“He won’t talk to anybody besides his mothers. He used to talk to us and now he doesn’t speak. He runs away. He won’t look me in the eye. He has issues, and it’s going to make things worse for him if his home life is disrupted.”

  “Orit says there’s nothing wrong with him.”

  “I know more about children than she does. She doesn’t want to believe it, but his silence isn’t normal.”

  “I can’t have him in there,” Ted said. His voice broke. “I’m not ready.”

  There was a long pause. I shifted against the fence, and a loose board creaked.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” Aviva said. “Kate and Orit will go out to pick us up some lunch. Shelley will take care of Leo. I’m giving you two hours to go into that room and say your goodbyes. You can shut the door and sit in there and cry or rage or do whatever you have to do. Turn off the goddamned fish tank and let the fish strangle. When Kate and Orit return, they are moving into this house.”

  A strange noise passed through the fence, an utterance all too human. I thought it must have come from Ted although it sounded like weeping.

  “You can’t put him in that room and pretend that he’s your child,” Ted choked.

  “That’s your problem, right there. Thinking of Leo like that. It’s true that being with Leo makes me think of Eli, but I’m not confused about the fact that Eli is dead. Nothing could be clearer. We lost our sweet boy and he’s never coming back. But this is now. Not the past, the present.” I heard her voice growing louder; she was walking toward the fence. “Our friends need our help, and they’re going to get it.”

  I backed away, but she already knew I was there.

  “Shelley! Get over here, please!”

  AVIVA STOOD ON THE sidewalk, foot tapping.

  “What’s going on?” Henry called from the car. He was about to drive to the park.

  Aviva leaned into the window. She said that a fire had damaged Kate and Orit’s apartment, and they were coming to stay for as long as they wanted. “One of these days, I’m confiscating your license. But, for now, you go ahead. I need Shelley to look after Leo.”

  Henry broke into a smile. “Anything Kate needs, I’m here.” He drove off, waving.

  “At least I made Henry happy,” Aviva said. “He’s kinder to Kate than he is to Ted. Or me,” she added tartly.

  No way did I want to be stuck with the kid, so I said I had homework and housework to do.

  “It’ll have to wait. As of now, you’re on Leo duty. Ted took off; I don’t know when he’ll be back. Kate and Orit are going to see if they’re letting people into their building. I’ve got to get their rooms ready. I’ll put Kate and Orit downstairs; that’ll give them privacy. Leo upstairs. That’s where I’ll start.” She looked happy as she planned. It was classic auntie behavior: the pleasurable pain of vicarious distress. Who doesn’t thrill to a crisis, especially when the trouble has fallen on somebody else?

  I had no choice but to follow her into the house.

  “Leo! Shelley’s here!” she called.

  Leo careered into the room. Aviva tried to hug him; he dodged her and presented himself to me, grabbing the hem of my shirt. “Hi, Shelley,” he said.

  Aviva’s eyebrows lifted.

  “I have a bike,” he said.

  “Yes, it’s right here. Show Shelley how you ride. But stay on the sidewalk,” she called as he ran for the front door.

  Up and down Leo pedaled to Henry’s walkway and back. What’d he need watching for, if this was his only trick?

  “Comin’ your way!” Leo yelled. “Comin’ your way! Look out!”

  I waved my arms to stop him. “You’re not doing much,” I said.

  He kicked his back wheel like a cowboy in a movie spurring a snorting pony.

  “Real adventurers go places. They don’t just go in circles.”

  He took off pedaling in the opposite direction, not once looking back. Atta boy. I went into the garage and wheeled out Ted’s city bike. Ted’s road bike was missing; he must have gone for a long ride. Leo reappeared proudly.

  “My father took me to school every day on his bicycle,” I said. “I rode with him all over Gejiu until he got sad and I had to go by myself.”

  Leo stared at the bigger bike. It was clear he was ready for a ramble.

  “Sit here,” I said, lifting him to the rear rack. I showed him how to hold his feet so they wouldn’t get caught in the spokes. He listened intently and then pulled off one of his shoes and brandished his socked foot. Leo, his sock said, on a banner flown by a dinosaur whose cheeky smile made me laugh. Once I’d saved enough to buy myself a mobile phone and the brand-new laptop that I planned to send to Father, I’d find some dinosaur socks that read Cousin Deng.

