by WorkOnly
I turned around and was surprised to see Lynn sitting on the floor next to the couch. She was clutching her knees to her chest.
"Gregg is moving away," she said.
"I thought he was coming over for dinner one day."
"He was, but then he found out he was moving. They're already packed up. I haven't told anyone else."
"Not even Amber?"
"Nope."
"Are you in love with him?"
She thought this over. "No. I guess I like him, but I don't love him."
That was good. In my most humble opinion, Gregg was a little pukey. His hair looked like something you would brush a horse with. And when he talked, little bits of saliva collected at the corners of his mouth. He was certainly nothing like Joe-John Abondondalarama. Of course, I didn't mention this to Lynn.
Lynn returned to the bedroom. We used to wake each other up sometimes in the middle of the night and say what was on our minds. But Lynn hadn't done that in a long time. Usually when she used to wake me up, she had wanted to talk about college. I had secretly decided not to go to college, but I thought that maybe I would move to the same town as her. Then we could share an apartment in a tall building, the way she'd always dreamed.
Lynn had seemed sad about Gregg.
I got up and went to the bedroom and sat by her bed. "Lee-uhn?"
"Uh-huh."
"There's another boy in your class I think is cuter." "Who?"
"I think his name is Clifton."
"Clifton! Oooh! I thought you were serious." She laughed. "You're so funny!"
That made me realize I must have said something stupid. "Well, he's okay," I said defensively. That was the way it was lately. Whenever I tried to talk to her, she made me feel immature, even if she didn't mean to. I went back to the living room and fell asleep.
The next day Lynn felt so tired, she didn't want to get out of bed. I cooked her an extra helping of liver and told her to chew well.
Chewing well was what my mother always told me to do when I was sick. It was a Sunday. Lynn slept most of the day. By evening, when I tried to feed her, the food just fell out of her mouth. She didn't have the energy to chew. I even offered to chew it for her, but she said, "Gross."
My mother decided to take her to the hospital. My father was at work and nobody in the building was home because it was bowling night, so my mother called Uncle Katsuhisa to come take care of Sammy and me. Uncle didn't like to bowl because he only liked games where you had to think. I watched as my mother put Lynn's jacket over her pajamas. Lynn staggered out the door.
I locked the front door and waited for my uncle to arrive. Sammy's forehead was all wrinkled. He was calm, like my father, so it was unusual to see his forehead wrinkled that way. My mother always liked to say he was never going to get wrinkles because he hardly ever frowned. But now he was probably worried about Lynnie.
When Uncle Katsuhisa knocked on the door, I made him give me a password. He said with irritation, "Open up now, young lady, or bear my wrath." That happened to be the password, so I opened the door.
Uncle came in with Auntie Fumi and David and Daniel. They did everything together. Unlike my father, Uncle worked only one job, and Auntie didn't work at all. David and Daniel probably got to see their parents all the time.
I didn't know what to expect from Uncle and Auntie. Last time I had seen them, they had been fighting. They were like that. One day they were madly in love, and the next day they were fighting. And then the next day they were madly in love again.
Usually Uncle Katsuhisa was boisterous, but today when he came over, he was restrained. Plus, Uncle and Auntie were snapping at each other a bit. Obviously, they'd been fighting.
He said, "One thing I can't stand is a woman who spends money unnecessarily."
She said, "A woman needs a coat."
He said, "In ninety-degree weather?"
She said, "It won't always be ninety."
And so on. Then they stopped, and we all just sat there glumly.
All of a sudden, Uncle Katsuhisa stood up and announced, "We are going to play Scrabble!" He said that as if playing Scrabble were as fun as going bike riding or something.
I wasn't a good Scrabble player, but it was better than sitting around the living room staring at one another. I set up the game. Uncle sat in a chair and said, "It's family time!" Sam could already read simple words, but he was too young to play. He sat beside me. Uncle looked suspiciously at him, as if he might somehow help me cheat. David and Daniel studied their letters. I was first. I studied my letters. There didn't seem to be a word in them. Uncle cleared his throat. After a moment I could hear his foot, first tap, tap, tap, and then whompwhompwhomp on the floor. I sensed I was already ruining our family time. He peeked at my letters and threw his hands into the air.
