An-Ya and Her Diary

by Christian, Diane René

  74

  Dear Penny,

  Ellie likes to sit close to me. She sits next to me and tries to rub my arm. Sometimes I let her and sometimes I don’t. It reminds me of Abby when she rubbed the hand of the blind boy.

  The blind boy in the orphanage wouldn’t open his eyes. I don’t know what his eyeballs looked like because I never saw them. The other kids were scared of him, but not Abby. He would stand in a corner and rock back and forth. He spent all day standing there and swaying.

  He would make a strange humming sound and move the fingers on his hands. Sometimes, if he was upset, the humming would get really loud. I would take Abby over to him, but I didn’t get very close. Abby would walk to him and reach up and rub his hands, and then his humming would get quiet again. I don’t know how she thought of it, but it helped him feel better. I wonder if she still does that.

  75

  Dear Penny,

  There are sounds and smells that remind me of the orphanage. I never know when or where to expect them. If I hear those sounds or smell those smells, the faces of the orphanage children come back to me. I forget now what most of the children looked like. It makes me afraid to see their faces in my head. I don’t know why it makes me so afraid.

  76

  Dear Penny,

  My new family gives lots of little kisses. Every time we say hello and goodbye we get a kiss. There are times that we get kisses for no reason. The first time Wanna kissed me for no reason, I was surprised. I asked her what she was doing. Wanna held onto me, and her yellow hair mixed with my black. She told me that in that very minute, her heart was so filled with love that she couldn’t help it. I was not comfortable.

  In the orphanage I received my first kiss that I remember. It was from a boy who I didn’t think knew my name. I knew who he was. He had a large dark red spot that covered half of his face. His hair was black like the night. His eyes were shiny and he was nice to all of the children. I think he was older than me, but we were about the same size.

  One day he was standing across the room holding his purple backpack. He was leaving. He was going to be adopted. I watched him talk to the nannies and say his goodbyes. Then he turned and looked straight at me. I was sitting on the floor next to Abby. I looked at her to see if she knew why he was staring. She was too busy playing with her toes to notice.

  He dropped his purple backpack to the floor and started walking toward me. I didn’t know what to do. I looked around to see if there was somewhere else he was going, but there wasn’t anybody but me. It seems like it took forever for him to walk to the other side of the room. He stared at me and smiled the whole time he was walking.

  Then, there he was, right next to me. I think I said hello. He didn’t say hello back, instead he said goodbye. He said—

  Goodbye An-Ya.

  He said my name, and then he bent down and kissed my check. It felt like my cheek became red like his.

  Everyone in the room laughed. I didn’t laugh. My first kiss and another goodbye all happened at the same time.

  77

  Dear Penny,

  For a long time after I was adopted, I felt sick to my stomach. My body understood rice and noodles, but it didn’t like anything else inside it. I know I told you that I ate a lot of food in China, after I was adopted, and I did. But it made me feel sick. It was so incredible to be able to eat it all, but I think I ate too much.

  After I came here, I stopped eating. I couldn’t do it anymore. I felt awful. Wanna must have been worried because she kept asking me if I was ok. Then, when I wouldn’t answer, she started cooking different food. Her rice and noodles don’t taste the same, but my stomach feels better now.

  78

  Dear Penny,

  Ellie’s kitty Sweet Pea is missing. I didn’t do it. Really. I have no idea where the stupid kitty is. Wanna thinks I did it, and she yelled in my face to give it back. I could feel Wanna’s spit on my face as her words flew out of her mouth. Ellie won’t stop crying. Daddy is mad at me too.

  I hate them all.

  79

  Dear Penny,

  Sweet Pea is still missing, and Wanna stopped asking me about my feelings. She hasn’t asked me anything about them all day. Not that I would have answered her anyway. But still. She gave up. I knew she would. I knew it all along.

  80

  Dear Penny,

  I feel pain. I have pain in my shoulder and in my back. I am sure that there must be bruises, and I keep waiting for them to show up. There is nothing. No black and no blue. Just the pain inside. I don’t know what is happening to me. The pain is very real, but I didn’t fall down or get hurt. It is not my imagination. When I try to lift my arms up or even as I am writing in you, the pain is there. I want the pain to go away. Go away pain, and stop bothering me. Uh oh. I think I am going to throw up.

  81

  Dear Penny,

  Last night Wanna heard me throwing up. She took me back to bed and rubbed my shoulders. I was so dizzy that I didn’t care what she did. She says I have the flu. I need to stay in bed until it gets better. How is it going to get better? I am hot and cold and my whole body hurts. I don’t trust Wanna to make it better. I need to learn more about medicine so I can fix these things myself.

  82

  Dear Penny,

  Wanna has come to check on me a thousand times. She brings me soup and juice and keeps saying—

  Drink more, An-Ya, you need to drink more, An-Ya, drink.

  She brings me a hot wash cloth when I am cold and a cold wash cloth when I am hot. Wanna wraps me in her white robe, and a few minutes later will take it off and place it next to my body. She keeps doing these things over and over again, because every few minutes, my body changes from sweating to shaking.

