Beyond the Blue

by Leslie Gould

  She ordered the grief from her body, but it refused to leave. Life was full of losses. At least she still had Hang and Mother. Even though Mother made life harder, she loved her. She rolled to her side and then sat up for a moment before standing. She wanted more for Hang. She slipped on her rubber flip-flops and straightened her shirt. Her belly was still soft from the baby.

  She shuffled out to the yard and turned on the spigot, letting the cool water flow over her hands before she splashed it onto her face. The sun would soon rise. She wouldn’t have to worry about Binh brushing against the hot stove or hiding from her in the market or running out into a busy street or too far into the waves.

  She would sell souvenirs today if Truc had extras. It was Saturday. She hoped tourists from Saigon would fill the beach.

  “Where is your baby?” Truc said to Lan as she handed her eight cartons of cigarettes and three boxes of jade Buddhas.

  “I took her to the orphanage.”

  Truc nodded. “I thought you might.” Lan couldn’t say she’d taken Binh too. She swallowed hard.

  “I have lychee nuts today too. Mrs. Le in the market had extra. Do you want some?”

  Five old men sat together and passed around a clear plastic bottle filled with amber liquid. “I’ll take a pack of cigarettes,” one called out. The group was from Saigon, she was sure. Ahead, young men played soccer, and children ran into the waves. In a few hours, by noon, in the heat of the day, the beach would be nearly deserted. By evening it would be busy again.

  Lan saw a white woman out of the corner of her eye. The woman wore her hair short. Ahead a man walked with a baby strapped to his chest. If Lan felt better, she would have laughed at the sight.

  A boy just younger than Hang shouted in English at the American man. “Vietnam baby?” A crowd of children gathered around the man and the baby. The American woman headed toward Lan.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Hello,” Lan said.

  The woman pointed at the lychee nuts. Lan held up one hand and opened and closed her fingers two times. She wanted to communicate ten thousand dong. The woman handed her an American five-dollar bill. Now what? Lan didn’t have change for that much money; she quickly bagged more lychee nuts, hoping the woman wouldn’t protest.

  The woman shook her head. She pointed at the money in Lan’s hand and then at Lan, and then she smiled. It was six times more than what the woman owed. Lan could buy fish and vegetables for dinner and medicine for Mother.

  Chapter 21

  This is Maggie,” came the message over the answering machine. “Call me as soon as you can.”

  “Jeff!” Gen called as she reached for the phone on the kitchen counter. “We have a message from Maggie. I’m calling her back.” Please be there. Gen looked at her watch after she dialed the number. It was 5:10. Please, please be there.

  Jeff swung through the kitchen door.

  “Hello, Mercy for Children,” Maggie answered.

  “Its Gen.”

  Maggie’s voice danced. “Gen, would you and Jeff be willing to take two children?”

  “We said we’d take twins,” Gen said.

  Jeff’s eyes widened.

  “How about a sibling set?”

  “Siblings? How old?” Gen’s brain slowed. The word siblings reverberated through her head. She turned toward the kitchen window. A light dusting of late-winter snow covered the orchard and coated the branches of the trees.

  “A baby. A little girl,” Maggie said. A little girl. I was so sure our child would be a boy. “She’s a newborn named Mai; she’s just over two weeks old. She was born February 10.” A new baby. A little tiny baby! “And her brother, Binh, who was born September 26, 1996.” A four-year-old? That old? What kind of problems would he have? Attachment disorders? Bonding problems? Abandonment issues? The questions jostled inside Gen. Jeff stared at her.

  “The birth mother is destitute. She’s in the process of relinquishing them.” Maggie paused.

  Birth mom? Gen had hoped for an abandoned baby, a child without a mother.

  “Gen?” It was Maggie. “Are you there?”

  Her breath caught in her throat. “Yes,” she finally managed.

  “You don’t have to decide right now Talk to Jeff. But we need to keep the pair together.”

  “Okay. Thanks,” Gen said. “We’ll get back to you tomorrow.”

  “Give it a few days if you need to.”

  Jeff’s smile grew with each word as Gen relayed what Maggie had said. They stood in the kitchen and leaned against the counter. “There are no guarantees when it comes to children.” Jeff reached over for Gen’s hand. “Birth or adopted, newborn or older.”

