Counting by 7s

  Pattie tried to sort it out but it wasn’t long until both of the police officers were standing in front of her getting ready to launch an avalanche of questions in her direction.

  Before they could, Mai took her mother’s hand and pulled her toward the door. Pattie followed, moving right past the two cops.

  Mai led her straight to Dell’s car, where she wordlessly opened the backseat door so that her mother could be face-to-face with Willow.

  Pattie saw grief.

  Her eyes focused on a version of her own young self, and so many other children in Vietnam who grew up without parents, some abandoned because of their ethnicity, others because of tragedy.

  And her arms reached out wide.

  After Pattie signed the bottom of the paperwork that gave her legal responsibility for Willow for the next twenty-four hours, the police cruiser charged out of the parking lot like a getaway car.

  That left Dell Duke.

  He wanted to be invited home with them. He was now really part of this.

  But Pattie ignored him as she went about closing the nail salon early, barking orders in Vietnamese to the two manicurists.

  Dell hung around the cash register trying to be relevant.

  It wasn’t working.

  Even though Pattie stood barely over five feet tall to his five foot eight inches, she kept edging him toward the door.

  “We talk tomorrow.”

  She said this more than once, and then suddenly she had a hold of his right elbow as she literally led him outside.

  Dell managed to say:

  “I should probably get your home number. I mean, I have it in Quang-ha’s files at the office, but I . . .”

  Pattie either wasn’t listening or wasn’t interested.

  She pulled out a large ring of keys, and with Dell now on the sidewalk, she went back into the salon and began locking the heavy door at the bottom.

  Dell was on the wrong side of the thick plate glass. But he continued as if he were still in the room, raising his voice as he said:

  “Okay then. I should be going. Which I’ll do. Right now. Long day. For all of us . . .”

  He strained to get a better look at Willow, but she was crouched down with Mai at her side.

  He hadn’t even said good-bye.

  Pattie then snapped off the bright fluorescent ballasts. The windows were tinted, making it hard to see much of anything inside.

  Dell walked to his car. When he glanced over his shoulder the salon was just shadows. They had to be leaving out a back door to go home.

  He thought about following their car as they drove away, but suddenly the weight of what had happened, the enormity of the situation, hit him hard.

  Dell got into his Ford, slid the key into the ignition, and then burst into tears.

  His neck muscles seemed to give way, and as he sobbed, his head fell forward and hit the steering wheel.

  And that’s when the horn sounded, startling him and the world around him into a new consciousness.

  Chapter 20

  I’ve never seen this person in my life.

  But her arms are around me.

  Tight.

  Because the woman is so strong, you’d think her hug would choke me.

  But instead, it’s the first time I can get a full breath into my lungs since I heard what happened.

  They live behind the nail salon in a garage.

  A real garage, not one converted to anything. You could move things and still drive a car in here.

  There is no bathroom.

  They walk across the alley back to the salon, where there is a toilet and a tiny shower stall made of molded plastic.

  They don’t think living in the garage is weird.

  Because they are used to it.

  The garage has only one window and that looks like it wasn’t part of the original construction.

  I’m certain someone just cut out a square in the un-insulated stucco-on-plywood wall.

  There is an ancient-looking air conditioner hanging on to the ledge of the bootlegged window, and the glass above the machine has been covered with a piece of decorative cloth.

  The fabric has completely faded on the side exposed to the sunlight, and whatever pattern was there is gone. Scorched away.

  Despite the air conditioner, it is still incredibly hot in the garage.

  Even with the machine on the highest setting.

  Mats cover the cracked concrete floor, making a crazy quilt of colored rattan and woven plastic.

  There is a queen-size mattress and a single cot pushed together at one end of the garage. That is the sleeping area.

  The other space is taken up by a long metal table where two hot plates and a microwave can be seen next to cans of bamboo shoots and water chestnuts.

  An assortment of pots and pans hang from hooks on the wooden studs next to ladles and strainers and big boxes of breakfast cereal, which must come from Costco.

  Mom buys those.

  And just that fact makes my heart beat in a messed-up way.

  A small refrigerator is plugged into an adapter that has six different electrical devices all feeding into one outlet.

  I know for a fact that’s not safe.

  And then my thoughts shift.

  It might be a good thing if the garage caught on fire.

  If I were alone in here.

  Because if I got trapped in a blaze started by arcing electrical overload in the wall of the garage, the searing pain of losing my mom and dad would go up in smoke with me.

  I would be released then.

  I would be set free.

  Mai wants to know if I want to lie down.

  But I can’t speak.

  In any language.

  Pattie makes soup that is cloudy white with curly pieces of green onion floating on top.

  And then there is suddenly a plate with salty pork strips, which appear from nowhere.

