed his mind. Then he went ahead and said it after all. In a way, she was almost mean, he said.

Maryam nodded without surprise and took a sip of tea.

I guess it was inevitable, he told her. People when they're sick begin to feel something is owed them. They get sort of imperious. In real life, Connie wasn't like that in the least. I knew that! I should have made allowances, but I didn't. I snapped at her, sometimes. I often lost my patience.

Well, of course, Maryam said, and she set her cup back in her saucer without a sound. It was fear, she told him.

Fear?

I remember when I was a child, if my mother showed any sign of weakness took to bed with a headache, even I always got so angry with her! I was frightened, was the reason.

He thought that over. He supposed she had a point. Certainly Connie's decline had scared him out of his wits. But somehow he felt unsatisfied with this conversation, as if there were something more that needed to be set straight. He shifted to one side to let Siroos's son edge past him, and then he said, It isn't only her last days that I regret.

Maryam raised her eyebrows slightly.