  “But you didn’t take the attachment disorders class.” Gen had gone into Portland for it on a Saturday in January while Jeff fixed a broken irrigation line. What will Sharon and Don say? And Dad? She thought of Nhat all those years ago. He had been two. Why did Maggie even call about an older child? We said we wanted a baby. Or twin babies. Not a four-year-old.

  “I’m going to call Mom,” Jeff said.

  “No,” Gen said. “Wait, please wait. Wait until we decide.”

  She knew he had decided. She followed him through the kitchen door into the dining room. He walked around the table and headed to the bathroom to take a shower. She turned up the heat and went into their bedroom to change into a pair of sweats.

  They were quiet during dinner. Gen had heated up a jar of spaghetti sauce. She had cooked the pasta too long and burned the broiled garlic bread.

  Jeff smiled. Gen grimaced.

  “Please don’t,” he said as he finished his salad.

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “This is good news, this referral.” Jeff twirled spaghetti onto his fork.

  “It puts us in a bad spot,” she said.

  “I thought you said you wanted God to pick the child.” He took a bite.

  “I wanted God to pick the baby. Or babies.”

  Jeff swallowed. “I think he’s made his choice.”

  “So you’ve already decided?”

  “He’s decided,” Jeff said.

  “And we say yes? Just like that?” A dull ache spread behind her eyes.

  “What is it, Genni?”

  She took a deep breath. “It’s Binh. But not just what issues he might have. I think it’s more than that.” She paused. Do I even know, exactly? She felt so sad. “He’s lost his mother. I know what that’s like.”

  Jeff nodded. “And?”

  “But his mother is still alive. He knows that. Will he feel like we’ve taken him from her?”

  “He knows she took him to the orphanage.”

  “But he still might feel like we’ve stolen him away from her. How horrible to lose your mom and know she’s still alive but never be able to get back to her.” She wanted to crawl into their bed, pull the covers over her head, and sob.

  Jeff took another piece of garlic bread. “So you think it would be better to leave him at the orphanage?”

  Gen went to bed early and feigned sleep as sorrow surged through her. Sorrow for the loss of her mother, still, after all these years. Sorrow for Binh and his mother, for their loss of each other. God, why can’t any of this be easy? Why does it have to be so hard?

  Gen called Jeff during the five minutes she had between recess duty and read-aloud. “I told Mom about the children,” he said. “I know you didn’t want me to, but I couldn’t help it.”

  “What did she say?” She knew he would call Sharon; she was surprised he’d waited as long as he had. She envied him that he had a mother to call.

  “She thinks it’s great. She said they’ll have each other besides having us. She said she can’t wait to have two grandkids.”

  Gen parked the Subaru station wagon in the driveway and hurried into the house. The lights were on, and the house was warm. She dashed down the hall to the office and found Jeff at the computer.

  “Look, Genni.” His smile was bigger and brighter than she
had ever seen it. “Maggie e-mailed the pictures.”

  Gen stood, mesmerized by the baby on the screen.

  “This is Mai,” Jeff said softly He sat tall and looked intently at Gen, then back at the monitor. Dark, straight hair topped the newborns sweet round face; she held her eyes half open, as if she’d just decided to take a nap or maybe wake up. She wore a white T-shirt and lay on an olive green mat.

  “Isn’t she beautiful?” Jeff asked. Gen’s chest constricted.

  “And this,” Jeff said, clicking the mouse to close Mai’s file and open the next, “is Binh.” The screen filled with the photo of a boy with short raggedy hair and the dark eyes of a deer caught in bright headlights. His mouth hung half open on his thin, gaunt face. Doors deep inside Gen flew open. In an instant the ache in her heart turned into a longing, a fierce, desperate longing. It was more than the desire to be a mom. It was a longing to be Binh and Mai’s mom. She wanted to reach inside the monitor and pull them out, pull them home.

  “He needs us,” Jeff said. “Maybe even more than Mai does.” Gen closed her eyes. She could still see Binh. Anyone would take the baby. “I called Maggie today,” Jeff said. “She said the birth mom …” Birth mom. Those words. “… took the children to the orphanage last week. Maggie said that there’s no identifiable father. She said the mom can’t afford to feed the children, to take care of them.” Jeff spun around in the office chair. He reached out his arms and pulled Gen onto his lap. “I really think this is what we’re supposed to do,” he said. “I really think God wants these children to be ours.”

