Lucky Child (15 page)

“Thank you so much for bringing us back from the hospital,” Meng tells them again as he walks them to the door.

I skip after Eang and sit myself next to her on the couch. Slowly, my hands part the white bundle of cloth in her arms. I peel the layers off like lotus flower petals to discover a light brown and smooth baby inside. With her eyes still closed, she squirms and suckles her lips. As Eang takes the baby out of her wrappers, I reach over and touch her pink baby pajamas and caress her wrinkled hands. She purses her mouth as if warning me to leave her alone and let her sleep. Slowly I pull off her little hat to see the mass of black hair covering her soft spot. She yawns and scrunches her face as if to let out a cry before I quickly replace the hat on her head. Then I lift her tiny hand to my nose and lips, giving her first a Cambodian kiss and then an American kiss.

“Hi, baby,” I coo. Her eyelids squeeze together but she breathes so deeply it sounds like she just sighs. “You’re so cute!” Her soft skin smells of baby powder. My head spins with visions of having my own living doll to play with, dress up, and feed. “Open your eyes, open your eyes,” I urge her, but she ignores me.

“Her Chinese name will be Geak Sok.” Meng is suddenly next to me, gazing warmly at his daughter. I stare at him, my breath caught in my
chest. As I exhale slowly, the room seems to grow darker and the lights on the tree less bright. In front of my eyes, the lines on Meng’s face etch deeper in the creases around his eyes and mouth. For a moment, I fear he will break our unspoken rule not to talk about Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge, Ma, Pa, and especially Geak.

“Because she is born on December twenty-first, the first day of winter, her Chinese name means jade-snow.” Meng continues and lets our rule stay unbroken. “She is named after Geak and snow.” For a moment, Meng’s voice is far away, but his smile never leaves his face.

“That’s pretty,” I agree, and continue to play with her soft fingers. Somewhere inside me, sad memories stir and try to push themselves to the surface. “Geak Sok.” I whisper the name softly and stare at the baby’s pink cheeks. I caress them with my finger and wonder if someday they will ripen like red apples just like her namesake’s. But as the baby squints and attempts to open her eyes, memories of Geak’s cries and swollen belly crawl back into their dark hole like a defeated mouse.

“But we’ll call her Maria,” Eang declares, and transfers the baby into my arms.

“That’s pretty, too!” I giggle approvingly and try not to stare at Eang’s heaving breasts that seem to have grown twice their size in the two days she stayed at the hospital. In my arms, Maria stretches and purrs peacefully in her sleep. “She’s so tiny,” I tell Eang, and focus my attention back on Maria. I gaze at her tiny lashes that look painted on and at how her tiny nostrils flare like a harmless baby dragon when she breathes. Not able to resist, I lower my face and nuzzle against her cheeks. With her head resting on the crook of my elbow, Maria feels like a small, lumpy, warm water sack. “Maria like
The Sound of Music.”

“Yes, good movie,” Eang agrees.

And so Maria joins our family and the next two days she spends sleeping in each of our arms. On Christmas Day, we celebrate by opening our gifts, eating dried turkey, and settling down to watch on TV the movie all our sponsors talk about,
It’s a Wonderful Life.
Outside, the snow falls softly and the world is quiet. At the end of the movie, the family cries and gathers around Joe Bailey as he rushes back into his house after having gone missing all day. Joe Bailey’s face lights up and his eyes glisten with tears when he sees the big crowd of family and friends waiting there for him.
Then there is much laughter, hugging, and kissing as everyone celebrates being together. All of a sudden, I cannot stand the movie anymore and quickly turn the TV off.

“The movie’s over already?” Eang asks groggily.

“Yeah.”

“Time to sleep,” she yawns and taps Meng on the arm. And together, they slowly make their way into their room where Maria dreams in her crib.

In the dark, I lay my head on its cushioned armrest and lie diagonally across the rocking chair. Outside the window, above the phone and power lines, the moon frowns and the stars twinkle like the lights on the pine tree. As the chair rocks back and forth, I bring my legs to my chest and curl into a fetal position. “It’s Christmas,” I say to myself. “You should be happy. Everybody’s happy on Christmas.” The sobs come faster now, pushing against my diaphragm and out of my throat. “But I am so lonely.” I cover my hand over my mouth so Meng and Eang won’t hear me. I don’t want them to know.

