Either the Beginning or the End of the World (20 page)

Across the river, cranes at the Navy Yard lift at an angle to the sky. If I stayed till sunset I'd hear the bugle call. Not Taps. But in my mind I can hear Luke whistling it for my grandmother, and I can imagine the notes coming across the river from the shipyard sound system. The memory of the sound fills me, and I see Luke at the window, whistling the notes to the words I always add.

Day is done,

Gone the sun,

From the hills, from the lakes, from the skies.

All is well,

Safely rest,

God is nigh.

The notes press on my heart.

“He will chase the ghost,” Yiey had said. “He help Srey Pov. He need time to take care himself.”

I look out over the rocks. Sometimes I see seals even in winter. They could be rocks until I see their eyes staring back. Souls of the drowned. Luke had hope in the seals and their mysteries, imagining how a living creature can transform and endure.

I call Pilot. She is busy, her licorice tail pointing, her right paw lifted, as she finds me a bird. I call again. She releases. We race with the wind round the curve of the land.

Rosa catches up with us, and we walk in the pebbles down on the beach before I go in to work. It's mid March, and already the air's different. It doesn't cut into my skin.

“I missed your opening at the Press Room,” I say.

“I was breathtaking,” Rosa says. “I'm officially a country western star. I wore boots with five-inch heels.”

Rosa has small Mickey Mouses painted on her fingernails over coral-pink polish. Her hair is down today and curled around her face.

“I did come to your birthday,” she says.

“Thank you,” I say.

“How is seventeen?”

I will remember seventeen as the year that I found it easy to slide into
Maggie Cassidy
and grasp a gun in my hand. And fire it into the Atlantic Ocean. And I loved a soldier.

“Seventeen,” I say. “I was a Spanish dancer.”

STICKY RICE

It's another work day. Soon I'll I step into Dunkin' Donuts,
Keeps You Running
.

Vincent will say, “Good of you.”

The orders will start coming through my earpiece. Vincent's tattooed fingers will dance on the register.

From the couch I see the mailman come up the walk. He's got a package way too big to put in the slot. At the door he hands it to me—an oversized mailer, bumpy and as long as Yiey's bass.

It's addressed to me.

I look at it a long time, still standing at the door. The baby is asleep. My mother is wearing a blue sarong and is preparing sticky rice. She has put the steam pot on to boil. When it boils, I know she'll drain the sticky rice in the bamboo steam basket, then rest the basket over the boiling water in the pot.

I put on my plaid jacket over my sweatshirt, the one that I always wear now with my Mason Oil cap. Luke would tease me and say I look like I work in a gas station.

I take the envelope outside. The small skiff is on its side by the chimney. I right it so its flat bottom is in the snow, which is down to only a foot or so. I step inside the skiff and sit. Lift the hood of the sweatshirt over my cap. I turn the package all around. It has no return address.

I peel the tape and rip the perforated seal. What's inside is wrapped in a layer of heavy brown paper. And under that, a layer of sheer paper, like tracing paper. When I get to the sheer paper, my hands start to shake. I can see.

I let the brown paper fall, then lift the picture, painted on cardboard, from its thin sleeve.

Luke has sent his painting of the medic with his fingers on the pulse of the child. There's the jagged splotches of polish on the child's nails. He has added something. I still can't see their faces, only the downward turn of the medic's head, the black and white American flag. But now, in the little girl's fist is a lollipop, pale cream with swirls of pink and turquoise, a little bit chewed on already. She's holding it firmly, upright.

He said,
We never know what happens, we move on.
But with the swirling lollipop he added, the story seems to shift. Maybe the child has a chance for healing. Maybe now the picture has hope.

- - -

My mother is still cooking. She is barefoot. I see her small steps as she moves from the stove to the sink. It's a tiny kitchen, and she moves back and forth. It becomes like a dance, step toe, step back, step toe, pause, or lift on her toes as she needs to reach something.

I unlace my boots and take off my socks and step onto the kitchen linoleum beside her.

She puts her finger to her lips. I nod.

She shakes the rice to loosen it in the bamboo basket. I take the basket and flip the rice to steam on the other side. Yiey taught me. She slices a mango, which she'll serve on the sweet rice. We open the lids of the individual serving baskets. Six baskets in a row on the counter. I imagine how Luke would paint them, the baskets in the morning light, the bright orange of the mango.

As we work, my bare feet move across the floor like my mother's.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many memoirs contributed to my understanding of growing up during the time of the Khmer Rouge. I'm indebted in particular to authors Loung Ung, Chanrithy Him, and Seng Ty. Thank you to colleagues at the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association in Lowell, Massachusetts, where I once taught English, and whose work supports the lives of Cambodian Americans.

Michael Pawluk, New Hampshire fisherman and friend, answered my questions with patience for years as he worked with changing regulations. Thanks to Mike and Captain Steve Lee, who invited me aboard the
Kirsten Lee
. Veterans at the Manchester Community College Vet Center told me of their experiences in war, of coming home, and of their respect for medics who supported their units. Thanks especially to Brian Taylor.

Thank you to Melanie Kroupa, my first reader, for her profound instincts on how to create story. Thanks also to Tracey Adams, Andrew Karre, John Mort, Jeannine Atkins, Cynthia Lord, Toni Buzzio, Megan Frazer Blakemore, Mimi White, Elizabeth Farish, Debra Lastoff, Raymond Kong, and especially my editor at Carolrhoda Lab, Anna Cavallo.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Terry Farish is the author of the award-winning verse novel
The Good Braider
, selected as a YALSA and
School Library Journal
Best Book for Young Adults and an American Library Association Outstanding Book for the College Bound and Lifelong Learner. She leads literacy programs for immigrants and refugees from around the world with the New Hampshire Humanities Council. She lives in Kittery, Maine.