  Tears welled in Gen’s eyes. She nodded. “When did Maggie say we would travel?”

  “The first of April.”

  A sob rose up in Gen. In just six weeks! Mai would still be a little baby. Binh wouldn’t have to be in the orphanage much longer.

  Jeff squeezed her. “It’s finally going to happen,” he said. “We’re finally going to be parents.”

  Gen’s chest constricted again. A tear slid down her face. She peered into Jeff’s brown eyes. He wiped her tear.

  “Aren’t you happy?” he asked.

  She nodded. She wanted the children. She wanted the baby. She wanted the boy. How could photos make her so certain?

  “Binh is a little guy,” Jeff said. “Only twenty-eight pounds and thirty-six inches.”

  Gen stood and estimated three feet to be several inches below her hip. She thought of the kindergarten kids at school. Binh was much, much smaller.

  “Want me to call Maggie? To give her the okay?”

  “No, I will.” Gen ran the back of her hand under her eyes, wiping away the next tear.

  “And then call your dad,” Jeff said.

  Gen nodded, but she wouldn’t. Not yet. She’d wait a few more days. She could only handle so much at a time.

  A week later the teachers at school gave Gen a shower. That night she and Jeff sat on the floor of the children’s room and pulled sleepers and T-shirts and shorts and shoes and bibs out of the gift bags. Two matching blue Winnie-the-Pooh sleepers for next winter. Nike sandals for Binh. A daisy-print sundress for Mai.

  The pieces of the crib leaned against the wall. They would shop for a toddlers bed and dressers Saturday morning. They planned to paint the walls yellow on Saturday afternoon.

  “Do you think they’ll want to share a room?” Gen asked.

  Jeff nodded. “They’re used to being with lots of kids.”

  “Do you think they’ll like this room?”

  Jeff wrinkled his nose. “Of course they’ll like this room. And this house. And the orchards. And The Dalles. And Oregon. And us.”

  Gen placed the books on the white bookcase and then refolded the clothes and slowly bundled them back in the bags.

  “Shouldn’t we wash these?” Jeff said. How many times had she told him that clothes needed to be washed before they were worn?

  “Not yet,” she said. “I’ll do it later.” Washing them now felt presumptuous. Waiting felt superstitious. Still, she would wait.

  Jeff stood and stretched his arms and back. “Your dad called. He’s coming Saturday to help us paint. Why didn’t you tell him about the referrals?”

  “Should you be up on that ladder?” Gen asked her father.

  “I’m fine,” he answered, looking down. Bright yellow paint peppered his white hair. “Are we doing the ceiling today too?”

  “You’re not,” Gen answered. He climbed down, taking the rungs carefully, one at a time, brush in hand.

  “Why didn’t you call to tell me about the referrals sooner? It’s the boy, isn’t it?” Her father’s gray eyes pierced her.

  And you telling us not to adopt from Vietnam. Why couldn’t he get over Vietnam? Still, here he was helping them. “No,” she said. “I just wanted to wait until we knew more.”

  Gen focused on painting the trim around a window while her father filled his paint tray and then climbed back up the ladder.

  A few weeks after the caseworker visited last summer, a copy of the home study came in the mail. Gen had smiled as she read it. It sounded too good. It sounded as if they would be the best parents ever. “Gen is a petite, vibrant young woman who loves children and has plenty of energy to be a mom. Jeff is a responsible man respected by his entire family and those who work for him. He can easily provide for a child. Their extended family, grandparents in particular, are thrilled that Gen and Jeff want to adopt from Vietnam.” The last line made Gen smile. Oh well, she had thought. Never mind if the details aren’t accurate. What Gen treasured most in the home study was the explanation about the adopted child and his or her inheritance. “Any child adopted by Jefferson and Genevieve Taylor shall share equally with all other children in the family inheritance left by the couple.” She imagined someone in Vietnam reading the report. It made her shiver. It made her think about being adopted into God’s family, about sharing an eternal inheritance.

  “Your aunt wants to give you one of those baby showers. At our church,” her father said, looking down from the ladder.

