May/June 2016

Our new house is small and nondescript. It has two bedrooms and one bathroom, and a tiny backyard with sparse grass. Along the perimeter is an ugly, pink cinder-block wall lined with thorny, bristling rose bushes. Inside there is the table and the rug on the floor and three chairs. There is a small couch and a bamboo plant in a large round glass jar. My room has only my bed and the small desk with a lamp that casts a greenish glow across the hardwood floors. There is one window by the desk, and when I look out of it, I can see the grass and the sky and the large maple tree fingering the breeze in the yard next to ours. In the late afternoon the tree casts looming shadows on the grass. I miss our home in Vietnam. It was cozy and comfortable, and outside I could see the papaya tree with the large green fruits hidden under its broad leaves. We never got to harvest the fruit this year. We stayed as long as we could. But the end of the war chased us away, and we fled to America. The journey on the ship was long and arduous. We were crowded together with many other families, waiting… And now, here we were, in a whole new country, with no knowledge of this place. *          *          * I shrink in my seat, trying to make myself seem as small as possible. This is school, where I am the odd one out, where I am alone. I know nothing. I want to fade into the background, or drift out the door back home. But where is home? Home is not here. Home is Vietnam. I don’t care about the war. I want to be home. I am happier than I have been in a long time “We have a new student today,” my teacher says, beckoning me forward. Shyly, I stand up and walk to the front of the room in awkward silence. “Everyone, please say hello to Mai.” Ms. Nelson smiles encouragingly. I look up at her, pleading with my eyes to let me leave this room. She seems to understand and nods faintly. I rush back to my seat, my cheeks red, trying to ignore the stares of other students. “Class,” Ms. Nelson says, “please open your silent-reading books.” I look across the room. Students are opening their books and reading in silence. I stare down at my desk. I have no book. I don’t know English. The whole world is shattering around me, and I am watching—helpless—from afar. Ms. Nelson notices me. She quietly walks over and squats beside me. “Do you have a book?” she whispers, her voice kind. I look at her mutely. Tears well up in my eyes. Ms. Nelson sympathetically pats my shoulder and looks around the classroom. “Hmm…” she says. “Ah—Laura? Do you mind helping Mai?” The girl sitting at the desk next to me turns her head. She smiles when she sees me, and Ms. Nelson helps scoot her desk closer to mine. Satisfied with the arrangement, our teacher walks away. “Hi,” Laura whispers with a kindly smile. “I’m Laura.” She says each word slowly and clearly. I grin and point to my chest. “Mai.” I like this girl. She understands me. She smiles back, her eyes shining happily. “Welcome to school.” Laura shows me her book. I look down at the letters dancing across the page. I frown and shake my head and point to the words. “Hmm.” Laura appears thoughtful. She raises her hand, and Ms. Nelson walks over to her. They whisper for several minutes, and finally Ms. Nelson nods. With a smile, she walks back to her desk, pulls out a green slip of paper, and gives it to Laura. Laura stands up and beckons for me to follow. I walk out of the door behind her, and in silence we move down the hall. Laura halts at a door and opens it. I stop and shake my head, but she beckons to me with a smile. Curiosity draws me forward, and I let the door close as I step over the threshold. I am awed by what I see. Shelves and shelves of books—tons and tons of them, all lined up neatly in rows. Each one is like an opening into a different world; I long to sit down in one of the comfortable cushy beanbag chairs and stay there forever, poring over the stories. In Vietnam, I used to sit in the chair by the bookshelf with a story and read until darkness obscured the pages. “Come over here,” Laura whispers, and I follow her as if in a trance. She sits down at a desk, and I sit down beside her. She picks up a small pencil and a clean sheet of paper and begins to draw the alphabet. I watch her, awed by the fluidity of her motions, how quickly and easily she moves. I trace each letter with my finger as she writes them, and she tells me about the sounds they make. I learn fast. By the time the allotted amount of time is up, I can understand seven simple words and can say the entire alphabet. I am happier than I have been in a long time. *          *          * The week progresses. Every morning, instead of reading, Laura and I head to the library where she teaches me more and more words. I marvel at Laura’s patience and kindness. I drink up the new words like a small plant. I love them all. Earth. Moon. Flower. Bat. Car. Jump. Violet. When every lesson is done, I want to jump and scream and shout. But I don’t. I don’t want to shatter the lovely whispering quiet of the library. One day moves into another, and finally it is Friday. I skip to the bus stop, and wait. It pulls up, letting out a stream of noxious

