Part 34 (1/2)

Dear Aunt Hattie

Dear Aunt Hattie

Dear Aunt Hattie

She reads and rereads them all. Decisions and accidents, parents and children, and worry-such a lot of worry. Such a lot of want. Not want such as she sees in the malls, but the kind of want her mother used to talk about-the kind that affected a person's posture. Do you not see, her mother wrote to Grandpa Amos, how people want? Do you not see how people hurt? Do you not see how you refuse to acknowledge them except as candidates for salvation?

Now Reveille and Annie sniff and hang around. Reveille puts his head in her lap. Annie chases down a mouse and brings it to Hattie, but then drops it, her tail wagging; the mouse scoots away.

Hattie sighs.

And that night, in her sleep, she sees her parents. Hattie has not dreamed of her parents for years; but there they are, waving their arms, whether in warning or greeting is not clear. In the morning, Hattie goes about her day as usual, but at night, there are her parents again. And there, too, is Qufu-the ancient trees, the mounds, the dust. The airless air. Though this Qufu lies right on the beach, somehow, like Qingdao; some of the grave mounds are made of sand. Hattie does not put much stock in dreams. Still.

Dear Aunt Hattie

Dear Aunt Hattie

Dear Aunt Hattie

Chhung at his station. Sarun in the hospital. Mum by her altar. Sophy, cleaning and cleaning. Even the Come 'n' Eat is empty, as if the town's lost its appet.i.te.

”I don't know what to do,” says Hattie. ”I don't know what to do.”

The chairs all around them are neatly pushed in, like the chairs of a cla.s.sroom. Grace looks at her.

”Time,” she says. ”Give it time.” For some reason she is wearing a watch today.

Watch.

”I can't watch,” says Hattie.

”Watch what?” says Greta.

”Watch their lives fall apart this way.”

Grace hands Hattie a horseshoe-print handkerchief.

”I have to do something.” Hattie accepts the handkerchief, then realizes she's crying.

”Aren't you bringing them dinner?” Greta is singing a lullaby. ”Aren't you helping with child care?”

”You are. You're helping. You're helping.” Grace's voice is a hymn. ”You're helping.”

But Hattie shakes her head. ”They need more. New karma. New fngs.h.i.+. Something.”

Fngs.h.i.+?

Hattie explains-the graves. The e-mails.

”You've started reading them again?”

Hattie shrugs. ”I see them differently now. Before they were all about superst.i.tion.”

”And now?” Grace tilts her head, her face soft and dimply.

”Now when I read them I just see Mum praying.”

”You wouldn't try to convert her.”

”No.”

”But you don't believe what she believes, either.”

”That life is suffering? That all we can do is build up our karma?” Hattie shakes her head. ”No.”

Greta orders some more tea.

Flora is not the only one with a color theme today. Greta's gold. Gold turtleneck, gold jumper-golden tea, and golden honey, too. And though Hattie knows Greta's hair, of course, to be silver, in the sun it is golden as well, like her barrette. A vision of her friend more than her friend herself.

”Did your parents want to be buried in Iowa?” she asks.

”I'm sure they didn't, though they didn't want to be buried in Qufu, either,” answers Hattie.

”So what did they want?” Grace's hair, live with static, stands on end-a dandelion puff.

”Probably they would just as soon have been sprinkled in a garden,” says Hattie. ”I had a friend who did that-had us sprinkle her in a peony bed.”

”Wasn't that your friend Lee?”

Hattie doesn't remember having told Greta and Grace about Lee, but of course she has, many times.

”Yes,” she says.

”Some people are keeping their parents' ashes instead of burying them,” says Greta. ”I know someone who made a receptacle out of a prayer wheel. She put it in her kitchen, so she can give it a spin every now and then.”

”Really,” says Hattie, and wants to laugh-the first time in weeks she's wanted to laugh.