World And Town Part 36

"It already has a stamp on it. All you have to do is pop it in the mail."

"That's great."

"I appreciate it."

"No problem. Fathers can be hard on their sons, I know."

He frowns. "Think so?"

It's snowing harder now, the flakes large and light; they pile up quick and high as Hattie pockets the form and Lennie crams the bubble-wrapped urns into backpacks. He helps Hattie put her arms through the shoulder straps of one.

"It's better to wear it frontwise," he says.

"Like a marsupial," she says.

"A what?"

"A kangaroo or some such. An animal that carries its young in a pocket."

"Whatever," he says. "This is heavy. You have to lean back."

"Okay." She supports the weight with her hands, the way she used to support her belly, sometimes, back before Josh was born. It's like being pregnant again, only with her mother.

Your mother turned bowling ball.

Lennie bears the other urn back to the car, one earbud in. In a show of respect he does not add the other bud until the car's out of the cemetery and on the main road. He bops his head with a pecking motion, like a chicken.

The urns seem much larger in Hattie's kitchen than they did in the graveyard and, next to Hattie's computer, older-as if they hail from another reality. The time of the large jars. And as if with reverence for that ancient dispensation, Grace and Greta stand now, like the jars, side by side, a pair. They're about the same height; they both fold their hands.

Twins.

"It's a beautiful thing you're doing," says Grace.

"A compa.s.sionate thing," says Greta.

Hattie shakes her head. "I think my relatives are nuts."

Grace examines the glaze. "May I touch one?"

"Of course."

"Is this your mother or your father?"

Hattie tilts the jar; she's still surprised how heavy it is. "My father."

"I'll touch both."

"I'm sure they'd like that."

Grace stretches a finger out. Greenhouse gardener that she is, her cuticles are rimmed with dirt such as seems to befit the occasion as she touches the side of the urn, then lays a palm on its top, her fingers flat and splayed. Her eyes are squinched so tight her eyelashes flip up at the corners, but her face is serene.

"Thank you," she says at last.

"You're welcome," says Hattie, though why is Grace thanking her? She asks if Greta wants a turn.

Sarun is home! As he's still in a neck brace and supposed to stay still, he mostly watches TV or plays with his PlayStation, which he isn't usually allowed to hook up to the TV but is now. What hair he has is not blond but black and enough like Mum's that they're quite a sight together. Mother 'n' son buzz cuts! Lee would have said. It's pretty wack. Mum lets him smoke marijuana in the living room, why not-everyone did it in Cambodia, it seems, and she likes the smell. In fact, when Mum has the energy she is going to make him chicken soup with marijuana in it, Sophy says. Hattie does not encourage this. All they need is to get busted, she says. But Mum is far more worried that Sarun will be charged with arson. Because someone must be upset, Sophy says. Like probably Everett is upset. And fair or not, people do think Sarun and his friends set the fire.

"But why the f.u.c.k would I burn down the mini-mall?" says Sarun.

He would shake his head if he could. As it is, he can only move it enough to jiggle his pirate earrings, which Sophy and Hattie have cleaned and fixed for him. The earrings rest lightly on the padding of his neck brace, around which is wrapped his gold chain, though it is barely long enough; it looks like an absurdly delicate dog collar.

"And f.u.c.king plywood!" he goes on. "That be low, man."

Anyway, Sophy volunteers, even if he's charged, he'll get off, because she knows who really set the fire.

"Oh, really," says Sarun. "Who?" His pupils are huge, his face alive and amused.

"Me," she says. "I set the fire."

"You!" scoffs Sarun. "You can't even strike a match."

"I can so." Sophy takes some kitchen matches out of a drawer that could be the very drawer Hattie rescued long ago. She lights a match then immediately blows it out, dropping it in the sink.

Sarun laughs. "You see? You afraid of fire."

"I did it!" she insists all the same, smiling.

"And why'd you do it? Please tell us."

She pouts prettily, her lower lip protruding.

"Spit it out, now. What was your mo-tive?"

"I did it so they'd pin it on you!" She sticks her tongue out at him.

"Because you wanted me locked up?"

She plays with her hair. "Because you were upsetting everyone."

"This was your grand plan?"

"I thought it was G.o.d's plan. Because ..." She wrinkles her nose.

"Spit it out," says Sarun again.

"Because you were doing Satan's work!" She juts her chin out.

Sarun laughs so loud Mum pokes her head out from her bedroom; Gift claps his hands but then stops, confused.

"Was it G.o.d's plan that instead of going to jail I went to the hospital?" asks Sarun.

Sophy looks as though she might cry. Still, Sarun laughs some more as Gift climbs carefully onto his lap-knowing, it seems, that his brother is hurt. Knowing he has to be careful. He pats Sarun's brace and gazes at his face.