The sun gently warmed the earth. The squirrels were hopeful waking up. Peeking out, softly, just enough to see snow, always snow. The cold cracked their dry noses harder than a bad nut. Slowly, reluctantly, shades went up in houses. Pulled up by invisible hands. People, chained to their beds by the relentless cold. Ice-lined windows stared out defiantly, still believing that spring would come. Then their inhabitants would, once again, take pleasure in looking out of them at the beautiful vista of the park beyond. A girl scurried out from her bed, not in one of the surrounding houses, but in a building within the park itself. She wore a thick brown coat, a barrier against the frost. Her dark hair was all but lost under a densely knitted hat the color of roasting chestnuts. Turning, she looked with dark amber eyes at the park, her conquered territory. The carriages started to wake up, eagerly awaiting their morning meal of people and elbow grease. The clacking rose from the streets, a pleasant sound that would go on all day, lulling people to sleep at sundown. The girl in the brown coat flew across the road into a small bakery across the street. Disappearing inside, she appeared a few minutes later with a hot cup of tea and something in a happy-looking brown bag. Silently, she slipped back into the park through the forgotten back gate. Lowering herself lightly onto a bench, she promptly started to eat. The mist from her tea obscured her face for a moment. They were from two different worlds, but as they talked they found that they fit The main gates of the park open at eight, she thought to herself, I have some time. Church bells rang across the city. Calling proudly to everyone that it was eight o’clock. Now everything was awake. She dove behind a bush as the absentminded constable walked by to open up the park. He always forgot to close the back entrance, which was her way in and out. He unlocked the heavy iron bolt with a large tarnished key, which turned with a protesting moan. The floodgate opened and people started to flow in. Ladies in big dresses full of lace, still ignorant of the fact that you do not wear white in midwinter when the snow has lost its sheen. Looking out from behind her nook in the bush, she saw a seated girl about her own age, staring at an old oak tree, absently turning something in her hands. The girl’s pale blond hair was luminous but her face was still, missing its light. Unfurling herself from her hiding place, brushing the snow off her knitted hat, she walked over to the girl on the bench and perched next to her. “What is your name?” she asked the sad girl curiously. “Celia, and yours?” the girl said, still not blinking, her pale hair wafting in the breeze, almost blending with the weather. Amber eyes shining, the girl whose home was the park responded, “Just call me Z.” Celia was a child of privilege but neglected. Her parents only seemed to care about money and lush parties. She was lonely, trapped in an endless expanse of riches, dances, and emptiness. Z was as mysterious as her name—a single letter that gave nothing away. But she had a warm heart and a quick mind. Everything she knew she had found out for herself. They were from two different worlds, but as they talked they found that they fit. Like two sides to the same person. The next day Celia came back. A pattern arose. Celia would come and bring Z food in return for knowledge about the park. Z taught Celia about the birds that lived in the crackling bushes and the ones that lived in the snow-heavy trees. Z showed her the ancient stone toolshed that she lived in at night, and Celia started to feel that she had a place in this world. One day, when the few brave flowers were beginning to crack through the slowly defrosting ground, Celia asked Z if she ever got lonely in the park without a family. Z mysteriously invited her to come and see for herself that night, saying that the park was far more beautiful then. The park was just beginning to change from day into night. The animals and people were changing shifts. Birds were settling down in their nests for a cold sleep where they would dream of what it would be like when spring finally came. The bats were taking to the air, their wings making the sound of a late river. Fast and unsteady. The robbers of the daytime, squirrels, were being replaced by the thieves of the night, raccoons. Their masks slipped permanently over their faces, their satchels on their backs, they stalked out of their houses to find anything unlucky enough to be dropped in their way. The constable took up his shift as the night watchman. Immediately after the other guard had left he fell into a deep sleep. Celia and Z slipped in the back entrance, unseen. They walked along the main path, devoid of all other human life, deep into the park. The only sounds were those of the chirping crickets and soft rustling of raccoons furtively stealing somebody else’s dinner. Finally they arrived at a big clearing with the old oak tree in the center. Z made a long, low whistle and people started appearing out of the trees. They gathered around and Z introduced Celia. They made a fire and started to tell stories, stories about finding beauty in the relentless cold and frost. Tales of finding truth in the very flowers that grew on the ground. Stories about themselves and how they had found that the most beautiful thing was propping each other up in times of trouble. This is why they gathered in the park at night when it had emptied, a large family,