Read An-Ya and Her Diary Online
Authors: Diane René Christian
Wanna and Ellie baked a chocolate cake with blue icing. Daddy put 12 candles on top and everyone sang the birthday song. I was supposed to make a wish when I blew out the candles, but I didn’t know what to wish for. I couldn’t think of anything. So I just blew them out to get it over with.
Then I had to open presents. Daddy gave me a watch that has a crystal in the middle. It looks fancy. Ellie gave me a necklace with a charm that says sisters. I won’t be wearing it. Wanna gave me a new quilt for my bed that she sewed herself. It is made of all different blue colored fabric. Some blue fabric squares have pink flowers inside to match the pink blanket on my bed.
After I finished opening my presents, I asked if I could go to my room. Wanna looked upset, but she said that it was fine.
Do you think She is thinking about me today?
Dear Penny,
Wanna is crying. I am in my room, but I can hear her. It is a loud cry mixed with a yell and a little bit of choking. It is my fault that she is crying.
She came into my room after my birthday party and asked me if I was ok. I told her she wasn’t my mother and I wanted to go back to China.
I don’t know why I said that about wanting to go to China. What is there for me to go back to? Nobody wanted me there.
I wanted to tell Wanna that I wanted my real mother and I wanted to spend my birthday with Her. I didn’t say those things, but I said enough to make Wanna cry.
I don’t belong anywhere. I guess I never did. I probably never will.
Dear Penny,
I see dancers in my head when music is playing. They are beautiful dancers and wear beautiful costumes. The music decides how they dance and what color their costumes are. I’ve always been able to see them. As far back as I can remember.
In the orphanage, the Nanny that I loved, the one that I hoped would make me her daughter, would play the piano. She wasn’t very good, but the children liked it. Maybe she was better and it was the piano’s fault. It was a dirty old piano with most of the paint worn off.
When the Nanny played, I would lie on the floor and listen. I would watch the dancers in my head.
Wanna plays music all the time. Different music on different days. Sometimes she tells Ellie and me to sit on the floor and listen with her. Wanna says to feel the music and let the music take us wherever we want to go. Weird, I know.
I don’t know what I feel or where I want to go, but I like to watch the dancers in my head.
Dear Penny,
Wanna doesn’t let me help her clean the house. She says that cleaning the house is a mother’s job. She tells me it is my job to play. I have to pick up my own messes, but I am not allowed to help clean.
In the orphanage it was a child’s job to clean. My hands were rough and my nails broke off as soon as they started to grow. Now my hands are getting soft and smooth, and my nails are longer then they have ever been. It feels strange.
A few days after I came here, Wanna took me to the doctor. She showed the doctor my hands and seemed worried that something was wrong with me. The doctor asked Wanna what kind of soap I used in China and if I was I forced to clean. I didn’t say anything. I just listened.
The truth is I didn’t mind cleaning the orphanage. I scrubbed the floors and metal cribs. I washed clothes and dishes in a big red bucket. It was something to do and I was good at it.
I’m not good at playing. I am much better at cleaning.
Dear Penny,
The same red bucket that I washed clothes and dishes in was the one I used to wash myself. I was responsible for washing Abby too. She would giggle when I washed her tiny feet.
Now I don’t wash with water from a bucket. I take a shower. The water comes out of this metal thing, and it is like standing in the rain. I used to hate it, I was scared of it, but now I like it. I like the feeling of standing in the rain.
Dear Penny,
Ellie likes to sit close to me. She sits next to me and tries to rub my arm. Sometimes I let her and sometimes I don’t. It reminds me of Abby when she rubbed the hand of the blind boy.
The blind boy in the orphanage wouldn’t open his eyes. I don’t know what his eyeballs looked like because I never saw them. The other kids were scared of him, but not Abby. He would stand in a corner and rock back and forth. He spent all day standing there and swaying.
He would make a strange humming sound and move the fingers on his hands. Sometimes, if he was upset, the humming would get really loud. I would take Abby over to him, but I didn’t get very close. Abby would walk to him and reach up and rub his hands, and then his humming would get quiet again. I don’t know how she thought of it, but it helped him feel better. I wonder if she still does that.