  I snugged his shoe back on and swung into the saddle. Leo gripped me around the waist.

  “Let’s go find Henry,” I said.

  We sailed down the street and headed toward Golden Gate Park. The wind felt wonderful blowing through my hair after the airless rooms in Ted and Aviva’s house. Happy squeals floated from the back end of the bike. When we arrived, Leo’s eyes were shining. He laughed with gusto, swinging his dino’d feet.

  “Hey, where’re your shoes? Did they fall off while we were riding?”

  He waggled his feet, showing off his socks again, and told me he’d hidden his shoes on the sidewalk. He thought it was a great joke that we’d biked off without them. Laughs came to Leo more easily than words.

  Henry was in his usual spot at the casting ponds, a ten-minute ride from the house. There were three large rectangular pools, or “ponds” as the anglers called them, empty of fish, where people practiced. He’d taken me with him several times and tried without success to teach me how to cast. Being gangly made me prone to getting tangly.

  “I tried to interest Ted when he was young so we could go fishing together.”

  “Did he learn?” I’d asked Henry, my line limp on the water.

  “He was hopeless.”

  I didn’t see the point of launching a line when there were no fish to catch, but for Henry’s sake, I’d tried. It was beautiful to watch him whip his line over the water. He’d stand on the concrete deck between the ponds or wade in his rubber overalls right into the weirdly green water. His face relaxed; his grumpiness subsided. Of all the time I spent with Henry, that’s where he was happy.

  We waved to him; he saw us and waved back. When Henry approached, Leo ducked his face to my knee.

  “Hello there!” Henry tried to pat him on the head, but Leo shrank from his touch. “I’m Mr. Cheng, remember? I’ve known your mom, Kate, for longer than this guy’s been born.” He thumbed in my direction. “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”

  Leo signaled me. I leaned down to listen. “I want animals,” he said in my ear.

  “He’s asking to see animals,” I said to Henry.

  Henry held out his rod and shook it. “Why don’t you try fishing instead?”

  “I want animals!” Leo wailed. I picked him up to calm him, but he thrashed like a fishing line mapping its path in the air. I almost dropped him, which gave the imp his chance. He squirmed out of my grasp and ran for the ponds. By the time I’d caught up with him, he was halfway along the concrete berm with the water right below. He might’ve slipped down the steep slope if a woman casting from the deck hadn’t nabbed him. She looked at Henry and me, amused.

  “He wants to see animals,” I said weakly.

  “So take him to see the bison.”

  I LEFT THE BIKE with Henry and walked Leo across the park road. Here was an astonishing image straight out of the Wild West: a herd of buffalo scattered on a gently rolling plain. I thought I must be dreaming. They stood stock-still, their great brown eyes watching us, unblinking. The huge humps and thunderous heads made me think of my oldest aunties, the horns as well, which were curved, short and sharp. I recalled the song about buffalo that Miss Chips taught us as part of her grammar unit, American Genocides: Past to Present, and surveyed the scene for deer and antelope too, but I saw none playing. A posted sign on the wire fence said AMERICAN BISON. You’ll think me foolish to have been so agape, but bison, you see, were as strange and wondrous to me as the giant panda is to the visitors who come to Chengdu by the millions to gawp and later boast that they had. The kings of the prairie had the same effect on me. What were they doing here, so far from their natural home? Had they come seeking adventure? Did their relatives miss them? Would they stay here forever or go back home someday?

  “I want up,” Leo said. He raised his arms, and I lifted him to my shoulders so he could get a better look. The bison stood like statues. Not a single tail flickered. Each one faced a different direction, a lot like the humans back at the saltbox deux.

  “Are they real?” I asked.

  Leo nodded.

  “Why don’t they move?”

  Leo didn’t reply. He was watching in awe, motionless himself.

  “It doesn’t seem natural that they’re frozen like that,” I said.

  “They run when it rains,” Leo informed me.

  “Why don’t you like to talk?” I said. “You know how to do it just fine.”

  He hammered his feet against my chest. The bison didn’t budge.

  HENRY INSISTED ON DRIVING Leo home, saying Kate wouldn’t want him to fall off the back of the bike, an alien worry to Father and me. We used to shout, as Leo did, moguling over the bumps. Father always trusted me to hang on tight.

