I looked at Sam. He was mouthing something. It looked like "Oh." He did it again: "Oh."
"Oh," I murmured.
"Ssss," said Sam. I picked up the "G" and returned it to my slate of letters, leaving "S" and "O."
My uncle stared at my word "so." He turned to Sammy. "Thank you, Sammy."
"Sometimes it's hard to see the obvious," Auntie said sweetly.
David looked sideways at his father, who glared at me again before turning his glare to the board. David, who was always my pal, ceremoniously plucked a few letters from his collection and then set down his letters and spelled "S-P-E-R-M."
Nobody spoke. Actually, I wasn't certain what "sperm" meant. But I could guess.
Uncle Katsuhisa just stared at the board for a moment. He nodded a few times.
"Where did you learn that word?" said Auntie Fumi.
"From Dad."
Uncle Katsuhisa didn't speak, but he turned red. He said, "It's a legal word, that's the important thing for our purposes."
Auntie glared at him. The phone rang, and she went to get it. Nobody moved while she talked. When she was finished talking, she walked back into the living room and just stood there. Then she burst into tears and ran out of the room. We all stared after her. Uncle got up slowly and left the room. In a moment we heard him and Auntie talking.
Then it got very quiet in the other room. I cleaned up the Scrabble game. David, Daniel, Sammy, and I just sat around doing nothing, which was about as boring as it sounds. Finally, David and I snuck into the hallway to peek at what Uncle and Auntie were doing. They were in the kitchen, and the radio was playing softly. They were holding each other very tightly. They weren't dancing exactly, but just stepping back and forth in time to the music. I could tell it made David happy to see them like that, even though it embarrassed him because it was kind of goofy.
I had to interrupt their dancing to ask, "Auntie, was that my parents?"
She and my uncle stopped dancing. "Yes, it was your mother," she said. "She told me to tell you ... to tell you that everything is okay. Don't worry, sweetheart. She told me to tell you that."
chapter 10
When Lynn returned from the hospital a couple of days later, my mother insisted that she was basically fine. Apparently, Lynn's anemia was "acting up" and she just needed more liver.
Every day I sat by her bed and fed her rice and liver. I always saved a little liver for Sam, so he wouldn't get anemic too. Then, after I fed Lynn, I would give her her iron pills. When she was being obstinate, I had to force the pills down her throat and hold her mouth closed until she swallowed. Once she tried to bite me.
Sam and I were supposed to sleep in the living room until Lynn got better. My parents had bought me a little cot. I worried that Lynn was lonely by herself in the bedroom, but when I peeked into her diary, I read this:
I didn't think of myself as one of "the kids." But I guess that was how Lynn still thought of me.
After I fed Lynn, I got my pajamas from the closet, said good night, and left the room. Later that night I opened my eyes and saw her sitting on the floor next to my cot.
"What is it?" I said.
"Amber dropped me."
"Dropped you, like as a friend?"
"Uh-huh. I don't really care. She was phony."
I could have told Lynn that a long time ago! For a moment I got a funny feeling that I was the older sister and Lynn was just a little girl.
Lynn stood up. "Well, good night," she said. "Good night."
She didn't move; she just stood there. The motel light from down the street cast a vague flashing shadow on her face. I could see she had been crying.
"Good night," she said again.
"Good night!"
The next day after summer school I ran into Amber walking with her friends. Lynn was sick in bed that day. Amber said to me, "What is that you're wearing?"
I was wearing a polka-dot dress Mrs. Muramoto had made for me. As usual, I thought I was quite a fashion plate! But these girls started laughing at me. They were all wearing pedal pushers.
"You're a phony!" I said.
'You're a heathen!" she said.
I didn't know what a heathen was, but I said, "You're a heathen too!"
"Then you admit you're a heathen!" she said.
I thought about Lynn lying sick in bed and pushed Amber's shoulder. She pushed me back. I balled my right hand in a fist and punched her. She moved her face, so I barely hit her. She didn't seem hurt at all, but I thought for a moment I had broken my hand. What a hard face that mean girl had! Then a passerby rushed over and made us all go home.
That night I felt an incredible anger toward those girls. I thought I hated them. I had never hated anyone before. It felt awful.
I told my parents that Amber had dropped Lynn. I wished I hadn't, because I saw how it hurt them. Then I was glad I had, because after I told them, they talked for a long time in the kitchen, and afterward they announced that we were going to the bank to take out a loan.
"I thought you didn't want to borrow money from the bank!" I said.
"We want to get your sister's house," said my mother.
That night Lynn was more cheerful than she'd been in a long time. Awhile ago we'd stopped hiding our money in the bathroom. Now we hid it in the closet. Every so often we counted the change out and placed it in paper rolls Lynn picked up from the bank. Then every few months Lynn would go to the bank-to exchange the rolls for bills. Sometimes I went with her. I didn't like the bank. I didn't see why a bunch of strangers got to keep everybody's money in vaults. If a robber came to our apartment, I would hit him over the head with a lamp. So I didn't need a bank, personally.
We had saved a hundred dollars. Sammy still got treats because he was just a little boy, but Lynn and I hadn't bought candy in a long time.
The night before we went to the bank with our parents to apply for a loan, Lynnie, Sammy, and I handed them a pink envelope with our money in it. Our note just said, From Lynn, Katie, and Sam. We had put Sammy's name on it too because we were a threesome.
When our parents saw all the money we had saved, our mother started to cry and hugged Lynn and then started to sob and said over and over, "I love you so much, Lynn." She sobbed so hard, she ran from the kitchen, and in a moment we heard her bedroom door slam. Our father kissed us all and then went into the bedroom to talk to our mother. The money was supposed to make them happy, so we felt a little weird.
Lynn felt good enough to wash dishes while Sammy and I tried to do headstands against the refrigerator.
The next day when I got home from school, I stayed in my school clothes and accompanied our parents, Lynn, and Sam to the bank. Sam was wearing a button-up shirt that was a little small for him. Lynn felt good again that day. We pulled a bunch of chairs around the loan officer's desk and sat mesmerized as he asked our parents for some papers that they'd already filled out. As he looked them over sometimes he frowned and sometimes he nodded with satisfaction. I counted seven nods of satisfaction and only three frowns. He stood up to shake hands with my parents. "We'll be in touch," he said.
Two weeks later the bank approved the loan, and the very same day we took Lynn out to look at houses. She found one the first day. She picked out a sky blue one, because she said that when I was a little girl, I had told her I wanted our first house to be sky blue. We moved in not long after.
It was a small house, a lot like our apartment except for two extra rooms: a small dining room and a small alcove off the living room. There was even the same small motel not far away, its sign blinking all night. We just lived on the other side of the motel now. But it felt far away from our old apartment.
3
I feel bad that the kids have to sleep in the living room, but it's really nice to have my own bedroom. I like the privacy a lot.