The Language Inside

by Holly Thompson

  that I pour on my rice

  and the whole time

  Samnang is sitting next to me

  not Serey

  and she doesn’t even seem to mind

  before we leave

  I take the restaurant’s card

  and slide it into my wallet

  later I will place it in the box

  that Gramps made

  as my first real American treasure

  after we eat and I’ve had

  like seven cups of tea

  around six o’clock

  just as Samnang promised

  we leave

  he drives around neighborhoods

  dropping people off

  finally Serey, too

  then it’s just us in the car

  quiet

  as we drive out of Lowell

  past the huge homes

  of the former mill owners

  Samnang says

  sorry it’s a little late

  you must be worried about your mom

  yeah, a bit I say

  but in truth this whole evening

  has been a vacation

  from worrying about my mom

  after a pause

  I can’t help myself from asking

  just to set things straight—

  so

  how long have you and Serey

  been going out?

  and I hold my breath

  going out? he says

  we’re not

  ex-girlfriend then? I say

  not really he says

  everyone in the dance troupe . . .

  we’re friends

  like family, you know?

  but I think back and say to him

  that night your mom made dinner

  at Chris and Beth’s

  she said something about Serey

  Samnang waves a hand dismissively

  my mom thinks Serey and I are a couple

  or a maybe couple

  or a could-be couple

  ’cause I took her to the prom last year

  and I’m thinking prom?

  ex-girlfriend wasn’t far off

  well, are you? I ask

  a couple?

  Samnang sighs

  shakes his head

  my mom wishes it

  and Serey and I sometimes fake it

  because Serey has a boyfriend

  from the community college

  that her parents don’t know about

  so it helps her get out of the house

  if she goes with me

  and now I’m totally baffled

  you fake it? you pretend you’re together?

  he nods

  do Beth and Chris know you aren’t?

  he tilts his head

  I don’t know

  what about the other dancers?

  Samnang says

  oh, they know Serey has a boyfriend

  and it’s not me

  we come to YiaYia’s street

  and Samnang stops at the corner

  then doesn’t proceed—

  he’s looking at me

  you’re going back to Japan, right?

  I nod

  January, right?

  that’s what your grandmother said

  the day you had the migraine

  I try to read the meaning in his eyes

  lit by dashboard and street light

  I think we’ll be here the full year

  my parents don’t say anything

  about January anymore

  Samnang says

  you want to go back?

