If You Lived Here (43 page)

It wasn’t yet seven as Martin and I walked with Mai to have breakfast. We had called Mrs. Huyen as soon as we got up and she promised to arrange the G and R for the afternoon. Mai and I walked together, oblivious to the persistent drizzle on the street, distracted by anticipation. Martin walked behind us and every thirty feet or so we had to stop and wait for him. He ambled slowly, taking in the vendors on the streets, the traffic, the morning smells of chicken broth and soap. His face bore that same look of wonder and absorption that I’d seen so many times at home, in the lamplight of the study, while he pursued a course of knowledge on wedding rituals in Madagascar, or horse racing in Tibet. That expression on his face gave me the urge to share something with him. Nothing personal, but some tidbit he might enjoy, the kind of random but satisfying fact that he could find in
Discover
. I slowed down, letting Mai wander on up ahead. “They have words for all different kinds of rain here,” I tell him. “This kind of rain, I can’t remember the word for it in Vietnamese. Mai said it’s called ‘dust rain.’ ”

Martin kept his eyes on the sidewalk, but let me fall in beside him. “I liked the sound of the language. It’s nice to hear it again after all these years.”

The note of pleasure in his voice silenced me. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing and startle an emotion that, like some edgy wild animal, could disappear at any moment.

He continued, “I remember, if someone asked if I was married, I couldn’t just say no. I had to say ‘Not yet.’ I thought that was the funniest thing. Even for questions where the answer could never be yes—Have you ever been to Mars?—you couldn’t say no. You had to say ‘Not yet.’ ”

“It’s so odd,” I said, laughing. “It’s so optimistic.”

At the café, we followed Mai toward the back. The place had become familiar by now, made even more so by the exotic sight of my husband pulling up an extra chair. Although I had longed for him to come, I hadn’t actually expected it. Now he sat only inches away, his body folded to fit on the tiny stool. I pulled a plastic-covered menu from between the salt shaker and the sugar bowl and handed it to him.

Martin ordered coffee and a croissant. Mai and I ordered coffee, orange juice, our usual mix of omelets and cake, yogurt, croissants, and toast. As we ordered, Martin stared at us as if we were playing some weird cross-cultural practical joke, as if restaurants operated in some different way in Hanoi. But I just shrugged and told him the truth: “We’ve turned into pigs here.”

On this day that I would—barring some new unforeseen disaster— finally become a mother, I felt both elated and jumpy. It seemed easiest just to focus on Mai. “So, how was your day yesterday?” I asked her.

Her eyes had settled on the door of the café and now she turned back to me with a grin. “I saw my father.”

I must have just stared.

“It’s no problem.” Her eyes were bright, her smile fresh and grateful. “He very happy.”

I was about to explain to Martin, in some simple and evasive way, Mai’s relationship with her father. Then I spotted Dr. Penzi up at the front counter, buying a paper. “Dr. Penzi’s here,” I announced.

Martin squinted toward the front of the café. “Who’s Dr. Penzi?” Mai reached across the table and poured some milk into her coffee.

The doctor had already begun to head back in our direction. “He’s going to examine Hai Au,” I said. “He eats breakfast here.”

“Good morning. Shelley. Mai.” He glanced at each of us, then, focus-ing on Martin, he reached out his hand. “Dario Penzi.”

Martin, the polite American funeral director, pulled himself up off that tiny stool and shook. “I’m Martin Marino.”

The doctor looked at me. “Shelley’s husband?”

“Well, yes,” Martin said.

“Wonderful!” he said, as if Martin had taken a spontaneous vacation to meet up with us for breakfast. The two men adjusted stools to make room at the table. “Good morning,” he said to Mai, again, as he sat down beside her.

“Good morning.” She gave him a brief glance, then stared down at a menu as if she planned to order something else.

The doctor looked at Martin. “Well!” he said, grinning broadly. Martin looked at the doctor, clearly wondering what the doctor knew.

I wondered, too. Mai wouldn’t look at any of us.

“We’re hoping to complete the G and R this afternoon,” I said.

“All of you?” He looked at me, then Martin. He patted Mai’s arm and leaned closer to her, his voice gentle. “You will go with them?”

