At the Heart of the Universe (4 page)

That night, with Clio out at a business meeting, Pep curled up with Katie to put her to sleep, as he had done when she was a baby, before she had—as he saw it—turned so totally to Clio. The whole first year he had been the one to put her to bed, and the love he felt for his tiny, beautiful
Asian
daughter
astonished him. That night once again he hugged his nine-year-old gently close, feeling again her little smooth shoulder against his chest, her hair a black silk wave flowing across his face. “Hey, Dad,” she said, “remember Lion Army, Lion Army?” Once when she was small and he was cuddling her this way, she'd called out, “Lion Army, Lion Army,” and he asked, what was this army? and she lifted up her head and put his arm under it and said, “No, I mean lie on arm-ey, lie on arm-ey!” and they'd laughed and laughed. Now she put her head on his arm and he read her another chapter of
The Wind in the Willows
. As he read, feeling that smooth cheek against his, he flushed, and his voice cracked.

“What's wrong with your voice, Dad?”

“Nothing.”
Why can't I tell her?

He finished, and started to rub her back—another ritual.

“Dad?” she said, after a while.

“Yes, foozle?”

“I hate school.”

“What? I thought you liked school. This whole year with Miss Witters, studying the Greeks?”

“I do, but I don't like, you know,
school
? Can I stay home tomorrow?”

“Nope. It's your job, like mine and Mom's. You have to go.” Katie groaned. “Why don't you like school?”

Katie paused. “Never mind.”

“C'mon, c'mon, tell your dad.”

“Like no one wants to be my friend anymore—Tara hangs out with Kissy now in recess, they don't want me with them. I feel like I'm
outsidered
!” Tears came to her eyes. She felt his strong arms around her, caught the earthy scent of his skin and his nightly beer, heard him ask why, and blurted out, “I think it's because I'm different?”

“Different how?”

“When they look at me it's like I can
feel
them saying, ‘She's different.' Like they look at the outside of me and see I'm Chinese and there aren't any other Chinese in my class—in the whole school!—and they don't like me from the outside and they don't
see
that inside I'm the same as them, and I just want to be friends? I hate Spook Rock—they're all stuck up and into being popular.” She wasn't crying now, and turned over to look at him. “Can I go to public school the rest of the year?”

Pep had never seen such a sad look on her face. She was, as always, laser-like in her intensity, and he'd seen her in tears before, but this was something else—a deep hurt, a sorrow. “I'm really sorry you feel bad, hon, but how would that help?”

“'Cause there are Chinese kids there, some of 'em are my age, like the kids whose mom and dad own the Chinese restaurant we go to? I want to change schools. Please?”

Pep was shocked. He'd known that lately, most mornings, she hadn't wanted to go to school, but he'd never realized why.

“Mom and I'll talk about it tomorrow. We'll try to work something out. I'm really sorry you're having such a hard time, Kate-zer. It's
sad
.”

“Really, really sad, yeah.”

“We'll try to help. We'll take it
gentle-gentle
, like always, okay?”

“Okay, but don't say
anything
to any kids or teachers or other parents, okay?”

“Of course not, hon.” She laid her head down on his arm again, and he said what he had always said to her in the old days, “Coazy-coazy! It's so coazy-coazy!” and he rubbed her back and felt her calm down. Her confiding in him, and the feeling of being so close to her, like they once had been, brought a sudden bolt of despair.
How has it happened? How have I lost this? Somehow or other, with my wife and my daughter, I've become outsidered too, and I've got no idea how to get back in.
Close to tears, feeling her calm breathing, he realized the depth and intensity of his love for her—and for Clio. It made him realize how lonely he had become.
Katie and Clio have their own world together now. I've gotten pushed out—and they don't even know I feel it.
He sighed. Figuring she was asleep, he eased his arm out from under her and got up.

“Check on me, Dad, will you?”

“Sure, hon.”

“And keep checking on me.”

“I will. Have a beautiful sleep. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

He got up, tucked her in, and left. Maybe this was why she'd had such trouble going to sleep lately. Ever since her last sleepover, at Kissy's, when she'd called in the middle of the night and they'd had to go all the way out to Copake Falls to get her and bring her home. She said, then, that she had been the last one awake, left alone in the dark, unable to fall asleep. Alone. Left. Scared. Ever since, they'd had the night ritual of going back into her bedroom every few minutes so she knew they were there, until she was asleep.
Maybe it is from her being abandoned, left alone in the dark, at only a month old. Clio's right. In Changsha, we have to find out what we can.



The next day Katie came home from school with a gift for Clio, a Chinese-style drawing she had done—a bunch of purple grapes on a branch—and a poem:

We both have hearts.

Your in mine and mine in yours.

Even if your far away I'll

Always carry you in my heart.

Later that night Pep and Clio talked over what Katie had said. Clio talked with Katie alone as well. Talking seemed to help, but they couldn't send her to public school, no. Spook Rock Country Day was elitist, yes, but Columbia Public was like a war zone.

A week later, when Clio was driving her after school, Katie, from the backseat, said, “Mom, I've been thinking of like when we're in China?”

“Yes, dear?”

“I bet my birth mom will recognize me, and I think I'll want to stay a while?”