  Dysphagia is the medical term for not being able to swallow, and I know that there are two kinds of dysphagia: oropharyngeal and esophageal.

  But maybe there is also a third kind of dysphagia that comes when your heart breaks into pieces.

  I can’t swallow because I have that kind.

  Mai tells her brother to go across the alley.

  He only snarls at her.

  He asks in Vietnamese:

  “Why are you always telling me what to do? It’s just not right.”

  He takes his sweet time, but finally leaves.

  Once Quang-ha is gone, Pattie and Mai help me out of my shoes and baggy pants.

  They put me into my red pajamas. I don’t know how the clothes got here.

  I still can’t eat any of the food.

  And not just because I’m a vegetarian.

  Mai’s mother pours some of the soup into a coffee mug and she holds it to my lips.

  It’s like coaxing a baby bird. Little tiny gulps.

  I know how hard that is because I was a parrot-parent.

  And so I take small sips that taste salty, like drinking someone’s cloudy tears.

  And then Pattie lights incense that is in the shape of a triangle and she places it on a red plate.

  She bows her head as her eyes glisten and she takes my hand and we both cry.

  Mai leans against her mother, and for the first time in my life, my memory disappears.

  I know I will remember nothing of this night because I will try as hard as I can to never think of it again.

  I will win that battle.

  Chapter 21

  Quang-ha was mad.

  That was normal. But this fresh anger struck a deeper chord than most of his sudden bursts of frustration.

  Because he already had no privacy.

  He slept wedged next to hi
s sister and his mother. What difference did it make that he was on his own mattress?

  Who was anyone kidding?

  They lived in one room and that was a garage and now they were letting someone view their situation and, even worse, be part of it?

  It was all just too much.

  The little girl was strange. Couldn’t everyone see that?

  Look at her clothes and her hair and her glasses and her luggage with the wheels. Listen to her whispery voice and her laugh, which was like someone choking.

  Come on—she spoke Vietnamese! What was that all about?

  Maybe she was some kind of spy or at the very least a complete nerd. You’d only learn the language if it was jammed down your throat—like everything else in his life.

  He was not going to feel sorry for her because her parents died in a car crash.

  Okay, maybe he felt sorry for her when he first heard, and she was shaking, but he wasn’t going to right now.

  No way.

  No how.

  He was going to feel sorry for himself.

  Because he didn’t ask to be born. He didn’t ask to have his father drive off in a truck and never return.

  He didn’t ask to have every single thing in his life smell like fingernail polish. His clothes and even his shoes had that chemical stink.

  And another thing to be mad about was that he slept in his underwear.

  How was he supposed to do that now?

  The underwear had robots on them. Like a little kid would wear. And he was in high school!

  His mother never seemed to know the difference between something cool and something for idiots, because all she cared about was that it was something on sale.

  Well, now he’d have to sleep in his pants because he wasn’t letting the girl see the robots.

  And he hated that, because the pants twisted up around his legs and made it next to impossible to even bend his knees and sleep on his side, which was the most comfortable way.

  As if it wasn’t already bad enough on the floor of a garage on the wrong side of the tracks in Bakersfield.

  The next morning Willow told Mai that she wasn’t going to school. She didn’t say “ever again,” but Mai thought that’s how it sounded.

  She was pretty definitive.

  Quang-ha took a stab at refusing to get a high school education as well, but it didn’t work.

  And so Quang-ha and Mai gathered up their things and walked down the already hot alley. Mai promised Willow that she’d hurry home the second she got out.

  Pattie had been given a telephone number for the Kern County Department of Children’s Services. She was supposed to call first thing because Willow was going to be assigned a social worker and officially have her case file opened.

  Pattie assumed that relatives would fly into town or that family friends would, once alerted, take over.

  Everyone has a network of people in their lives.

  Pattie only hoped that the group assembled to care for the odd little girl with the dark, wet eyes would do a good job.

  Chapter 22

  I want to turn off the sun and live in darkness.

  I wake up on top of a mattress resting on the floor of the garage across the alley from Mai’s mom’s nail salon.

  And I have no idea, for what feels like a very long time, where I am.

  I hope that I’m dreaming.

  I am not.

  Yesterday happened.

  The heavy weight of it presses down on me in a force much greater than gravity.

  It is crushing.

  I am twelve years old and already twice without parents.

  If you analyze the odds of being given away at birth and then losing another full set of legal guardians 147 months and 7 days later, I’m right on the edge of the graph.

  In the one percent of the one percent.

  I can still walk and talk and breathe, but there isn’t much point.

  It’s just something my body is doing.

  I’m not going back to school.