"Think, Katie. Think, Katie. Think, Katie!" He looked at me as if I were possibly brain damaged. I'd seen him look at Auntie like that sometimes. He never actually called anyone stupid, but sometimes he looked at them as if he thought they were. "We're waiting, Katie," he said. "Take your time."
"I can't see anything I can do." It was hard to think with all that whomping.
"Take your time."
"Katsu, leave her alone. She's thinking," said Auntie Fumi.
"I'm trying to help," he said defensively. Then he looked at me as if it were my fault Auntie had scolded him. He looked at her. "Can I just say one more thing to her?"
"No," she said.
He peeked at my letters again and shook his head.
"You have to rise to the occasion," he said to me, sneaking a look at my aunt. She frowned.
I still didn't see what I could do. Scrabble was not my specialty. Now that I think of it, I suppose I didn't have a specialty. I looked at my letters: "S-Z-O-G-V-W-Q." Then I saw it, or thought I did. I put down "S-O-G." I happily picked up three more letters—all vowels.
I smiled up at my uncle. He was staring at the board. Then he leaned over, his head in his hands. He didn't speak for a long time. He groaned loudly over and over.
"Isn't that a bit melodramatic, Katsu?" Aunt Fumi asked.
"Isn't that a word?" I finally said.
"No, that is not a word," Uncle said. "That is not a word. That is not a word." He hadn't lifted his head. He hit his forehead on the table a couple of times. He lifted his head. "What do they teach them in school today? She's thirteen years old."
"She's eleven."
"Thirteen or eleven, that is still not a word."
My aunt stroked my face lovingly. "That was a good try, dear."
"'Soggy' is a word," I said. "Like 'foggy' and 'fog'?"
"Fumi, just tell me one thing: Is she doing this to torment me? I don't know if she's doing this just to torment me. If she's not, okay, but if she is . . ."
My aunt looked at me gently. "Honey, look at those letters you put down. There's a word right in those letters." She stroked my face. "What other word can you spell?"
I looked at Sam. He was mouthing something. It looked like "Oh." He did it again: "Oh."
"Oh," I murmured.
"Ssss," said Sam. I picked up the "G" and returned it to my slate of letters, leaving "S" and "O."
My uncle stared at my word "so." He turned to Sammy. "Thank you, Sammy."
"Sometimes it's hard to see the obvious," Auntie said sweetly.
David looked sideways at his father, who glared at me again before turning his glare to the board. David, who was always my pal, ceremoniously plucked a few letters from his collection and then set down his letters and spelled "S-P-E-R-M."
Nobody spoke. Actually, I wasn't certain what "sperm" meant. But I could guess.
Uncle Katsuhisa just stared at the board for a moment. He nodded a few times.
"Where did you learn that word?" said Auntie Fumi.
"From Dad."
Uncle Katsuhisa didn't speak, but he turned red. He said, "It's a legal word, that's the important thing for our purposes."
Auntie glared a
t him. The phone rang, and she went to get it. Nobody moved while she talked. When she was finished talking, she walked back into the living room and just stood there. Then she burst into tears and ran out of the room. We all stared after her. Uncle got up slowly and left the room. In a moment we heard him and Auntie talking.
Then it got very quiet in the other room. I cleaned up the Scrabble game. David, Daniel, Sammy, and I just sat around doing nothing, which was about as boring as it sounds. Finally, David and I snuck into the hallway to peek at what Uncle and Auntie were doing. They were in the kitchen, and the radio was playing softly. They were holding each other very tightly. They weren't dancing exactly, but just stepping back and forth in time to the music. I could tell it made David happy to see them like that, even though it embarrassed him because it was kind of goofy.
I had to interrupt their dancing to ask, "Auntie, was that my parents?"