“I miss my sisters,” I say out loud to the empty room. My chest heaves as I realize it’s the first time I’ve said it, not just thought it. “I miss Chou.”

The lights on the tree shine brightly on my skin, but inside my body the darkness grows. It’s Christmas night and so many people are alive and together and happy! And tomorrow, more people will come and wish me a happy holiday and Eang will tell me to smile. But how do I tell them how difficult it is to curve my lips when anger makes my face stiff? When the other kids brag about what their parents bought them for Christmas, I am silent because I want nothing from Ma and Pa. I just want them to be here. I want to sit on Pa’s lap. I want to see Ma’s smile. I just want them to be alive.

Exhausted, I drift off to sleep in the armchair with the sound of bells still ringing in my ears. Then I see Ma and Geak together. It is daytime. The sky is bright and a light breeze sweeps their hair into their faces. Ma’s eyes are shiny and when she smiles, her lips stretch widely, exposing her gum. On her lap, Geak laughs, her fat cheeks glowing with health as she reaches up and wraps her arms around Ma’s neck. In silence, they lean their bodies in together, Geak resting her face on Ma’s chest, Ma setting her chin on Geak’s head. They look beautiful. A smile creeps onto my
face. They look so real. I want to throw my arms around them. I want to believe that they’re alive. But I don’t, not even in my sleep.

Suddenly they disappear. I run after them, calling out their names and begging them to take me with them.

“Please wait, wait for me!” I scream, but they are gone. “Come back, tell me when you will come back,” I plead. Their disappearance hurts so much, I want to crawl into a grave and let the earth take me in until I lose my memory.

“Ma, wait for me!” I beg, but no one hears me.

In my panic, I finally notice the heavy load in my arms. I bend my head down to see that I am holding a newborn baby. The baby is pale as a ghost and lies limp and unmoving in the crooks of my arms. I stare at her and a cold chill travels up my spine before spreading like an artic blast all over my body.

“No, no! Wake up, wake up!” I shake the baby but she doesn’t move. “Wake up, wake up!” Frantically, I squeeze the baby to my chest, hoping to give it life. But the baby lies dead in my arms.

part two
divided we stand

12 totally awesome u.s.a.

March 1983

At six-thirty A.M. Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” wakes me up for school on my alarm clock. I slam my hand down on the snooze button and close my eyes for a few more seconds. Outside the wind howls and blows cold air in through the cracks in the windowpanes. When I open my eyes again, it’s seven
A.M.

“Damn, I’m late!” I jump out of bed, throw on my big red sweater, and quickly slip on black tights, a skirt, and red leg warmers. In my closet, I quickly tease up my bangs and pull the rest of my big, permed hair into a banana clip.

“Damn, damn!” I swear, skipping and jumping while trying to cram my feet into a pair of Keds.

“Loung, stop swearing and jumping around,” Eang says as she sleepily passes my room to lie down on the couch.

“Sorry, sorry. I got up late.”

“Then hurry, but no swearing and jumping.” Eang pulls a blanket over her shoulders and closes her eyes.

I tiptoe down the stairs and out the door. In my hurried pace, my body heats up and keeps me warm against the cold wind. As my feet half-jog the mile to ADL Intermediate School, I think about Eang and her aversion to swearing. When we first came to America I used to be able to throw these four-letter words around and tell Eang they were not swear
words, but she’s caught on now and is always on my case about it. “Swearing,” she says, “is not proper or ladylike.” Sometimes I want to scream at Eang and her many rules. After three years in America, she is still trying to raise me to be a proper Cambodian. And it seems that in addition to not swearing, a proper Cambodian girl doesn’t go out to movies with male friends, go the mall, listen to loud music, talk for more than five minutes on the phone, come home after dark, or go anywhere by herself. It seems to me, a proper Cambodian girl is just supposed to sit at home and be quiet. But I’m no proper Cambodian girl. And in English the bad words blow off of my lips without much shame or fear, yet I can’t even silently mouth these same swear words in Chinese or Khmer without feeling like a very bad girl.

As I get near school, I stop jogging to coast along a patch of ice on the sidewalk. On the smooth concrete, I glide as if on a pair of roller skates, when suddenly I slip.

“Shit!!” I holler loudly.

Above me a row of birds frantically flutters off the telephone line. My right ankle rolls off a fallen branch and is growing fat before my eyes.