  There wasn’t a car seat, but we buckled Leo securely, Henry promising to stop for ice cream from the Hippee Dippee truck, an offer he’d never made to me. I took my time biking back. They were all waiting.

  “What is wrong with you?” Orit demanded. “Are you crazy? No seat, no helmet! No shoes!”

  Aviva defended me, “Don’t be so dramatic. Shelley’s used to doing things differently.”

  “I’m sure it was fine. But check with us first next time,” Kate said, her hand smoothing the top of Leo’s head. I saw chocolate ice cream smeared on Leo’s face and a toy in his hand, our own little emperor in the making. Ted stood off to the side, his hands in biking gloves and his face reddened from the wind.

  “How about if Shelley takes him to the zoo tomorrow?” Henry said. “Give you gals some time to get organized.” Ted flicked a look at his father but didn’t contradict him. He must’ve come around to Aviva’s behest: the spongers were indeed moving in.

  “We’d be so grateful,” Kate said. She knelt to hug Leo. When she stood, there were tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s been a hard day. Thank you so much,” she said to Aviva. To Ted, gently, “I know it’s a lot to ask.”

  Ted cleared his throat and gripped one gloved hand in the other.

  “I want you to know—” he began, and then Henry interrupted.

  “Take whatever you need from my house. Books, kitchenware, extra sheets and blankets. Take Diana’s clothes. I kept a lot of her things. We can go through them together.” He looked like a kid unwrapping a longed-for present. Kate next door was better than ice cream, even if delivered at the price of her misfortune. He hadn’t noticed how he’d cut off Ted, who’d disappeared into the house.

  “You should’ve let him speak,” I said to Henry later. I hung his cap and jacket and put away his casting gear.

  “He’s not used to me yet. Once he gets to know me, he’ll start talking.”

  “Not Leo. Ted.”

  Henry growled, “What business is it of yours?”

  “Leo’s going into Eli’s room. Ted doesn’t want him to,” I said.

  “It’s about time. I don’t like the way he mopes. He’s not the only one who lost people he loved. And he’s a quitter. I don’t like quitters. He left his job at the newspaper just because he wrote that his mother worked alone at night. It was a stupid thing to quit over. He was feeling sorry for himself. I told him not to blame himself, but he didn’t listen. He never listens to me.”

  “He took that job in the mayor’s office. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “Huntington brought him to his senses. That freelance business was taking him nowhere.”

  “Next time, let him speak,” I said, thinking of the crying I’d heard from behind the fence. But Henry was thinking only of Kate.

  “I want you to be helpful to the girls. Look after Leo, get him talking. He’s got a real interest in science. According to Kate, he says an elephant seal weighs more than an elephant.” He chuckled. “Now there’s a bright kid.”

  What the heck was an elephant seal? “Everybody knows that,” I said.

  “I’ve got a book here somewhere.” He searched the shelves and found it, The Encyclopedia of Animals, with full-color plates.

  “Diana would’ve been happy. She and I always hoped that Kate and Ted would marry. Of course, it didn’t turn out that way. Diana understood before I did.” He shook his head. “I was a dummy. But I always knew how special Kate is.”

  “It’s only temporary. They’re not staying for good.” But I am.

  “Give him the book; that’s the ticket to Leo. He’ll warm up once he gets to know me.”

  I made dinner with a scowl.

  “What’s eating you?” Henry said.

  “They’re making a lot of work for Aviva,” I said.

  “Baloney. Admit it. You don’t want competition crowding you out.”

  My hand shook when he said that, and soup slopped on the table.

  “Now, now,” Henry said, amused by my dismay. “Think of our two houses as the family compound. You’re finally living at the lao jia. You got what you’ve always wanted.”

  “Not like this,” I said darkly from that part of myself that we all have, the part that speaks fluent auntie.

  13.

  HSW

  SUDDENLY I WAS TAKING CARE OF AN OLD MAN AND a kid and a dog. Henry’s hammertoes punched back, and the paring knife came out again. Leo couldn’t sleep at night; he missed his old bedroom. Kate came over to say that Leo was asking for me and if I wasn’t too busy, could I tuck him into bed? He was cross when I entered. I want Shelley, he said, pushing Kate toward the door. I perched on the bed and told him that the biggest bison in Golden Gate Park had called to make a bet: who could fall asleep faster, Leo or Shelley? Animals can’t talk, Leo said, disgusted. That’s why I like them. They don’t need words. They growl. He showed me his fangs and claws and asked for a bedtime story. I stretched out on the floor and began that old chestnut that Aviva had recited about the cowherd and the weaver princess, but Leo stopped me. She tried to tell me that one. I didn’t like it. He started climbing down from the bed for a bisonback ride, so I hastily started in on a different tale, one that Mother used to tell me, the story of the fisherman in the Peach Blossom Forest. He travels far from home to a distant land where everyone lives in prosperity and peace. I had the bright idea to speak in Mandarin so Leo would fall asleep faster, but the switcheroo didn’t work. He asked me to start over and speak more slowly so he could try the words himself. I tried to be somniferous, not an easy task for me, but I did my best to bore him.

  Eventually, Leo’s eyes drooped and his questions stopped and he fell so quiet that I rose to put my hand on his chest to make sure he was breathing. He looked peaceful sleeping in Eli’s bed. His pillow was bunched beside him in the shape of a smile, and I thought again of how wrong it was to leave a perfectly good bed empty. In fact, the whole room looked different from its earlier frozen state. The tiny blue and orange fish darted back and forth as before but now they seemed more playful than frenzied and the filter’s mad bubbling a cheery musicale. Eli’s portrait of Diana and all the drawings he’d made were gone, replaced by large colored pictures of animals in their baby state, hippos and zebras and cuddly polar bears. Leo had told me that the park was full of coyotes and hawks and even a mountain lion, but here were propaganda posters from the School of Darn Cute. A bright-eyed monkey watched me from a hanging scroll, so lifelike in his aspect that I almost checked his breathing. I supposed I sported the same simian expression every time I hung about in the kitchen doorway—avidly curious, enviably nimble. Alert to my next feeding and ready to jump if I had to.

  “Thank God for you, Shelley,” Aviva said when I emerged. Leo was a handful. Orit was working late, and Kate was exhausted. Aviva had sent her to bed. “His routine was disrupted, so he can’t sleep, and he won’t let me tuck him in though you know what a good storyteller I am. I learned a new one I’d like him to hear, a Native American tale. The Chinese folktales all end sadly.”

  This I knew. Once, at a gathering of the relatives at the lao jia, a year after Mother died, I tried to get Father to tell one of his little stories, which I’d boasted to the cousins were funnier and cleverer than anything they’d heard. Though Father hadn’t told me a story since Mother raised her hand to her mouth and passed into the night, I thought that if he had an audience of more than me, he might begin again.

  He refused. The cousins silently jeered me. In the old coal shed to which they later dragged me, their kicks landed hard, teaching me to keep quiet.

  “Why didn’t you tell a story?” I cried to Father later. “I promised them you would.”

  “The stories were for her,” Father said brusquely. “Now that she’s gone, there’s no point.”

  “But I liked them too!”

  “Then you’re a fool,” Father had said. “Never trust a story with a happy ending.”

  AVIVA GAVE ME A cup of milk and a few niblets of pretzels. “Leo’s bedtime snack. He didn’t want it.” Bedtime snacks, a fluffy pillow. Leo had three mothers now: Kate, Orit, and Aviva. I tried not to feel cheated that I had not a one. Resentment curdles contentment like a squeeze of lemon into milk, a lesson I had lately learned from watching Ted and Henry.

  “I wish Leo would talk to me the way he talks to you,” Aviva said. “He used to. Orit says he’ll talk as soon as he’s settled. But I’m worried. As a professional, you know, not because he ignores me. I can see he’s got a problem. Problem, I shouldn’t say problem. The word upsets Orit. He talks a blue streak to his mothers, but not a word to me. Apparently, he doesn’t talk much at preschool either. There are one or two kids he’s friends with, but in group, he clams up. Orit says he’s being shy and he’ll grow out of it. Kate asked the pediatrician, and she said he might be feeling anxious about starting kindergarten. We’re to keep an eye on things, see how he does. I agree with Kate. It’s not normal. Orit’s in denial. But if he’s super shy, or going mute around adults, or developing some sort of anxiety problem, what’s he doing talking to you? You get more out of him than anyone. Why is that do you suppose? It’s very interesting.”

 

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