Dear Penny,
There are sounds and smells that remind me of the orphanage. I never know when or where to expect them. If I hear those sounds or smell those smells, the faces of the orphanage children come back to me. I forget now what most of the children looked like. It makes me afraid to see their faces in my head. I don’t know why it makes me so afraid.
Dear Penny,
My new family gives lots of little kisses. Every time we say hello and goodbye we get a kiss. There are times that we get kisses for no reason. The first time Wanna kissed me for no reason, I was surprised. I asked her what she was doing. Wanna held onto me, and her yellow hair mixed with my black. She told me that in that very minute, her heart was so filled with love that she couldn’t help it. I was not comfortable.
In the orphanage I received my first kiss that I remember. It was from a boy who I didn’t think knew my name. I knew who he was. He had a large dark red spot that covered half of his face. His hair was black like the night. His eyes were shiny and he was nice to all of the children. I think he was older than me, but we were about the same size.
One day he was standing across the room holding his purple backpack. He was leaving. He was going to be adopted. I watched him talk to the nannies and say his goodbyes. Then he turned and looked straight at me. I was sitting on the floor next to Abby. I looked at her to see if she knew why he was staring. She was too busy playing with her toes to notice.
He dropped his purple backpack to the floor and started walking toward me. I didn’t know what to do. I looked around to see if there was somewhere else he was going, but there wasn’t anybody but me. It seems like it took forever for him to walk to the other side of the room. He stared at me and smiled the whole time he was walking.
Then, there he was, right next to me. I think I said hello. He didn’t say hello back, instead he said goodbye. He said—
Goodbye An-Ya.
He said my name, and then he bent down and kissed my check. It felt like my cheek became red like his.
Everyone in the room laughed. I didn’t laugh. My first kiss and another goodbye all happened at the same time.
Dear Penny,
For a long time after I was adopted, I felt sick to my stomach. My body understood rice and noodles, but it didn’t like anything else inside it. I know I told you that I ate a lot of food in China, after I was adopted, and I did. But it made me feel sick. It was so incredible to be able to eat it all, but I think I ate too much.
After I came here, I stopped eating. I couldn’t do it anymore. I felt awful. Wanna must have been worried because she kept asking me if I was ok. Then, when I wouldn’t answer, she started cooking different food. Her rice and noodles don’t taste the same, but my stomach feels better now.
Dear Penny,
Ellie’s kitty Sweet Pea is missing. I didn’t do it. Really. I have no idea where the stupid kitty is. Wanna thinks I did it, and she yelled in my face to give it back. I could feel Wanna’s spit on my face as her words flew out of her mouth. Ellie won’t stop crying. Daddy is mad at me too.
I hate them all.
Dear Penny,
Sweet Pea is still missing, and Wanna stopped asking me about my feelings. She hasn’t asked me anything about them all day. Not that I would have answered her anyway. But still. She gave up. I knew she would. I knew it all along.
Dear Penny,
I feel pain. I have pain in my shoulder and in my back. I am sure that there must be bruises, and I keep waiting for them to show up. There is nothing. No black and no blue. Just the pain inside. I don’t know what is happening to me. The pain is very real, but I didn’t fall down or get hurt. It is not my imagination. When I try to lift my arms up or even as I am writing in you, the pain is there. I want the pain to go away. Go away pain, and stop bothering me. Uh oh. I think I am going to throw up.
Dear Penny,
Last night Wanna heard me throwing up. She took me back to bed and rubbed my shoulders. I was so dizzy that I didn’t care what she did. She says I have the flu. I need to stay in bed until it gets better. How is it going to get better? I am hot and cold and my whole body hurts. I don’t trust Wanna to make it better. I need to learn more about medicine so I can fix these things myself.
Dear Penny,
Wanna has come to check on me a thousand times. She brings me soup and juice and keeps saying—
Drink more, An-Ya, you need to drink more, An-Ya, drink
.