“What the hell! I’m late enough already. Jesus Christ!” I mutter to myself while I rub my ankle. Ahead of me, a group of kids turns and stares at me quizzically. Afraid that I look like a retard, I glower at them and make my eyes super small, as if to dare them to say something.

“Hey, are you okay?” a brunette girl asks.

“Umm, yeah,” I answer meekly.

“You’re sure?” she persists.

“Yeah, just a twist.”

“All right, see you at school then,” she smiles and leaves with her friends.

“Bye.” My mouth feels sour at how quickly I assumed the group would make fun of me. But more often than not, that’s exactly what the other kids do.

At thirteen I am only a year older than most sixth-graders at ADL, but those 365 days color my face with embarrassment and shame when the question of age comes up. And inevitably, the discussion will end with some kid making fun of me for it.

“So did you stay behind?” someone will ask.

“No,” I’ll reply with a nonchalant shrug of my shoulders.

“Did you start school late?”

“Yeah, very late,” I’ll laugh, all the while fully aware of their looks of disbelief because in their world everybody starts school at the same age. And if someone starts late, it must mean they’re slow.

“I’m not stupid!” I want to scream at them, but instead I smile.

Sometimes I wish I had a T-shirt that reads “I don’t speak like you. I’m from another country. We don’t speak English there. So stop being rude!” But no such T-shirt exists. And I don’t want to explain how I started school as a ten-year-old in second grade because then I will have to tell them about Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge.

I stand back up and tentatively walk on my tender ankle, but before I get to school I suddenly veer off the sidewalk to knock on Beth’s door. A car in the road kicks and jerks forward loudly. Involuntarily, I lower my shoulders and bend my knees as if to crouch. As the car passes, I reprimand myself for being a scaredy-cat.

“Beth,” I shout and rap louder.

“You’re late,” Beth says calmly when she opens her door.

“Sorry, I got up late, then twisted my ankle trying to rush here. It’s just one of those days.” Beth is quiet as she locks the door behind her.

Beth is my best friend in junior high. At five feet four inches, she is two inches taller than me. In contrast to my black hair and dark skin, Beth’s a blond-haired, blue-eyed, pretty all-American girl. She’s also one of the nicest and kindest girls in school and an extremely good teacher to me.

“If we hurry, we should be okay,” she says and glances at my face. “And urn … you should wipe off the ugly, sparkly blue eye shadow.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh. You’re beautiful without it.”

Part of the reason I love Beth is because she compliments me all the time. And yet as many times as I’ve heard her say I’m pretty, I don’t see it in myself. How can I be when I’m so different from everyone else?

“Wipe it all off or leave a little on?” I persist.

“All off.”

“Really?”

“I don’t know why you don’t believe you’re pretty,” Beth sighs in exasperation.

I take Beth’s advice and clean up my lids. But she doesn’t understand. She wasn’t there last summer at the fairground when the boy turned his face away. I’d smiled at him as we both stood in line to buy cotton candy. Later, when he met up with his friends, they looked at me and laughed. Beth just can’t understand how that feels—she’s so perfectly normal that sometimes I wonder why she’s friends with me.

Though Beth and I spend a lot of time together, I never tell her anything about the Khmer Rouge or the war. Instead, when I’m at her house, my favorite thing to do is to hang out in her kitchen and watch her and her mom interact. Ma Poole—that’s what Mrs. Poole lets me call her—likes to hug and puts her arms around Beth a lot. And when I’m there, I get a lot of her hugs, too. So while I share with Beth what it’s like to be a stranger in a foreign land, with her mom and in her house, I get to have my American family.

“Hey, Beth, let’s buck it!” I holler and march ahead of her.

“What?” Beth asks, trying to stifle her giggle.

“Let’s buck it, let’s hurry.” I explain.

“Umm, babe. The expression is ‘book it.’” Beth cracks up, her face muscles jiggling like the cafeteria jello.

“But …” I stammer. “A buck is a male deer and deer move very fast. So we make like a deer and ‘buck it,’ right?”

“No, book it.” Beth is certain.

“What? How? Why ‘book it’?” Beth can’t answer me.

I don’t understand English expressions and idioms. When I hear these strange phrases, I try to analyze and find reasons for them. Buck it, book it; windshield factor, windchill factor; I pledge a legions, I pledge allegiance; ant, aunt; there, their, they’re; I wonder why the Americans make it so difficult for themselves, not to mention for me!