Clio was startled. The Volvo jumped toward a ditch, then swerved back. Ever since the adoption, the image of Katie's birth mom had never been far from Clio's mind. The woman was always a presence, always
there
. Almost every day Clio would be surprised to find herself thinking of her—no, not thinking, more that she was just
there
.
Not as a vision, never as a particular image, just a
sense
—like from time to time she still sensed her own dead mother
there
with her. The
sense
was of a slender, pretty but worn woman of thirty-something in a peasant's shirt and pants, poor beyond belief but proud, even elegant, both shy and strangely sure. And soulful. Like Katie—whose sureness, Clio had come to realize, was a reaction to her own shyness, her own deep soulfulness. Only rarely would Katie mention her birth mom. On Katie's birthday they'd light a twenty-one-year candle to her birth mother and say a prayer, to remember that wherever in China she might be, she too was remembering Katie that day. The first time Katie mentioned her she was about four. They were in the car, and suddenly from the backseat came, “Mommy, I came from another mommy's tummy, right?” Clio was stunned, but ready. “Yes, darling, in China before we met you, you grew in another mommy's tummy and they weren't able to take care of you because they didn't have enough food and money, so we went and got you and brought you home.” From the backseat, total silence. Clio held her breath. Finally she said, “Do you understand?”

“Yeah,” Katie said, “can I have french fries for dinner?” Pep broke out laughing, as did Clio—and Katie too, even though she didn't know why. She screeched with laughter, like a happy bird.

And so now when Katie brought up finding her birth mother on their trip back to China, Clio said, “What a great thought, hon. But it's a big country—over a billion people—we probably won't even meet her.”

“Yeah, but if we do she'll recognize me.”

“Yes, maybe she would.”

“She
will
. And if we have a like
chance
to meet her, you'll make it happen?”

“Of course.”

“As hard as you can?”

Clio loved this in Katie, her focus, her optimism, her being so quietly
tenacious
. Right from the first time they saw her, at four months. “Yes.”

“Promise?”

”Promise.”

“We'll meet her and stay for a while! Thanks, Mom.”

Clio's heart was beating fast, pulsing in her temples. Not so much at the “meeting her” part, but at the “stay for a while.” It wrenched her, a hand reaching in, twisting.

“China's the biggest country in the world, right?” Katie asked.

“Yes, but India is catching up fast, and—”

“China will win. Trust me.”

“Okay. Call me if I need you.” Clio said, using their funny goodnight line.



As they drove on to Mary's Farm, Katie was strangely silent. They pulled into the rutted dirt road leading up to the barn. The woman who ran the place was a kind of earth mother, a divorced fifty-something who had inherited a plot of farmland and kept herself going by boarding horses and giving riding lessons to the rich New Yorkers who had moved upriver a hundred miles into Kinderhook County. But lately business had been bad. A brand-new, sparkly clean upscale riding venture called Ascot Equestrian was siphoning away her clientele. All of Katie's private school friends went to Ascot now, but Katie insisted on sticking with Mary. The “Farm” was a ramshackle place with run-down old barns and leaky fences and haphazard cages and coops. Mary had horses and goats that shared the stable, and chickens and miniature ponies that could pull a cart and rabbits and a pig and a snake and any other stray animal that wandered in. Katie loved riding, but also loved just hanging out with Mary, doing chores and talking with her. At Mary's, Katie was in animal heaven. She'd always loved animals, especially babies, and wanted to work in a shelter some day. Twice a week here she could spend as much time as she wanted with whatever animals she wanted.

Mary, muddy and smiling, waved to them from up the lane.

Katie waved back, opened the door, and said, “Bye, Mom.”

“Bye, dear.” Clio leaned toward her, into the backseat. “See you soon.”

Katie hesitated, and then shut the door again. “Mom, I'm feeling a little sad.”

“Why's that?”

“Well, I'm thinking over and over about my birth mom leaving me and never seeing me again. And it's really sad to think when I had to say goodbye to her.” Tears came to her eyes. Clio reached for her, hugged her across the seat, feeling the little shoulders shake. After a few moments Katie sat back, and wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. Clio handed her a tissue. She blew her nose. Again she was quiet, sitting there still, head down. Finally she said, “But
every
mom has to leave her daughter sometime and never see her again.
All
moms and dads have to say goodbye to their kids, and their kids to them?”

“I know, dear. But that's a long, long time away, and when that time comes, Daddy and I are going to make sure that you're ready.”

“You can't promise that.”

“No, we can't. But we'll try our best. And life has a way of making sure you're ready. It may sound weird, but it's true.”

Katie considered this. “'Kay.” She opened the door again.

“Hi there,” Mary said to them both, her eyes telling Clio that she knew something was up. Her broad face and even her hair were coated with dirt.

“How'd you get so muddy?” Katie asked.

“That horse Velcro! He's such a brat! Pushed me into a big mudhole!” She laughed, heartily. “A brat, right, Katie?”

“A real brat, yeah!”

“C'mon, I need some help.”

“You got it!” Katie cried happily. “Bye, Mom.”

“Don't get too dirty, hon.”

“Oh Mom!” She rolled her eyes and ran off.

As Mary went to her house to wash up, Katie walked toward the barn, head down. She kicked resentfully at the yellow, red, and purple leaves in her path. Magically, as if in answer, a whirlwind of leaves spiraled up and around her, riding an unseen breeze. She watched them fly away, free as birds.
Like they're little sads, flying away.
She smiled. At the barn, she pulled hard on the weight-balanced door and suddenly she was inside.
Smell of hay and moldy stuff and pine needles and dirt and horse poop and goat poop and Velcro and leather and earth like when you turn it up for the plants in spring. I love the smell of earth and pine.