She brings me a hot wash cloth when I am cold and a cold wash cloth when I am hot. Wanna wraps me in her white robe, and a few minutes later will take it off and place it next to my body. She keeps doing these things over and over again, because every few minutes, my body changes from sweating to shaking.
Wanna rubs my head and sings to me. She sings about rainbows and bridges and angels and stars. It reminds me of the Nanny who I loved. The Nanny who sang me lullabies in the orphanage. The language is different, but the sound is the same.
I am so tired that I can’t see the dancers in my head when Wanna sings.
Sometimes Ellie comes in and reads me her diary and sometimes she sings too.
I am starting to feel less pain, but I am so tired.
Dear Penny,
Wanna asked me who Abby was. I was so surprised that I didn’t say anything for a long time. It was very strange for Wanna to talk about Abby, to hear her say Abby’s name out loud, and it was even stranger that I wanted to tell Wanna about Abby.
My temperature was really high last night, and I was burning alive with a fever. I was so hot. In my sickness, my hotness, Wanna said I cried for Abby many times. Wanna said that I cried Abby’s name over and over again. Wanna knew that I needed Abby, but she didn’t know who Abby was to find her and help me get better.
I don’t remember saying anything about Abby. I only remember burning.
I told Wanna about Abby, not everything, but parts. Maybe I am still sick. I don’t know why I was able to talk about her. All I know is that Wanna said she will try to find out if Abby is ok. Maybe soon I will know how Abby is doing. I told Wanna that Abby is the only child in the orphanage with grey eyes and white hair. Wanna said that it was lucky that Abby looked different, but did I know if Abby was her Chinese name? No, I said, I don’t remember her Chinese name. Wanna said—
No worries, An-Ya. I will do my best to find your Abby.
Dear Penny,
Wanna found Sweet Pea. Ellie forgot that she was playing hide and seek with Sweet Pea, and she stuck Sweet Pea in the clothes dryer to hide. Wanna found her when she went to wash clothes today.
Everyone came into my room and said that they were sorry. Ellie cried and said—
I so sorry, An-Ya. You are good and I am bad.
Wanna and Daddy said they felt terrible for yelling at me. They asked me to please forgive them. I don’t know. What is the point of telling the truth? If I lie, then I am in trouble. If I don’t say anything, then I am in trouble. If I tell the truth, then I am in trouble too. At least they said that they were sorry. That’s something, I guess. I’ve never said I am sorry to them.
Dear Penny,
Today I was feeling well enough to go to the parade in town. I am still tired, but the pain is gone.
I have never been to a parade before. The entire town was there. There were people as far as I could see up and down the street. We carried foldable chairs into town and sat in front of the ice cream parlor. It seemed like it took forever for the parade to start, and I was nervous because I didn’t know what would happen exactly.
Wanna gave me a bag and told me that it was for the candy. Where the candy was going to come from, I didn’t know. As soon as the parade started, I figured it out. There were big cars with decorations and people in costumes who threw candy into the street, and all the children would rush out to grab as much as possible.
I didn’t run into the street because there was plenty of candy that landed next to my chair. Ellie danced around like a crazy person and grabbed much more candy than me. I didn’t have the energy to run around for candy. There was also loud music and marching bands.
The Mean Boy in the orphanage would have been jealous that I saw a real marching band. He was the marching band leader in the orphanage. It was not very good, not at all, and the orphanage marching band costumes were all old and didn’t fit anyone the right way. The costumes were supposed to be red, and maybe when they were brand new they were, but they had faded and turned an ugly pink.
The Mean Boy had a stick for a baton. He would smack the other band members if he felt that they weren’t following directions or trying hard enough. All of their instruments didn’t work and sounded terrible. The instruments that they had were not even real marching band instruments. I didn’t see any guitars in the marching bands today. I definitely didn’t see guitars that were missing half their strings. The orphanage band had hats with a dirty feather that stuck up at the top. It was hard to not laugh at them because they took their marching band so seriously. But when they performed, the nannies would clap and the Mean Boy thought that he was really something special. Abby would clap too. I guess she wasn’t old enough to realize how stupid the whole thing was.