  and I say well, yeah, that’s my home

  and after the earthquake and tsunami

  I just feel like I should be there helping out

  like it’s wrong to be here

  I tell him about Madoka’s aunt

                 just found

  and her cousins

  and their destroyed schools

  I’d be more useful in Japan I say

  I hear you he says

  then shifts in his seat

  well, tell your mother and everyone

  hello and I hope she recovers fast

  and it’s not till after I get out of the car, wave

  and he’s driven off that it occurs to me

                 when he asked if I want to go back

                 there was another way

                 I could have answered

                 like I derailed a conversation

                 that could have been

  Mom is able to walk a bit

  the next day

  and after school

  I help her take small steps

  up the sidewalk

  as far as the stop sign

  then back again

  down the street

  on the other side

  after that

  she’s exhausted

  but it’s warm enough

  for her to sit on a lawn chair

  wrapped in a blanket

  with a cup of hot yuzu tea

  bathing in the afternoon sun

  before it starts to drop

  I sit with her

  but she doesn’t let me stay still for long

  insisting that since she can’t work I should

  she makes me grab a rake from the garage

  and rake leaves into piles for YiaYia

                 which I do

  but Mom tells me I don’t rake right

  don’t put enough strength into it

  don’t know what I’m doing

                 which is true

  well, duh, I want to say

  I was raised in Japan with yards

  so small we picked the leaves out by hand

                 but I don’t

  I’m sweating

  shedding layer after layer

  scarf, jacket, sweatshirt

  as I make a huge pile of leaves

  beside her chair

  so she can smell them

  and reach down

  to touch them

  the colors are more intense

  in Vermont she says

  and I wish we could see Vermont

  before the leaves drop

  before the snow

  a little later she gets chilled

  I help her inside, get her set up on the bed again

  then find Dad who shows me how to rake the leaves

  onto an old sheet and carry the bundle

  over my shoulder to a compost pile

  Dad is here till the weekend

  Gram and Gramps staying nearby

  cousins and old friends

  of Mom’s and Dad’s drop by

  and YiaYia’s house is full of traffic

  our meals noisy

  though Mom is often

  too exhausted to join us

  there is not much time

  to think of poems

  or even scribble

  in my journal

  but sometimes like a meteor

  a streak of thought

  or a poem line

                 shoots through my head

  but by the time I open

  my journal

  late at night

                 it’s vanished

  when I see Samnang at school

  I try to stop to talk

  say more than hey

  even though there isn’t time

  between classes

  for much more than hey

  I ask him about the school dance club

  if he’s friends with anyone in it

  if he knows Tracy or Clai
re or the two guys

  but although he danced with some of them once

  he doesn’t know anyone well

  we make plans to have pizza

  after our work at the Newall Center

  on Wednesday

  but it turns out that Wednesday

  is Gram and Gramps’ last dinner with us

  before they return to Vermont

  and I’m supposed to come straight home

  after seeing Zena

  I beg

  offer to get up early

  for a farewell breakfast

  tell Dad and YiaYia I’ll be back

  in time for dessert

  but there is no getting out of this one

  Samnang can come here Dad says

  when I explain the pizza plans

  I think on that

  but say

  never mind

  it’s okay

  Wednesday I take the bus to the Newall Center

  since Samnang has a gymnastics team meeting

  and will be late

  Zena’s not in her room

  so I grab the letter board I prefer

  not the one hanging from her chair

  and an aide tells me she’s waiting

  in the library downstairs

  where she is

  but so is another woman

  leafing through a magazine

  Zena spells that it’s o-k

  but I feel strange

  without privacy

  I read Zena a mermaid poem

  by Kim Addonizio

  from the point of view of a mother

  watching

  dreaming about

  and thinking of

  her fifteen-year-old daughter

  I say I was searching for mermaid poems

  but more than the mermaid

  I really liked the metaphor

  of the girl’s face as a lure

  that pulls the mother

  from her darkness

  next I read aloud the one

  by Naomi Shihab Nye

  about the mother who tells the daughter

                 you know you’re going to die

                 if you can no longer make a fist

  I look at Zena’s hands

  clenched immobile atop her always folded arms

  and tell her you’re fine—you’ve got good fists

  I tell her I like the line in this poem about

  the girl grown up

  still lying in the backseat as an adult

  behind her questions

  I tell Zena I chose these poems

  because they had a mother and a daughter

  one poem from each perspective

  and in each the mother or the daughter

  is the other’s lifeline in a way

  and because of her window poem

  about the family posing for a photograph

  and because of meeting her daughter on Sunday

  but then the woman across the room

  the woman who’s been leafing through magazines

  startles us by saying

  I had two sons—

  if I’d had a daughter

  she’d come see me

  I nod, say well . . .

  and ask Zena if she’d like to write a poem

  about being a mother or a daughter

  or a mermaid or whatever

  and Zena looks up

  and I ask the woman with the magazine

  if she wants a piece of paper

  to try a poem, too

  but she says no, no

  I just have sons

  and even though I explain

  that she can write a poem

  about her sons

  or about being a mother

  or being a daughter

  she still says no

  I just have sons

  I ask Zena if she wants to use

  the computer attached to the chair

  but she insists on the letter board

  so I go down the list of colors

  and start spelling Zena’s poem

  which doesn’t have a title yet

  letter by letter

  word by word

  Zena spells

  like this poem was just

  sitting in her head:

      my stroke beached me like a whale on hot sand

      come home! my daughter called and called

      but I couldn’t answer and finally she swam away

      by the time I could look up to talk

      and tell her to lean over my face

      so I could feel the tickle of her hair

      she no longer felt like my daughter

      come back! I called and called

      but she swam away

      with my sister

  it takes several minutes

  staring at Zena’s words

  for me to comment

  Sarah was raised by your sister?

  Zena looks up

  and I try to grasp

  Zena’s losses

                 movement, speech, her child

  I ask how old Sarah was

  when Zena had her stroke—

  she looks up at 6

  I suck in my breath

  try to imagine Sarah growing up

  with her mother in the care center

  what about your husband? Sarah’s father? I dare ask

  l-e-f-t she spells

  2 m-o-n-t-h-s a-f-t-e-r

  I try to hold my tongue

  but can’t help saying jerk!

  and Zena looks up

  but it’s great that Sarah comes to see you I say

  n-o-t o-f-t-e-n Zena spells

  then adds

  m-o-s-t-l-y o-n-l-i-n-e

  online?

  well, that’s good! isn’t it?

  and as I recite the colors and letters

  Zena spells

  s-e-q-u-e-l

  s-h-e s-w-a-m b-a-c-k

  w-i-t-h f-a-c-e-b-o-o-k

  and this cracks me up

  and Zena looks up

  five times in a row

  then the woman with the magazine

  says her younger son was on a swim team

  and won a medal in the backstroke

  I turn back to the poem

  and say to Zena

  maybe you should call this poem

                 Beached

  Zena looks up

  and I write that on top

  then I tell Zena that

  I have to go, it’s late

  I’ve texted Samnang

  to say I’m in the library

  but he still hasn’t come by

  I tell Zena to write more poems about her daughter

  if she can get someone to help her with her computer

  and I suggest to the woman that she write about her sons

  backstroke the woman says not the butterfly

  I smile at Zena and her eyes seem to smile back

  at room 427

  I peek inside and see

  Chea Pen’s bed empty

  made up neat

  Samnang motions me in

  and with a glance

  at the vacant bed says

  Lok Ta Chea is in the hospital—

  pneumonia

  I put my hands together

  do sompeas to Leap Sok

  I’m so sorry I say

  I hope your roommate

  returns soon

  and Samnang translates

  then with Samnang not making to leave

  I’m not sure what to do

  after a while I point to a photo

  beside the bed of some ruins

  Angkor Wat?

  but Samnang points to the painting by the mirror

&n
bsp; that’s Angkor Wat

  then at the photo by the bed

  this is Wat Banan

  the one with the long steps up

  ah, I wish we could see that view

  I say, and Leap Sok nods

  and Samnang nods

  but neither speaks

  so I ask what they worked on today

  Samnang says

  a memory from when he was a monk

                 most Cambodian boys

                 used to become monks for a while

                 many still do

  and he was talking about studying

  and living at a temple for six years

  before the Khmer Rouge took power

  Leap Sok murmurs something to Samnang

  Samnang hesitates then says

  he wants me to tell you

  it’s still important

  for Cambodian boys to become monks

  even American Cambodian boys

  and he wants me to tell you

  that I should do it

  maybe go back to Cambodia

  to Battambang

  to do it

  oh! I say

  but what about school? and dance?

  I could do it when school’s off

  Samnang says

  anyway, here in America