"That be some kind of miracle, all right," says Sarun. "And what about the old man?" He hugs Gift with one arm, gesturing out the window with the other. "Tell me, mastermind. He going to be sitting outside all winter? What's G.o.d's game plan on that?"

Chhung sits by himself in the guard chair-smoking, drinking, brooding. Falling asleep. Mum is afraid he is going to die out there. She thinks he has been taken by k'maoch and that they need a kru to fetch him back; she just wants to know where they can find a kru.

Hattie calls the hippie Buddhist temple.

"Kru?" says the man. "Can you spell that for me?"

Hattie sighs and hangs up.

Mum goes on praying and praying, her hair shorter all the time, her carpet square tucked under her. Her shrine grows more elaborate, sp.a.w.ning bowls of fruit and incense.

"She says he has to come in. She says he's going to freeze to death," Sophy says. "But he says why should he come in when that's what he wants. When he wants to freeze to death."

Hattie shakes her head. "Has Sarun talked to him?"

"No, and he doesn't want to," says Sophy.

And sure enough, when Hattie broaches the subject, Sarun says, "That a.s.shole almost killed me."

Hattie checks his eyes to be sure he's not high, then turns down the TV with the remote control. He leans forward to hear what he can of the show anyway, the cuffs of his sweatpants riding up.

"You're right. He did. He did almost kill you. But you know, he's sorry," Hattie says. "He was worried you did something wrong. And he was worried that because of you the police were going to find out about Sophy's having broken probation, and about the possible 51A on him in your old town."

"If he's so sorry, why don't he say so?" Sarun scratches in under his collar with a chopstick. "If he's so sorry, why don't he come tell me how he knows I'm innocent? If he's so sorry, why don't he come tell me how he knows he beat me up for nothing? He beat me up when that cop had nothing on me, and now he can't even say he's sorry. You know why?" Sarun gestures with the chopstick. "Because he is crazed. That's why. You know what he said when you first showed up? He said you were Khmer Krom."

"Is that Vietnamese Cambodian?"

"Yeah. Or a k'maoch. He thought you were a k'maoch." He looks back at the screen; he's watching some sort of police drama.

Hattie sighs. "Your father should tell you how wrong he was. He should. He should apologize for overreacting, and for almost killing you. But he's not well, Sarun."

"Yeah, well, I'm not so well, either, thanks to he almost f.u.c.king killed me. Like you said. And why should he get off scot-free, tell me? While I'm on the spit for something I had nothing to f.u.c.king do with?" Sarun's eyes flash with challenge; he wields the chopstick like a baton.

Hattie plucks it out of his hand. "That is an excellent question." She stashes the chopstick down under her thigh and turns the TV off altogether.

"Hey," he protests.

"Did anyone ask you about this in the hospital?"

"About what."

"About what happened to you."

"Someone did, yeah."

He stares at his reflection. In the blank screen his brace looks bigger and brighter than any other part of him.

"And what did you say?" "I said I never saw my a.s.sailant."

"So you covered up for your father."

"I didn't like the a.s.shole they sent."

"You covered up for him. First you let him do it and then you covered up for him."

He looks out the window as if there might be something new to see, and not just the same old trees. His skin gleams except for the crater that is his scar.

"Why'd you never hit him back?"

He puts his hand out for the chopstick; and when she returns it to him, says, "He's old. I could've killed him." He sticks the chopstick back down his neck brace.

"You showed forbearance but then he almost killed you."

"He's not even my real f.u.c.king father, all right? I f.u.c.king hate him but he's what I've f.u.c.king got." Sarun grinds his jaw. "I probably would've died in that f.u.c.king camp if it wasn't for him, but now I've done as much as I'm going to for that a.s.shole. Because first he saved me but then he almost killed me. Like you said."

"Did they ask about 911 being called to your place before? At the hospital?"

"Yeah."

"And you said?"

"I said that was different. An unrelated incident."

"And they believed you?"

He gives a half-shrug, a little calmer. "Knowing him, he probably wishes I'd turned him in. Knowing him, he probably wants to be locked up."

"He wants to kill himself, Sarun."

Sarun taps the chopstick on his knee, holding it loosely, like a drumstick. "People were freaked out by the van, weren't they," he says, finally. "They thought it was, like, a gangmobile."

"Well, it was a gangmobile, wasn't it? I mean, it had your gang in it, and it didn't just drive around. It kind of snuck in and out of town."

"So my old man wouldn't flip."

"Well, that attracted attention. Forget about thieves and arsonists-some people thought you were terrorists."

"Terrorists!" Sarun leans back theatrically. "You mean those salamis with the mad hair?"

Hattie nods.

"You got to be s.h.i.+tting me." He makes a twirling motion with the chopstick. "That is muy loco."