She and my uncle stopped dancing. "Yes, it was your mother," she said. "She told me to tell you ... to tell you that everything is okay. Don't worry, sweetheart. She told me to tell you that."
chapter 10
When Lynn returned from the hospital a couple of days later, my mother insisted that she was basically fine. Apparently, Lynn's anemia was "acting up" and she just needed more liver.
Every day I sat by her bed and fed her rice and liver. I always saved a little liver for Sam, so he wouldn't get anemic too. Then, after I fed Lynn, I would give her her iron pills. When she was being obstinate, I had to force the pills down her throat and hold her mouth closed until she swallowed. Once she tried to bite me.
Sam and I were supposed to sleep in the living room until Lynn got better. My parents had bought me a little cot. I worried that Lynn was lonely by herself in the bedroom, but when I peeked into her diary, I read this:
I feel bad that the kids have to sleep in the living room, but it's really nice to have my own bedroom. I like the privacy a lot.
I didn't think of myself as one of "the kids." But I guess that was how Lynn still thought of me.
After I fed Lynn, I got my pajamas from the closet, said good night, and left the room. Later that night I opened my eyes and saw her sitting on the floor next to my cot.
"What is it?" I said.
"Amber dropped me."
"Dropped you, like as a friend?"
"Uh-huh. I don't really care. She was phony."
I could have told Lynn that a long time ago! For a moment I got a funny feeling that I was the older sister and Lynn was just a little girl.
Lynn stood up. "Well, good night," she said. "Good night."
She didn't move; she just stood there. The motel light from down the street cast a vague flashing shadow on her face. I could see she had been crying.
"Good night," she said again.
"Good night!"
The next day after summer school I ran into Amber walking with her friends. Lynn was sick in bed that day. Amber said to me, "What is that you're wearing?"
I was wearing a polka-dot dress Mrs. Muramoto had made for me. As usual, I thought I was quite a fashion plate! But these girls started laughing at me. They were all wearing pedal pushers.
"You're a phony!" I said.
'You're a heathen!" she said.
I didn't know what a heathen was, but I said, "You're a heathen too!"
"Then you admit you're a heathen!" she said.
I thought about Lynn lying sick in bed and pushed Amber's shoulder. She pushed me back. I balled my right hand in a fist and punched her. She moved her face, so I barely hit her. She didn't seem hurt at all, but I thought for a moment I had broken my hand. What a hard face that mean girl had! Then a passerby rushed over and made us all go home.
That night I felt an incredible anger toward those girls. I thought I hated them. I had never hated anyone before. It felt awful.
I told my parents that Amber had dropped Lynn. I wished I hadn't, because I saw how it hurt them. Then I was glad I had, because after I told them, they talked for a long time in the kitchen, and afterward they announced that we were going to the bank to take out a loan.
"I thought you didn't want to borrow money from the bank!" I said.
"We want to get your sister's house," said my mother.
That night Lynn was more cheerful than she'd been in a long time. Awhile ago we'd stopped hiding our money in the bathroom. Now we hid it in the closet. Every so often we counted the change out and placed it in paper rolls Lynn picked up from the bank. Then every few months Lynn would go to the bank-to exchange the rolls for bills. Sometimes I went with her. I didn't like the bank. I didn't see why a bunch of strangers got to keep everybody's money in vaults. If a robber came to our apartment, I would hit him over the head with a lamp. So I didn't need a bank, personally.
We had saved a hundred dollars. Sammy still got treats because he was just a little boy, but Lynn and I hadn't bought candy in a long time.
The night before we went to the bank with our parents to apply for a loan, Lynnie, Sammy, and I handed them a pink envelope with our money in it. Our note just said, From Lynn, Katie, and Sam. We had put Sammy's name on it too because we were a threesome.
When our parents saw all the money we had saved, our mother started to cry and hugged Lynn and then started to sob and said over and over, "I love you so much, Lynn." She sobbed so hard, she ran from the kitchen, and in a moment we heard her bedroom door slam. Our father kissed us all and then went into the bedroom to talk to our mother. The money was supposed to make them happy, so we felt a little weird.
