He was a sucker for gadgets. It was the cause of a lot of arguments between the two of them.
From breakfast time till lunch time, the whole family worked at cleaning up the yard. Of course they couldn't do anything about the Cromwells' oak tree, which crossed the street completely and blocked all traffic, or the elm that lay in front of the garage. But they collected the smaller branches, and the sprays of leaves still green and wet and healthy-looking, and they stuffed them into garbage bags and lugged them to the alley. Jin-Ho found a bird's nest. There weren't any birds in it, though. She was in charge of the little tiny twigs, which she put in a plastic bucket that her father emptied from time to time. On either side of them their neighbors were cleaning up too, and people called back and forth to each other in a friendly sort of way. Mrs. Sansom said one house down the block still had electricity. They were letting their neighbors run long, long extension cords to power their refrigerators. If BG and E doesn't get things fixed by tonight, she said, I vote we combine all our perishables and have a great big neighborhood cookout on our grills. Jin-Ho thought that sounded much better than using up the foods at home. She hoped BG and E wouldn't get things fixed. The weather was cool and breezy and pleasant, with a fresh smell to the air, and she had never seen so many of the neighbors out in their yards at one time.
For lunch they had an omelet to finish off the eggs. Then XiuMei went down for her nap, and Jin-Ho watched from her parents' bedroom window as the tree men worked on the oak tree in the street. Their saws were angry-sounding, like hornets. They cut a passageway for cars through the middle of the trunk, but they left the base in the Cromwells' yard with its roots clawing the air and the top in the Donaldsons' yard all leafy and bushy, still hiding their station wagon. Jin-Ho's father said they would have to see to that later, when it wasn't a state of emergency. He took Jin-Ho out to count the tree rings after the men had left. Mr. Sansom was counting too. It wasn't as easy as you might expect, though, because one ring sometimes blended into another and they kept losing track. The trunk had a strong, sharp, sour smell that caused Jin-Ho's mouth to water.
Now her mother was fretting seriously about her frozen foods. She had casseroles stashed in the freezer that she had spent a lot of time preparing, she said. Jin-Ho said, That's okay; we'll bring them to the cookout and grill them, but her mother said, You can't grill spinach lasagna, Jin-Ho. She wasn't talking anymore about what fun this was, and she had stopped saying, Think of the poor Iraqis, which was a good thing, in Jin-Ho's opinion.
In the end, there wasn't a cookout after all. Mrs. Sansom must have forgotten she'd suggested it. As twilight fell the neighbors disappeared indoors, and all that Jin-Ho could see of them was the glimmer of a candle here and there in a window.
Jin-Ho's mother carried the flashlight down to the basement and came back with a casserole. I just whipped the freezer door open and whipped it shut again, she said. I don't think I raised the temperature all that much, do you? She put it straight into the oven, but since it hadn't been thawed it took forever to cook. They were waiting, waiting, waiting, and reading books by candles again because there was nothing else to do. Right after supper, which didn't happen till nearly eight, they all went to bed in the king-size bed. Jin-Ho's mother didn't even wash the dishes. I'll do that tomorrow morning, when I can see, she said.
This is how people used to live, I guess, Jin-Ho's father said. Arranging their lives by the sunrise and sunset.
Jin-Ho's mother said, Whatever.
They didn't have their baths, either, although it had been two days now. That was something else that would have to wait till morning.
And why bother getting up early when they couldn't see to do anything? They slept so late that Jin-Ho's grandpa had to wake them by banging on the front door. Hello? Hello? he was shouting, because the doorbell didn't work. Jin-Ho's mother went to let him in while the others got dressed. Nobody mentioned baths. By the time Jin-Ho came downstairs, her grandpa was sitting in the kitchen watching her mother burn the toast. Jin jin! he said. How do you like roughing it?
It's getting boring, she told him.
You just have to pretend you're in Colonial times, honey. That's what I'm pretending.
Beside him on the table was a pack of disposable diapers. Jin-Ho's mother didn't believe in disposable diapers, but she was running out of the cloth ones. He had also brought three cardboard cups of store-bought coffee, and a quart of Xiu-Mei's special milk, and a rocket-looking silver object taller than Jin-Ho that stood just inside the back door. What's that? she asked him.
Helium.
Helium?
For the balloons we're tying the binkies to.
The binkies? she said. The binky party! She'd forgotten all about it.
You know your mom, he told her. She is one determined lady.
I said today was the day she would give her binkies up, and today it's going to be, Jin-Ho's mother said without turning from the stove. We don't want Xiu-Mei thinking I'm inconsistent. 'Consistency is the hobgoblin of '
Dad, I don't want to hear it.
Okay! Okay! He held up both his hands.
Sami and Ziba are bringing cold drinks, and everything else is room temperature anyhow cupcakes, cookies… I'm scrapping the ice cream. What more do we need?
Well, there is the little matter of getting here. Half the city's streets are blocked by fallen trees, or downed power lines shooting sparks, or both. Hundreds of traffic lights are out. The police are advising people to stay off the roads unless it's a life-or-death emergency.
All our guests think they can make it, though, except for Mac. That little bridge is gone that runs across the bottom of Mac's driveway. But I told him he should try fording the stream in his car, because it isn't really that deep.
Jin-Ho's grandpa started laughing. It was just a whiskery sound at first, but gradually it took him over until he was gasping for breath and wiping his eyes with his sweater cuff. What, Jin-Ho's mother said. She had turned from the stove to look at him, still holding the toast with her tongs. What is it? What's so funny?
But instead of waiting for an answer, she turned next to Jin-Ho and said, Where in heaven's name is your father? as if Jin-Ho were the one she was cross with.
He's dressing Xiu-Mei, Jin-Ho said.
Well, tell him we have coffee down here and he'd better hurry up if he doesn't want it to get cold.
When Jin-Ho left the kitchen, her grandpa was blowing his nose on his big white cloth handkerchief.
Filling helium balloons was hard work. Jin-Ho's father and her grandpa did that, and it made them very crabby because every so often a balloon would escape from the nozzle and go zooming around the kitchen and scare everyone half to death. Bitsy, could you please get these kids out of here? Jin-Ho's father finally said, although it wasn't their fault. In fact Jin-Ho was being a help. She and her mother were tying binkies to the strings of the balloons after they were filled. But her mother said, Okay, girls, let's go have your baths. As they left, Jin-Ho heard her father say, Other people would just order a dozen filled balloons from a balloon place; but not us. Oh, no, no. We have to rent our own helium cannister and fill the balloons ourselves.
If it were a matter of merely a dozen balloons, that's what I would do, Jin-Ho's mother told her as they climbed the stairs. She seemed to think Jin-Ho was the one who had objected. But we have forty-seven binkies to fly! No, forty-eight, because Xiu-Mei's still using one. Brad? she called down. It's not forty-seven balloons we need; it's forty-eight.
Unthinkable that we could fly just one or two token binkies, and bury the rest in the garbage, Jin-Ho's father told her grandpa.
Her mother rolled her eyes. Jin-Ho rolled hers too, because one or two binkies would be boring. Forty-eight would be something to see. They would cover the whole sky.