  You don’t have to watch many wildlife documentaries to know that the herd doesn’t accept the lone straggler.

  And with the exception of Margaret Z. Buckle, the herd never accepted me anyway, so I’m not losing much.

  When did middle schools eliminate weekly spelling bees? It’s the only activity that I would have signed up for.

  There is just one person who I will miss now that I’m no longer a Sequoia Giant.

  Miss Judi.

  The school nurse.

  She saw more of me than any other student and we shared a love of germ eradication.

  I wish her well.

  I’m sitting in the back of the salon next to the storage closet.

  I found a furniture pad and rolled it up in such a way as to make a place for myself.

  I wanted to stay across the alley in the garage, which would be good because it is dark back there, but Pattie insisted I be where she can see me.

  I wasn’t going to argue.

  I barely know the woman.

  I didn’t have my Healthy-Start breakfast, and not because they have never heard of it, but because I’m still having trouble swallowing.

  I have a caseworker.

  Pattie Nguyen tells me this after she hangs up the phone.

  I ask for paper and a pen. Two of the manicurists arrive. I barely notice them.

  I decide to write down my thoughts. But not my real ones. I cannot put on paper the idea that I want to scream, as loud as I can, until my throat ruptures.

  So I make a list.

  I try to concentrate on that.

  An hour later, a woman comes into the salon.

  But she doesn’t want a manicure.

  She has posture that suggests lower lumbar pain. She probably sits in a chair for too long. And has inadequate abdominal strength.

  I’d tell her, but I couldn’t care less.

  Everyone, I now realize, lives in a world of pain. But I’m certain that mine is greater than hers.

  The woman with the bad back talks up front to Pattie.

  I have no idea for how long.

  I’m done measuring things.

  I only hear parts of the conversation.

  Although it is about me, it doesn’t matter.

  Nothing that they say will change the fundamental fact of my life, which is so overwhelming that I cannot give voice to it.

  I do hear the woman tell Pattie that she’s handled many of “these type of cases.”

  That doesn’t seem accurate.

  Because how many twelve-year-old kids in Bakersfield actually lose both parents in one afternoon?

  I also hear the woman explain that the Jamison Children’s Center was established by Kern County “to provide children who need emergency shelter and protection a safe, warm, and nurturing environment.”

  That can’t be good.

  The woman does all the talking, and Pattie doesn’t respond.

  She doesn’t even say “uh-huh,” or “I understand.”

  She is like me.

  Silent.

  I admire that in a person. The ability to keep your mouth shut is usually a sign of intelligence.

  Introspection requires you to think and analyze.

  It’s hard to do that when you are blabbing away.

  Finally Pattie motions to the back, and the next thing I know, the official-looking woman leans over me and says:

  “My name is Lenore Cole and I’m here to help you.”

  I hand her a piece of paper.

  She looks surprised, but straightens (with a small grimace, which reinforces my diagnosis of lower back pain) and reads:

  1. My parents have no relatives who are appropriate to accept legal responsibility for me.


  2. I do not believe that any of my parents’ small circle of friends are in a position to take me into their lives. We did not belong to any church or other organization that might have support groups.

  3. I do not wish to ever return for any reason to the house where I lived on Citrus Road. I would like you to call Haruto Ito, the owner of Ito’s Garden Services, and tell him that our backyard garden is now his responsibility. He will understand.

  4. I would like to have my computer and my printer, which are in my room. There is a large cabinet with my medical file cards. I will need these. And I would also like all of the blue notebooks, as well as my clothing, the metal box under my bed with my life’s savings, the orange towel in the bathroom, my humidifier, and my copy of Atlas of Human Anatomy by Frank H. Netter and Sharon Colacino. Also my TI-89 Titanium-Plus graphing calculator, which is on my desk. Please be careful with it.

  5. I would like all of the pictures of my parents put in storage for me for the future.

  6. I would like to formally request a forensic autopsy be performed on both my mom and dad. I will need a copy of this report, although I will not be reading it at this time.

  7. I would like my DVD of the movie Adaptation. It is in the cabinet under the television in the living room.

  8. I will need the pictures and information pinned up to my bulletin board taken down and placed in a large envelope. Please take special care when handling the lemur photo signed by wildlife legends Beverly and Dereck Joubert.

  9. I would like a sedative prescribed to help me deal with anxiety. I may need medication at a later date for depression, but I would need to see extensive research on its long-term effects on teenagers. And I would also like a complex multi-vitamin designed specifically for juvenile use.

  10. I am going to stay for now at Happy Polish Nail Salon. It is my hope that the Nguyen family will allow this, and be compensated for taking care of me.

  11. I have 7 library books. They will need to be returned. I have never incurred a late fee. I don’t want to start now.