It occurred to me that he was flirting. Mai must have realized it, too, because her face turned red and her eyes raced around the room, looking at everything except him. Poor Mai. She doesn’t know how to handle such attention. In Wilmington, she managed to bury her looks beneath lousy clothes and a grumpy demeanor. But Hanoi has thrown her off completely. She borrows my clothes. She smiles. Sitting there in the café, she looked beautiful, like a flower you never expected to bloom. No won-der the doctor noticed.

He turned to me. “Shall I come by this evening, then, to take a look at your son?”

I laughed. “That’s service. We don’t get house calls anymore at home.” “Oh,” he said, waving his hand through the air. “There are many wonderful things we manage here in Vietnam. You’ll have to come by the clinic for the tests. But tonight, at least, we can make a start.”

I looked at Martin. He said to the doctor, “Around six?”

When Martin, Mai, and I got back to the hotel, Mrs. Huyen and Lap were already standing in the lobby, waiting for us. Mrs. Huyen raced up to Martin first. “Mr. Marino, at last!” She gasped. “I was pulling every string I had, but sometimes even our best efforts fail us. I’m so sorry to have put you out in this way.”

She was practically wringing his hand. Mai had told him, over breakfast, about Mrs. Huyen. “No problem,” he replied, his voice just chilly enough to let her know he was on to her.

Lap stood behind Mrs. Huyen, shy and elated, his hands behind his back, rocking on his heels. I walked around her, took him by the arm, and presented him to Martin. “I want you to meet my friend Lap,” I said. I looked to Mai to translate for me, ignoring Mrs. Huyen. “He’s our driver, and he stuck with me when everyone else wanted to give up.”

Martin’s smile turned friendly as he shook Lap’s hand. “Thank you,” he said.

“I am very, very lucky,” I said, to no one in particular, to me.

Lap turned to Mai and began to talk, his voice loud and breathless. “He say it almost broke his heart,” said Mai. “He see adoptive parent

all the time, but he knew there something special between Shelley and Hai Au.”

Martin’s expression flattened. I guess he’d had enough. “Should we go?” he asked.

On the way out to the orphanage, Martin didn’t say a word. He stared at the passing scenery as if every single noodle shop, every family on a motorbike, every roving vendor hauling a load of empty bottles both startled and fascinated him. Or maybe he didn’t see these things at all. Maybe he was thinking about meeting his future—what do you call it when you go backward with a child? Not a stepson. An ex-son.

Mrs. Huyen and Lap and Mai went into the reception room to wait for us. I led the way toward Minh and Hai Au, who sat on a blanket in the garden. When Minh saw us, she must have realized immediately who Martin was, because she began to grin and yell to the other caregivers in Vietnamese. Hai Au, sensing something wrong, pulled himself up and hung to her neck like a baby monkey, screaming. I thought: I missed my chance with him. One chance to take him calm and happy. And I blew it.

I froze.

Martin continued across the grass and sat down. Hai Au screamed even louder. Minh looked up at me, then back at Martin. I didn’t move. Martin leaned over and ran his hand across the top of the grass, then started picking through it. Hai Au, sensing something strange, leaned

out, away from Minh but maintaining his grip on her, to see what Martin was doing. Martin took his time. He sorted through the grass inch after inch, here and there, deep and shallow. Hai Au continued to cry, but he seemed distracted now. Then Martin found what he wanted. He picked a long, wide blade of grass and held it up to the light.

“Aaaah,” he said.

Hai Au reached for it.

Martin held the grass away from Hai Au’s hand. He placed it between his thumbs, adjusted it a bit, lifted his hand to his mouth, and blew. The noise made the caregivers at the far side of the orphanage stop their talking. A cat woke up. An old man riding down the drive on his bike turned to look. Hai Au squealed. Minh started laughing. Martin blew again and again. Hai Au threw himself across the blanket toward Martin, who caught him in his arms.

“Hello there,” Martin said.

Hai Au wiggled away to the edge of the blanket, thrust his hands into the grass, and banged it emphatically. The two of them began to dig through the grass, then, together. They spent the next hour blowing blades of grass. By the time we reached the People’s Committee Building, Hai Au had forgotten Minh. He had forgotten me. He had eyes for no one but Martin. The ceremony was as quick and efficient as, the last time, it had been slow and heartbreaking. Martin signed on all of his dotted lines. The officials signed on theirs. I signed on mine. Martin held my hand the entire time, ostentatiously, until the moment I received Hai Au, and then he let it go. No one bothered with the speeches. And then we were outside, in the van, a family.

