Counting by 7s(64)

And what about Cheddar?

If they stay, I can come visit on weekends.

I could still help with the garden.

I could walk, or even call Jairo to drive me over in his taxi.

I could increase my running and plot out a new loop that takes me right by the Gardens of Glenwood.



Dell suddenly appears.

I didn’t see him coming. Did he sneak up on me or am I not seeing things now?

He sits down next to me.

But he doesn’t say anything.

Then he puts his head between his knees and starts to cry.

It sounds like he’s choking to death.

I’m right next to him, and I do what my mother would have done.

I put my arm around his shoulder and softly whisper: “I’m all right. It’s going to be okay.”

And that breaks him completely.

He cries harder.

He lifts his face and looks at me. I still have my arm encircling his hunched back.

But I see something in his eyes.

He looks heartbroken.

I know the look.





Chapter 56





Pattie closed the nail salon early and took the bus home.

It was cloudy outside and the wind was blowing hard down the valley. There was dust and sand in the air, and when her teeth met she felt the grit.

She could taste it when she swallowed.

Pattie came through the door of the apartment and saw Quang-ha at the table doing his homework.

He was never at the table doing his homework.

He was always watching TV.

But he barely looked up as she came in.

He didn’t say a thing.

Pattie noticed that his foot was twitching. Back and forth. Not shaking, but close.

She looked down the hall.

Mai was in her room on the upper bunk bed. She had her face close to the wall and the cat held tight to her chest.

So they knew.

Pattie went down the hall and stood in the doorway.

“We’re going to figure it all out.”

She walked to the bed and put her hand on her daughter’s silky head of hair.

“It’s temporary.”

Suddenly Quang-ha’s voice could be heard. He was loud.

“That’s what you say about everything. Temporary. Well, if you do something long enough, you don’t get to use that word anymore.”

Pattie went back to the living room and stood in front of her son. Mai appeared behind her.

Quang-ha looked up at both of them. His eyes were large and defiant.

But his voice was like a small boy’s, not a teenage kid’s.

“We shouldn’t let her go.”

Pattie put her arm around her son and they stayed that way for a long time.

Mai came over and leaned against them.

Outside, the gusts picked up. A window was open in the kitchen and they could hear a sound. It was different. It was something new to add to the mix of street noise and people.

It was the bamboo in the new garden.

They could hear the rustling of a thousand leaves.



Dell woke in the middle of the night.

He tried to get back to sleep but tossed and turned so many times it started to feel like exercise.

At 2:47 he was worn out, but still wide-awake, so he got up.

He stayed in his sweatpants and T-shirt, but pulled on his shoes and a windbreaker.

He then went downstairs to the courtyard.

It was cold out and he could see his breath as he made his way to the coiled green hose.

Standing in the light of a partial moon, he watched the water come out in gushes of icy silver.

And even though he was freezing cold, Dell took his time watering Willow’s new garden.

The honeysuckle vines were taller than him now, and as he looked them over, he realized that one of the buds was beginning to open.

He knew for certain that it would be magnificent.





Chapter 57





Iopen my eyes. I can hear Mai’s soft breathing above me in the bunk bed, but otherwise the apartment is silent.

That’s unusual. The world of Pattie Nguyen is always noisy.

Meals are always being cooked, dishes washed, the vacuum or shower running.

But not now.

Because it’s really early.

Dell took me to dinner last night to Happy Greens, which is a vegetarian restaurant.

He was trying to cheer me up.

He told me that they were working on some kind of arrangement.

When we got back to the Gardens, I did my best to look happy.

I look at the clock. It is 4:27 A.M.

Quang-ha is asleep on the couch.

The shades in the living room are drawn on the two windows facing the street.

The full moon is right above the skylight and the glow is enough to cast little shadows on the carpet.

In the past I saw these shapes as hopeful.

Now they appear to be stains.



I take my pillow and the fuzzy blanket from my bed and I go sit in the bathroom.

A few minutes later, Cheddar slinks in. He curls up on the edge of the blanket and falls asleep leaning against my back.

There is a window in here, and from my position in the corner on the cold tiles I watch the sunrise bathe the world in orange light.

Stars littering an endless Bakersfield sky begin to dim.