Lynn felt good enough to wash dishes while Sammy and I tried to do headstands against the refrigerator.
The next day when I got home from school, I stayed in my school clothes and accompanied our parents, Lynn, and Sam to the bank. Sam was wearing a button-up shirt that was a little small for him. Lynn felt good again that day. We pulled a bunch of chairs around the loan officer's desk and sat mesmerized as he asked our parents for some papers that they'd already filled out. As he looked them over sometimes he frowned and sometimes he nodded with satisfaction. I counted seven nods of satisfaction and only three frowns. He stood up to shake hands with my parents. "We'll be in touch," he said.
Two weeks later the bank approved the loan, and the very same day we took Lynn out to look at houses. She found one the first day. She picked out a sky blue one, because she said that when I was a little girl, I had told her I wanted our first house to be sky blue. We moved in not long after.
It was a small house, a lot like our apartment except for two extra rooms: a small dining room and a small alcove off the living room. There was even the same small motel not far away, its sign blinking all night. We just lived on the other side of the motel now. But it felt far away from our old apartment.
The first things out of our uncle's truck were our desks. Lynn and I were going to put our desks in the alcove. Our father and uncle walked into the empty house carrying Lynn's desk.
"Where should we put it?" said our father.
Lynn looked at me. "Which side do you want?"
"You choose first."
We both knew which was the good side: the side facing the big magnolia in the next yard.
'You can choose," said Lynn. "Anytime, girls," said Uncle Katsuhisa. "I'll take that side," I said, pointing to the bad side.
"You're just saying that," said Lynn.
"I don't mind standing here all day, girls," said Uncle. He was pretty tired, since he and my father had just finished loading all the stuff into the truck a few minutes earlier. He and my father set down the desk, and Uncle said we'd flip a coin.
He threw a quarter into the air, somehow caught it behind his back, and slapped it on his forearm. Lynn and I looked at each other.
"Tails," said Lynn.
Uncle glanced at the quarter and quickly put it into his pocket. He said, "Lynn's got tails, and it was heads."
I said, "I'll take the side that faces toward our old apartment. That way, I can see where we used to li
ve."
So Lynnie got first choice even if she didn't want it.
She was radiant as she watched our father and uncle carry boxes into our new house. Actually, I thought of it as Lynnie's house. I held Sammy while she stood in the living room excitedly watching all the commotion. Lynnie loved commotion.
My father and uncle had painted the week before, so as we lay in our bedroom that night we could smell the paint. I took in big breaths so I would never forget how fun it was to live in our own new house and sleep in our own newly painted bedroom with my sister and brother.
I'd heard our mother tell our father that this was just a "beginner house" and that someday we would own a "better" house in a "better" neighborhood, but I could not imagine a better house than this one. We had a grass yard in front and in back, and at night raccoons, possums, and skunks walked through the backyard just as if they lived there.
My sister got better every day, and I heard my mother telling my father that she thought the house itself was making Lynn better. I agreed. It was as if the house were healing Lynn. That made me love the house even more than I would have anyway.
A few days later Lynn, Sammy, and I planned a picnic to celebrate how good she felt. We hadn't gone on a picnic since she'd first made friends with Amber. My parents were a little worried about her going out, but they were also excited that she felt so well. It was as if she'd never been sick.
On the day of the picnic she shook me awake at dawn. "Dad left a whole dollar!" she said. I opened my eyes. Dad had told us he would leave us money to get food for our picnic.
"Shall we buy doughnuts, then?" I said. "Maybe we want doughnuts. Maybe not." "I wish the store had the kind with jelly inside."
"I wish that too!" She was excited. She used to love picnics before Amber came along. "I can't decide. We might want Popsicles."
Pleasure flushed my face. I hadn't thought of Popsicles! It felt nice to think about treats again, after all that time saving for a house.
Sam said, "I've wet the bed." That brought us back down to earth. I had to clean up after Sam while Lynn made us breakfast: what we called brown eggs, made by scrambling eggs with shoyu and sugar. It was my favorite breakfast.