It’s nearly four. Hai Au’s eyes are drooping. “Aren’t you tired?” I ask Martin. “The jet lag and all. You two could sleep.”

“I guess. Yeah. Okay,” he says. He perches on the edge of my bed. I fluff some pillows behind him and he lowers himself back against them. Hai Au straddles Martin’s body like a drunk in an old Western, hauled home on the back of a horse.

Martin’s eyes are closed. “How long will the passport take?”

I would like to run my hand across his cheek, but I don’t. I say, “Maybe

another few days. Mrs. Huyen also has to find out if you’ll have to sign forms at the embassy.”

“I’ll stay for that. It’d be pretty dumb if I left and the U.S. denied a visa because your husband wasn’t there.” His hand runs lightly over Hai Au’s little body, smoothing down his shirt. “Why don’t you tell Mai to sleep upstairs tonight and I’ll stay here? He might wake up a lot. Might as well let her sleep.”

I gaze down at them. “I won’t jump to any conclusions,” I assure him. He keeps his eyes closed. “Right,” he says.

For a long time, I stay there, watching them sleep. Of course, it’s too late now to make a different set of decisions. Now that I have Hai Au, I have to have Hai Au. But before, when he was nothing more than a four-by-six-inch photo, why did I choose that photo over the man I’d slept with, worked beside, made love to, cooked for, dreamed with, loved— yes, honestly loved, even when he really pissed me off—for twenty years? That’s what Martin doesn’t understand. No one can understand it, and I can’t understand it, either. I lost my mind. I see that now. And so did he. It became a test of wills between two stubborn people. And if winning means you never give in, then we both won.

“Is there any way around it?” I whisper to the sleeping man, the child, myself.

They respond with breath. One, deep and familiar as the grooves on a mattress, an old sheet, the right bed; the other, soft and fragile, morning, the first few steps. I am perfectly quiet, listening to them, but it is too much for me, this closeness between them that will not last, and so I leave and let them sleep.

Downstairs, a new group of Americans sits on the couches, clutching their guidebooks and waiting for Mrs. Huyen. Seeing them, and knowing I’ve got my boy upstairs, I feel suddenly euphoric, like the girl who won the spelling bee. This joy washes over me in waves, mixed with sadness, too. I’m experiencing the instability of PMS, without the cramps.

I sit down at the computer and check my e-mail. Work messages are supposed to forward directly to Bennet, but, still, I see a few from Batesville Casket, a couple from our plumber, one from a client with a subject heading “bill for urn.” I ignore those for the time being, and open messages from my mother, Lindi, Rita, and one for Mai from Marcy (subject heading: “Cuisinart?”).

My mother writes: Dear,

I imagine you have him by now. Do you have him? Is he healthy? I am so worried about you. On the golf course yesterday, Sue Dalby told me that a friend of her daughter adopted from China. The child seemed fine but turned out to have hepatitis C. I don’t want you to worry about such a thing, but if you need to know the symptoms, tell me and I’ll call Sue. Everything’s fine here. We’re just waiting, desperately, to hear. Be kind to Martin. I know you can work something out.

Sauly might need to get his tonsils removed, maybe next month or the month after.

I love you, my darling. And, already, I love the little one, too.

Mom

Lindi writes,

Shelley—I can’t believe what Martin has put you through. Don’t worry about anything. As soon as you get back, you and Hi Ho can stay with us.

Love, Lindi, Richard, and the kids

P.S. This is Sauly writing. I have to get my tonsils out maybe. You eat nothing but Jell-O for a month.

Rita writes:

To: Shelley and Martin Marino, Lucinda Hotel, Hanoi, Vietnam From: Rita P. Hayes, Administrative Assistant, Marino and Sons, Funeral Directors

Dear Shelley and Martin,

I hope that this reaches you in Vietnam. For all I know, it might be flying to Finland (this is only my third time on the E:Mail, you know?). Everything’s quite all right here at the home. We have two funerals scheduled for the next few days and, with Carl’s help, Bennet is on top of both of them. By limiting our number of cases, we do just fine. He has impressed all of us. Despite his youth, when it comes down to it, he’s stepped up to the plate. We have had not a single complaint. So it is not a problem for Martin to turn this into a vacation like he said he might. We all of us are fine, so don’t you worry. In a pinch, I can dress cadavers. I did it for Martin’s daddy, and sometimes hairdressings, too, and I was none too bad at it, either, although I prefer the phone.