Counting by 7s(40)

This translates to mean:

What we expect rarely occurs; what we don’t expect is what happens.

I reach over and take Pattie’s hand. I’m surprised as I do this. I’m too old to be acting this way, but I can’t stop myself. I manage to say: “It’s not a scientific way to view event sequence, but given what’s gone on in my life, I completely understand.”

It’s the most that I’ve been able to communicate in a long time.

And I’m not sure if I’m just tired, or if something has changed, but as I look at her, with my hand in hers, I smile.

My teeth don’t even stick to my lips.

And Pattie doesn’t turn away.



Everyone is really hungry, even me, and I never have an appetite anymore.

Pattie tries to reach Dell, but he doesn’t answer his cell phone.

So we have dinner without him.

Then what’s especially strange is that suddenly it feels as if we all really do live at the Gardens of Glenwood.

We eat our food at the red linoleum-topped table and toss the paper plates (Dell doesn’t have real ones) in the trash.

Pattie has Quang-ha immediately take down the garbage to the Dumpster because the kitchen is a trash-free zone now.

We all help clean up and put away the leftovers, and then we make ourselves at home on the newly acquired, used furniture.

I can’t believe that she has the energy, but Pattie starts to fold Dell’s mountain of clean underwear into tight, compressed squares.

They look like they come out of some kind of vending machine.

That’s how precise she is.

Quang-ha is in love with Dell’s large TV and he finds a program where Japanese soccer players use their heads to smash clay pots.

We all watch.

It is strangely addicting.

I know that these blows to the skull can cause long-term health issues of a very serious nature.

But right now that seems like the last thing I should be worried about. So I let it go.

For a brief moment, because everything in this room is so different, I forget that I don’t have a mother or a father or a place to call home.

I lean back on the sofa.

And I feel a sharp pain in my right hip.

When I put my hand there I realize that I’m sitting on a small, green acorn. I have no idea how it got on the couch.

Apples grow on apple trees. And cherries grow on cherry trees. But we don’t say that an acorn grows on an acorn tree.

Things like that are interesting.

At least to some people.

I hold the little nut (which is by definition a fruit) in the palm of my hand. Mai is next to me, and she smiles as she says: “Maybe that’s a lucky acorn.”

I slip it into my pocket, because maybe she’s right.

It is a seed, after all, and they are by definition the beginning of something.

I then rest my head on the back of the sofa and even though my eyes are all watery, I can make out the full moon as a fuzzy amber-and-green lollipop on the other side of the skylight.

And that’s not a bad thing.





Chapter 37





It was late when Dell finally stumbled into his apartment.

He literally didn’t recognize the place, and not just because Pattie was asleep on the new Salvation Army couch and Quang-ha was sprawled out on the carpet nearby under a red blanket.

Dell shut the door and moved into the hallway. Willow and Mai could be seen sleeping in the second bedroom in the Semper Fi bunk beds.

He wondered why they hadn’t all gone home, and then he remembered they didn’t have a car, and right now, neither did he. He’d walked home.

After staring in wonder at all the changes, he finally made it to his room, where his bed was made up with Pattie’s sheets and a fluffy comforter.

Dell planted himself, face-first, on top of the mattress.

And that’s where he was only five hours later when the sound of the shower in the bathroom woke him up.



It was not a normal noise.

He’d never heard running water in his own apartment.

Dell opened his eyes and realized the sound was from the bathroom. He squinted at the digital eyes of his bedside clock and saw 5:21 A.M.

Who would get up this early?

It was one of them. And he had a good idea which one.

Dell would have given his left foot for another hour of uninterrupted sleep.

He shut his eyes and suddenly saw himself minus everything below the ankle on his weaker side.

That made him wonder if the injury meant he’d collect some kind of disability payment from the school district.

He used his right foot to drive, and most people did, so he guessed the left foot didn’t bring in as much cash in a settlement.

Isn’t that the way insurance companies worked? Everything had some kind of predetermined price?

Maybe it was better to give up a left arm.

And then there was a knock on the door and the Dell Duke Internal Idiotic Discussion Forum was interrupted by the voice of Pattie Nguyen.

“Are you awake?”

He wanted to say that he was now. Instead he answered:

“Been up for hours.”

He hoped it sounded deeply sarcastic, but she answered:

“Me too.”

Pattie pushed the door open and entered talking: