World And Town Part 38

"I quit."

"Too busy cleaning, I guess."

"I guess."

"Why don't you start playing again? That would be an action."

Sophy waggles her head.

"An action that might lead to more action," says Hattie. "That might increase your capacity for contributing to better days."

Annie reappears and, when Sophy just looks at her, preoccupied, sits.

"Good girl!" Sophy pets her automatically, then has an orange slice. She spits out a pit.

Sarun goes to talk to Chhung after all. Hattie and Mum watch as best they can out the bedroom window, as does Sophy, leaving Gift to toddle around busily. If only Chhung would move his chair a little, they say. Why doesn't Sarun get him to move his chair? They draw a curtain against the worst of the glare; the lilac curtain s.h.i.+nes pink.

Finally Sarun returns. He reports first to his mother, tersely and quietly, in Khmer. She nods. Then he turns to Hattie and Sophy and, in a louder, more measured voice, gives his English report.

"I told him he was a great dad. I told him I was looking forward to Father's Day already. I told him I'd dig him the biggest pit he ever saw, if he wanted. I told him I'd dig night and day and that I wouldn't take a break until this place was the Sahara Desert." He stares at the TV, though it's off. "I told him I wasn't mad at him, and that I wished he'd come in. I invited him, in fact, to come in. f.u.c.king begged him. But, you know, he never even looked at me, the a.s.shole."

Silence.

"Did you tell him you forgave him?" asks Hattie, finally.

"It just made him feel worse," says Sarun.

"Bong," says Sophy patiently. "It can't have made him feel worse."

"He was using me!" Sarun's face is contorted and red except for his scar. "To make himself feel worse! I'm telling you, he was using me, my forgiveness, everything! To make himself feel f.u.c.king worse!"

No one thinks he can be right, but that night Chhung refuses to come in even to sleep. Sophy goes out to talk to him, then returns with the wheelbarrow.

"For blankets," she says, throwing bedding down into it from the front door. She trundles back off, leaning hard into the handles; Hattie recognizes that squeak of the wheel.

It's a cold night.

And in the morning, when they find Chhung curled up at the bottom of the pit, Sophy wishes she hadn't encouraged him. "His hair was iced up," she cries.

"He would've stayed out there anyway, the a.s.shole," says Sarun. "Believe me. He would've stayed out there so he could freeze to death."

Gift squeals at something on TV, but no one looks to see what it is.

"What would happen," says Hattie, "if you stopped bringing him cigarettes and alcohol?"

"Whatta you high?" Sarun bugs his eyes.

"It's just an idea." Hattie proffers a chopstick.

Sarun takes it-his neck-but Sophy is outraged.

"That would be, like, starving him," she says.

By day, Chhung mans his station. By night, he heads into the pit. Mum keeps him company, huddling beside him as he lies there, though he refuses to open his eyes or speak to her. He does, however, allow her to help him go to the bathroom, and thanks to his diabetes, Sophy says, he does pee and pee.

"Diabetes?" says Hattie.

It's the first she's heard about that-how worrisome. Although, yes. At least it gets him up. At least it gets him to drink. At least it gets him to let Mum stay with him. Mum prays and prays, her white shawl wrapped around her jacket; Sophy brings Mum blankets for the night, too, and warm drinks. Hats for both of them; the temperature at night is in the twenties now. And crates, to make it easier to climb in and out.

In the morning, Sophy brings Sarun and Gift along with her. Hattie watches, moved, as the whole family helps Chhung out of the pit for the day. Mum supports one arm, Sophy the other, as he steps slowly up the shaky crates; they pa.s.s him on to Sarun, who, awkward as he is in his collar, manages to help Chhung up onto solid ground. The family works together, too, to settle Chhung in his chair-Mum and Sophy on arm duty again, Sarun supporting his back. Even Gift grabs a leg, trying to help. And there-mission accomplished. Chhung is seated. Never mind that his hat is on funny, or that his jacket has hiked up, affording a bright glimpse of his brace. He's seated.

Father 'n' son braces!

Sophy runs off to get breakfast.

"We have to help him because of his back," she says later. "We don't want his back to get worse." Elbows in the air, she gathers her hair at the nape of her neck as if getting ready to put it in a ponytail-having forgotten it's not long enough, it seems. "I don't think starving him is going to help," she adds, letting go.

Greta and Grace stop by the pit with doughnuts.

"Are you all right?" asks Grace, her hair blowing.

Mum looks to Hattie for translation though she should really understand this. Hattie suspects she is just being shy but, after a moment, translates.

"She's asking, How are you?"

"I'm fiyne," Mum tells Grace.

"You're fine?" says Greta.

Mum nods enthusiastically, accepting a jelly roll. Then comes a puff of wind; confectioners' sugar powders her mouth and jacket. She looks down, horrified, and disappears into the trailer.

Greta and Grace knit their brows. Their hair flies sideways, aviator-style; Grace clamps hers down with a hand to either side of her face. She looks to be holding her head on. Greta, too, her braid notwithstanding, pulls strands out of her mouth.

"This can't go on," she says. She gestures at Chhung, asleep in his folding chair at the other end of the pit. "What can we do?"

Hattie tightens her jacket hood and thinks. Would it be too crazy to tell Chhung that Greta and Grace are from the Department of Social Services, and that a complaint has been filed against him? It would seem an unlikely way of helping, except that Sophy seems to think that if no one punishes her father, he'll punish himself. So maybe it's worth a try? Of course, the game will be up if Chhung recognizes anyone. But luckily, though Greta and Grace have both dropped food off at the trailer at times, they say it was always Mum who took the deliveries.

They turn now into the wind; Hattie wakes Chhung up.

"You have visitors," she says.

He opens his eyes.

"We're from the Department of Social Services," says Greta sternly. "We've come to inform you of a complaint filed against you."

"Declaring you an unfit parent." Grace is trying to look stern, too, but it's like watching Santa Claus trying to play Hitler. "We thought you'd want to know."

Silence. Chhung's eyes are sunken and his pupils enlarged, his eyes and face as disconcerting as ever. He's only half awake; his chin is sprouting wires. And yet his backlit hair, blowing forward, frames his face in an oddly flattering way.

"Someone will be coming to question you," says Greta.

"You will need to prepare yourself," says Grace.

A raft of brown leaves suddenly levitates, then just as suddenly settles, like something live. Chhung gives a social smile, as if practicing already for his interview.

"When?" he croaks.

Greta and Grace look discreetly to Hattie.

"In a month or so," says Grace-the pitch of her voice far lower than Hattie would have believed possible. Removing her gardening gloves, she zips up her parka with authority. "I believe." She puts her gloves back on.

"After Thanksgiving," supplies Greta, squaring her chin and throwing her braid back. "You'll be receiving a, ah, summons in the mail."

Chhung nods again, and as Grace and Greta leave, half stands to see them off.

"No, no, don't move!" they insist, abandoning their roles. "Don't get up! Please! Stay!"

"Tank you." He gives a jaunty wave but frowns as he sits down and, the next day, begins to refuse food. Though he still smokes and drinks, his meals come and go untouched.

"He can't wait a month," says Sophy, leaning on the kitchen counter. "Maybe I'll tell him the hearing's been moved up."

"Good idea."

"I'll tell him he has to eat so he'll be strong enough to talk at the trial. You know, to defend himself and stuff."

Hattie heats up lunch. "It's definitely worth trying."

Sophy looks at her. "You look, like, exhausted," she says suddenly.

Hattie bangs a cooking spoon on the edge of a pot.

What can I do?" says Carter. "Tell me what I can do."

He has at least knocked. Without waiting for Hattie to answer, though, he has marched in, taken off his jacket, hung it up on a peg and, ignoring the dogs' barking-ordering them, in fact, to sit-seated himself in a chair next to her. It's the way he used to enter her lab cubicle, only here they are at her kitchen table, his knees jutting out to either side of his elbows-a little male splay display. Hattie even recognizes that old blue-green sweater, or thinks she does. Can it really have lasted this long? Its cuffs and collar are frayed, and there are several out-and-out holes, but the subtlety of its colors is still something. All those heathery hues, every one of them difficult to name; kingfisher blue, she had thought one, when she first saw it. The others were beyond both her Chinese and her English. Not that she has cared much for such things-for things in general-but where did sweaters like that even come from? She had always thought she'd know one day, but realizes now that she never did find out. The dogs gather around him. He pets them, strokes their brows, cradles their heads, then raises his gaze, which, intensified by the sweater, is simply unnerving. She cannot reconcile it with her chock-a-block kitchen-how cluttered her counters! She closes down her computer, straightens up some papers. Is there not something unfair about this visit? This visitation, she wants to say. She feels intruded upon, delighted, stricken; she wants him to leave; she is afraid she is going to cry.

"I want to know what I can do."

She jams some pencils in a cup.

"Can I make us some coffee?" he says.

"Sure." She tries to sound offhand, though in fact no one but her has made coffee in her kitchen since Lee died, and that was not even in this house. As the dogs seem to know. They watch intently as he puts the kettle on. Now this is strange, their bodies say-even Annie's says it's strange, though maybe she is just picking it up from Reveille. And Hattie's state; their tails are high. How glad she is, meanwhile, to be presented with Carter's back, for a moment. This tallish, deliberate, familiar man. Not huge; and yet the kettle is too small for him. The sink sits too low for him, also, and the windows.

All these things reinforcing what her heart has already guessed: He would never fit here.

"Do you want me to talk to Sophy?" he asks as he fiddles with the gas k.n.o.b-noticing how the flames lap up yellow and, with a little stoop, looking to get them right.

"You could ask if she'd like to restart guitar lessons."

"Done." He turns and roughhouses with the dogs. "What else? What are we going to do about Chhung?"

"I don't know."

"Still keep your coffee in the freezer?"

She nods. Really she should stand to help-get some cookies, something-but instead she beholds herself in her blank computer screen: Why does she wear two pairs of gla.s.ses on her head? She takes them off and lays them on the desk.

"I'm so sorry about this whole affair, you know." He takes some mugs from the dish rack.

"It's not your fault."

"I won't claim that. But I contributed. I could have talked to Sophy. I should have talked to Sophy."

"We all contributed."

"It was ..." He hesitates. "Perverse. Perverse and stupid and confused." He clears his throat. "Now I would like to contribute to a solution." He trains his eyes on her, standing close enough that she can see her silhouette in them, tiny but sharp. "How about Everett? Can I talk to Everett?"

"Find out if he's planning to press charges?" Hattie's mouth is talking without her. "That would be a help, yes. And it would be nice to verify that the state won't investigate. People a.s.sume there was a problem with the wiring, but the electricians might contest that, and then what."

"I'll look into it. Talk to Lukens, maybe."

"Also, Sophy would like to apologize to Everett."

Carter nods his subtle nod. "I'll see to that, too, when I see him. There's only one thing."

The dogs lie down at his feet.

"You have to come with me."

"Why?"

"Why?" He pours. "Because I didn't move to this d.a.m.ned town to teach yoga and make boats, I've realized. Slow as I can be and possessed of apparently formidable powers of repression. Two-percent, no sugar?"

"I'm drinking Lactaid now."

"Of course. Your paternal ancestors not having raised cows."

"Exactly."

"So that they did not evolve to keep the lactase gene turned on after infancy, as did some other populations. A cla.s.sic case of a cultural trait becoming a genetic characteristic." He stops, his hand on the fridge handle. "Hattie?"

"Yes."

"Do I see tears?"

"No."