If You Lived Here by Dana Sachs

Author:Dana Sachs [Sachs, Dana]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780061844140
Google: 4R1zjN_UNVUC
Amazon: 0061130494
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2008-03-10T16:00:00+00:00

Mai refuses to take him. While I sit on a chair, holding Hai Au, now sleeping in my arms, she gets organized. She seems to have abandoned her hope of finding a better hotel, probably because, now that there are three of us, she knows we couldn’t manage it. She unpacks my bags, finds ways to fit our belongings into the various shelves and cupboards of the tiny room, supervises three young hotel workers who remove the big bed and replace it with two twins, one on each wall with a narrow path to the balcony between them. Following my instructions, she assembles the portable crib I brought from home, covers the crib mattress with a sheet, fluffs the suitcase-smooshed baby pillow, and sets a Mickey Mouse and a plastic train down inside. Then she sets up a little changing area on the other side of the crib, stocked with piles of Pampers, wipes, and ointments. She handles everything, but she won’t hold Hai Au. She barely pauses to look at him.

“He got enough problems without thinking about this Vietnamese lady in the room,” she says. “He need time to get to know you.” She’s right, I suppose. But I wish she wouldn’t steer so clear. I want a partner sitting next to me, cross-legged on the floor, someone also anxious and willing to spend hours staring at this little boy. Mai won’t do that, and I’ve had to abandon an older fantasy, the idea that Martin would do that. No one else will do that. Okay, maybe my mother will.

A few minutes before six, Mai decides to go out to buy us some food.

I cradle my sleeping boy, lean close to inhale his sweet, milky breath. His face is strong and sturdy, not at all delicate, expressive even when he’s sleeping. He shrugs, sighs, yawns, taps his fingers to the air as if he’s playing piano. His lips are full, the color of plums, and his wide, flat nose gives him an expression that is both pouty and determined. He is not yet two, but so substantial. I doze, then wake again when Hai Au stretches, whimpers, opens his eyes. We look at each other. He furrows his brow with mild concern. “What’s next?” he seems to ask.

I lift a finger, touch my chest, and employ one of the few words I have mastered in Vietnamese. “MÓ.” Mother. Then I touch his chest. “Con,” I say, offering up nearly the last of my vocabulary. Son.

He grins. His eyes are not all-forgiving, but they are tolerant. He pushes himself off my lap and slips over the side of the chair.

By the time Mai returns with bottled water and bags of food, Hai Au has pulled all the newly folded clothes out of the drawers and I have replaced them so that he can pull them out again. He has gnawed on his toy train and eaten two Hershey’s Kisses. He has pooped. I have changed his diaper.

Mai looks at the clothes strewn across the floor and laughs.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.