  Wanna rubs my head and sings to me. She sings about rainbows and bridges and angels and stars. It reminds me of the Nanny who I loved. The Nanny who sang me lullabies in the orphanage. The language is different, but the sound is the same.

  I am so tired that I can’t see the dancers in my head when Wanna sings.

  Sometimes Ellie comes in and reads me her diary and sometimes she sings too.

  I am starting to feel less pain, but I am so tired.

  83

  Dear Penny,

  Wanna asked me who Abby was. I was so surprised that I didn’t say anything for a long time. It was very strange for Wanna to talk about Abby, to hear her say Abby’s name out loud, and it was even stranger that I wanted to tell Wanna about Abby.

  My temperature was really high last night, and I was burning alive with a fever. I was so hot. In my sickness, my hotness, Wanna said I cried for Abby many times. Wanna said that I cried Abby’s name over and over again. Wanna knew that I needed Abby, but she didn’t know who Abby was to find her and help me get better.

  I don’t remember saying anything about Abby. I only remember burning.

  I told Wanna about Abby, not everything, but parts. Maybe I am still sick. I don’t know why I was able to talk about her. All I know is that Wanna said she will try to find out if Abby is ok. Maybe soon I will know how Abby is doing. I told Wanna that Abby is the only child in the orphanage with grey eyes and white hair. Wanna said that it was lucky that Abby looked different, but did I know if Abby was her Chinese name? No, I said, I don’t remember her Chinese name. Wanna said—

  No worries, An-Ya. I will do my best to find your Abby.

  84

  Dear Penny,

  Wanna found Sweet Pea. Ellie forgot that she was playing hide and seek with Sweet Pea, and she stuck Sweet Pea in the clothes dryer to hide. Wanna found her when she went to wash clothes today.

  Everyone came into my room and said that they were sorry. Ellie cried and said—

  I so sorry, An-Ya. You are good and I am bad.

  Wanna and Daddy said they felt terrible for yelling at me. They asked me to please forgive them. I don’t know. What is the point of telling the truth? If I lie, then I am in trouble. If I don’t say anything, then I am in troubl
e. If I tell the truth, then I am in trouble too. At least they said that they were sorry. That’s something, I guess. I’ve never said I am sorry to them.

  85

  Dear Penny,

  Today I was feeling well enough to go to the parade in town. I am still tired, but the pain is gone.

  I have never been to a parade before. The entire town was there. There were people as far as I could see up and down the street. We carried foldable chairs into town and sat in front of the ice cream parlor. It seemed like it took forever for the parade to start, and I was nervous because I didn’t know what would happen exactly.

  Wanna gave me a bag and told me that it was for the candy. Where the candy was going to come from, I didn’t know. As soon as the parade started, I figured it out. There were big cars with decorations and people in costumes who threw candy into the street, and all the children would rush out to grab as much as possible.

  I didn’t run into the street because there was plenty of candy that landed next to my chair. Ellie danced around like a crazy person and grabbed much more candy than me. I didn’t have the energy to run around for candy. There was also loud music and marching bands.

  The Mean Boy in the orphanage would have been jealous that I saw a real marching band. He was the marching band leader in the orphanage. It was not very good, not at all, and the orphanage marching band costumes were all old and didn’t fit anyone the right way. The costumes were supposed to be red, and maybe when they were brand new they were, but they had faded and turned an ugly pink.

  The Mean Boy had a stick for a baton. He would smack the other band members if he felt that they weren’t following directions or trying hard enough. All of their instruments didn’t work and sounded terrible. The instruments that they had were not even real marching band instruments. I didn’t see any guitars in the marching bands today. I definitely didn’t see guitars that were missing half their strings. The orphanage band had hats with a dirty feather that stuck up at the top. It was hard to not laugh at them because they took their marching band so seriously. But when they performed, the nannies would clap and the Mean Boy thought that he was really something special. Abby would clap too. I guess she wasn’t old enough to realize how stupid the whole thing was.

  Jazz was in one of the marching bands today. I didn’t know that she played an instrument. She plays the cymbals. The cymbals are these big round metal plates that you bang together, and they are really cool. Watching Jazz play in the marching band was the best part of the parade. Her costume was my favorite color—blue. The sides of her pants sparkled in the sun.

  86

  Dear Penny,

  I started bleeding down there. I knew it was coming because I overheard the nannies in the orphanage talking about their monthly bleeding. I just didn’t know there was going to be so much blood. Plus, my chest hurts and my stomach hurts and feels like it is filled with dirty water.

  To make things even worse, I had a huge fight with Wanna. I got blood all over my underwear, pajamas, and bed sheets. I took everything into the bathroom and started washing it. I put new underwear on and stuffed some toilet paper in them to soak up the blood. Well, Wanna opened the bathroom door. She surprised me. I guess she saw that I didn’t have sheets on my bed or something. I don’t know how she knew exactly, but I knew I didn’t want her in the bathroom with me. I screamed at her—

  Get Out!

  She wanted to help me. I kept screaming at her to get out and finally she did. She slammed the door and walked away. I need to go find some clean sheets.