  “Aunt Marie?” Gen asked.

  Her father nodded and dipped the roller into the pan.

  Why would Aunt Marie want to give me a shower? With the church ladies? The ones who refer to Mom as “Marshall’s young wife,” even now after all these years? The ones who make me feel as if Mom died on purpose? Those ladies? And why does Aunt Marie want to organize it? She doesn’t even want us to adopt, let alone from Vietnam.

  “Aunt Marie will give you a call. She’s hoping to put it on in a week or two.” Her dad didn’t say anything more about the adoptions as he painted his grandchildren’s room.

  When Jeff set up the crib, Gen took photos of the room. “Let me take your picture,” she said to her father. “We’re going to send photos to Vietnam, to the children.”

  He shook his head and started down the stairs to wash out the paint roller.

  Exasperated, Gen let out a sigh. “One minute he’s supportive,” she said to Jeff, “the next he’s aloof. I wish he would make up his mind.”

  “Give him time,” he said. “He’ll come around.”

  Aunt Marie scheduled the shower for early March. Gen arrived ahead of time and sat in the church parking lot. She didn’t want to go in and watch her aunt scurry around, criticizing the centerpieces and complaining about the cake. Gen wore black pants and a lavender blouse. Now she wondered if she should have worn a dress or at least a skirt.

  She had spent the day in Portland shopping for a pair of cargo pants with zip-off legs for Jeff and a cotton skirt and a Lycra blend shirt for herself. She imagined being at the orphanage, wearing the blue skirt, holding Mai, kneeling down to say hello to Binh. She’d been practicing from the phrase book. Chao em. “Hello, little one.”

  She stayed up late the night before, visiting Web sites about Vietnam. After reading an article about a possible moratorium on adoptions, she linked to an INS site and read through guidelines for adoptive parents. The list defined an orphan as a child with onl
y one identifiable parent. From there she went to the CIA Vietnam page. The average purchasing power of a Vietnamese citizen was twenty-one hundred dollars U.S., and thirty-seven percent of the people lived below the poverty line. Back to Google and she typed in “Vietnam tourism.” She found a site on Vung Tau. The town had served as a seaside resort for the French. Today throngs of people from Ho Chi Minh City traveled to the city on weekends and enjoyed the white, sandy beaches and seafood.

  The next site was about a clinic that Vietnam vets had built. From there she went to “Vietnam death trip” and “fallen friends.” Then on to stories about Vietnam. A Vietnamese refugee who escaped as a child after the war wrote, “I fear I will forever be without a homeland.” Gen logged off the Internet. Is that how my children will feel? That they will always he without a homeland’?

  She and Jeff would fly into Ho Chi Minh City. Then they would travel to Vung Tau in the adoption agency’s van. Maggie would travel with them. Gen had an e-mail from Robyn two weeks ago that said they had received a referral for a five-month-old girl and would travel in April also.

  Dime-sized drops of rain began to pelt the windshield. She grabbed her purse and dashed into the church.

  An hour later she sat in the fellowship hall surrounded by gifts—blankets, booties, bonnets, and books. She smiled around the circle of ladies. “Thank you,” she said. She was touched by their generosity, by Aunt Marie’s gesture of goodwill.

  “You know what will happen now, Genevieve,” Aunt Marie said as she handed her a piece of German chocolate cake. Gen took the plate and shook her head. “You’ll get pregnant! You’ll be a modern-day Sarah.”

  Gen tried to smile. Had Aunt Marie forgotten Gen’s story? And besides, Sarah hadn’t adopted first; she’d made other arrangements. Gen took a bite of cake. “Aunt Marie, this is your best cake ever.”

  Aunt Marie beamed. “Has your church in The Dalles thrown a shower for you yet?”

  Gen shook her head. “The teachers at school have.” She didn’t want Aunt Marie to get started about their church in The Dalles. She was always asking questions, trying to determine how involved they were. She and Jeff were too old for the young marrieds’ class, and they were the only people without children in the other adult class. So instead of attending a class, they taught the third and fourth graders. They avoided special-event Sundays like Mother’s Day when the oldest mom and the woman with the most children were honored. For twenty-six years, Mother’s Day had been the hardest day of the year for Gen.