  87

  Dear Penny,

  Daddy came to my room tonight and sat on my bed. He said that we needed to talk about what happened with Wanna and the blood. He said that I need to share with Wanna and I needed to let her help me. She wants to help me, and she wants to help my heart and body feel better. He said that I can’t keep everything inside anymore, and I have to find a way to be brave and share my pain and share my happiness and share with Wanna what I need. He was very upset and he kept touching his black hair.

  Then he told me about Wanna when she was a little girl. There were parts of the story that I wanted to put my hands up over my ears and not listen to anymore.

  Daddy said that Wanna’s parents, my grandparents, loved adventure. They loved to be free and travel and go anywhere at any time that they wanted. Sometimes that meant that Wanna could not go because she needed to go to school. So if Wanna’s parents wanted to travel, then they would leave Wanna with her uncle.

  The problem was that the uncle was bad. He was not nice to Wanna, and if he wasn’t happy, then he would hit her. Wanna was very scared of her uncle, but she was afraid to tell her parents. When Wanna’s parents would return from their adventures, they were extra happy and were extra nice to Wanna. They would bring her gifts and tell her all about where they went and what they did. Wanna loved to listen to their stories. They needed to travel and explore, or they would be unhappy. So Wanna kept it to herself that her uncle hit her.

  As Wanna grew older, it wasn’t a problem as much anymore. She was able to find friends to stay with when her parents went on their adventures.

  One day after her parents returned from an adventure, they came to pick Wanna up at a friend’s house. They were so excited to see Wanna, and she was so happy to see them too. Wanna and her parents got in their car, and her father started driving them home. Wanna’s father was laughing and talking about their travels, and Wanna’s mother was digging through her bags and giving Wanna gifts from their trip. Everyone was so busy talking and laughing that Wanna’s father did not stay on the right side of the road. He let the car turn just a little into the wrong lane. There was another car and it was going fast and it hit them.

  Wanna and her parents were taken to the hospital. It was too late for Wanna’s parents and they were gone. They died before the ambulance came. Wanna needed an operation to get the car parts out of her body. When she woke up, the doctors told her what happened. They told her that her parents were gone and that they needed to rearrange and take things out of her belly to save her life. Some things that the doctors took out would mean that Wanna could never carry a child inside her body. In one day Wanna lost her parents and lost the children that would never live inside of her.

  It was on that day that Wanna decided that she would adopt her children. Daddy said that she never looked back. Her only memory is hidden in a scar that runs down her belly.

  I’m tired. I need to sleep now. I will write about it more tomorrow.

  88

  Dear Penny,

  Last night, after Daddy told me Wanna’s story, I went to find her. Daddy told me I needed to go and talk to her.

  I found her in the kitchen next to the fireplace. The room was dark except for the fireplace. Wanna’s yellow hair looked orange next to the fire. She was very still and didn’t move when I came into the room. She just stood there looking at the fire.

  I said—I’m sorry. I’m sorry about your uncle, and I am sorry about your parents.

  Wanna turned her eyes to look at me. Her eyes were filled with water. She didn’t say anything, she just looked at me.

  I whispered—Can I see your belly?

  Wanna turned her body to me, lifted her shirt, and showed me her skin underneath. I walked closer to Wanna to get a better look. There was a raised line, which started under her bra and went all the way down her belly. At the bottom of the line was another line that went straight across her belly. The scar looked like an upside down T.

  I reached out to touch it. When my finger touched Wanna, she jumped back a little. I looked into her eyes and she nodded that it was ok. So I reached out again and touched the scar from beginning to end. Wanna’s skin was warm from the fire and the scar felt hot.

  I said—Does it hurt?

  She said—Not anymore.

  I said—I have my monthly bleeding.

  Wanna stood there with her scar still revealed to me, and she said—

  I know. It is
called your period.

  Then she wrapped her arms around me, and her shirt draped over my head. My ear pressed into her skin, and I could hear her heart beating. She held on tight and we stood there like that for a minute. Wanna was holding on so tight that it seemed like I better hold on too, so I wrapped my arms around her waist and squeezed.

  And then we both cried. For a long time we cried.

  89

  Dear Penny,

  I asked Wanna if I could take my blue bottle and drink my milk next to the willow tree. Nobody can see me through the branches. It is warm and bright today but cool under the willow.

  Last night I had a dream about the Mean Boy. It wasn’t scary, it was just strange.

  In my dream I found the Mean Boy sitting outside the orphanage. I didn’t understand why he was there, because he was adopted a few months before me. Why would he come back?

  I remember the day he was adopted, and I remember his new family. He was so proud of them. They were a big family with five children already. The Mean Boy was child number six. Two of his sisters were Chinese, and the three boys looked like the parents. The Mean Boy walked around the orphanage and told his family about all his friends. Friends? The Mean Boy didn’t have any real friends, just people who did what he said because they were scared of him. Behind his back children would make fun of him and make fun of his half arm. If the Mean Boy found out that someone was making fun of his arm, then that person would be covered with bruises.