“Was it in Vietnamese?”
“It sure as hell was.”
“So people outside of Little Saigon have a hand in it. Thach’s people — I’m sure of it.”
Edison glowered at his blotter again, as if it had betrayed him. “Thach,” he muttered softly. In big letters he wrote, RADIO CONTACT WITH THACH? LOCATION OF TRANSMITTER.
“Thanks, Pop. For keeping me informed.”
Edison nodded, his face softening. A smile began. Frye felt good. Then he realized that Edison wasn’t even looking at him anymore. His father lurched up and swept past Frye to the cottage door. “Ah! There he is! Get in here, son.”
Frye turned. Edison knelt down and hugged Bennett. From over Edison’s shoulder, Frye could see his brother’s expression. The eyes had a dark look, a look of helplessness, fear, violence.
Edison stood and waved to Frye. “Into the dining room, men! Dinner. Search and destroy!”
Frye assumed his battle station at the table: left of Edison, Hyla beside him, and Bennett across. He could remember sitting here for breakfast almost thirty years ago, in a tall yellow chair with a detachable tray, dumping his oatmeal on the floor to watch it hit. For a moment he conjured images of everyone, even the old woman who had cooked for them. Edison had grayed. Hyla had shrunk. Bennett had been blown in half. What about me? Taller, with the same urge to toss things off high places just to see them land. Every time I sit here, I feel like a kid again.
Mauro, the servant, poured the wine and served the food, as he had for two decades. Hyla raised her glass and paused, though everyone seemed to sense what was coming. They drank to Li. Frye watched his father at the head of the table, standing to carve the duck. The silver tray glittered in the light of a chandelier so high in the dining room altitude that Frye once plinked it with his Daisy to bring down solid evidence that it was really there. He had carried the shard, bright as a piece of sunlight, in his pocket for two days. Edison had given him a licking he still remembered. He looked up to see the broken crystal but it was impossible to locate now, as it had been then.
Edison finished carving. “Any word from Linda, Chuck?”
“None that I’ve heard.”
“Shell come back. No woman leaves a Frye. It’s simply never been done.”
Frye looked at his mother, attempting sincerity. “We’re talking off and on. Things’ll work out.”
“The bitch is bluffing, Chuck.”
“Ed!”
“Hyla! You can’t publicly humiliate your wife and expect gratitude, now can you? It will just take some time for Linda to come to her senses.”
“Chuck has a new... companion, don’t you, son?”
Frye felt a subtle yet growing urge to strangle his father right here at the dinner table. “Her name’s Cristobel Strauss. We’ve seen each other a few times.”
Hyla sat, shoulders a little hunched, her eyes big and imploring. “Oh?”
“You’d like her, Mom.”
“You’re a married man, Charles.”
“I’m aware of that.”
Frye drank more wine as a silence descended upon the table. The clink of silverware became unbearable. “Mega’s going into women’s wear,” he said.
Hyla rose to the switch of topic. “Nice things for women, Chuck?”
“Meganice.”
“I still think it sounds like a bomb, son,” said Edison. “Megaton. Change the name is my advice, for your marketing department, if nothing else.”
Frye watched Bennett wipe a small grin with his napkin. Mauro had filled his wine glass from the martini pitcher.
“Can’t change the name, Pop. Mega is my motto.”
Hyla motioned Mauro forward for more wine. She looked at Chuck with an expression of sadness so complete that he had to look away. She feels worse about Linda than I do. In the silence that followed, he could sense everyone’s thoughts leaving him and moving across the table to his brother. Bennett busied himself with seconds and another glass of gin.
When dinner was finished, Hyla brought out the birthday cake, an elaborate chocolate affair dancing with candles. She sang. Edison smiled at his bride. Frye and Bennett ganged up on the blowing-out routine, which ended — as it had for years — with the candles coming back to life. Edison got still another laugh out of this shopworn trickery. Hyla raised her glass. “To the two best sons God could give a woman,” she said. “There are better times ahead for both of you. Happy birthdays.” She bowed her head and prayed out loud for guidance and help, forgiveness and redemption, the return of Li and Linda.
Mauro brought in a tray with packages on it, bright wrapping paper reflecting off the silver. Frye got a television wristwatch that Edison immediately swiped and started to fiddle with, and a foam insect guaranteed to grow to two hundred times its original size if you dropped it in water. The package said Gro-Bug. Frye realized with a minor thrill that the thing would hit sixteen feet at maturity, bigger than his whole kitchen. What if you could make a surfboard like that, like, carry it in your pocket until you need it? He pondered marketing gimmicks as Bennett opened his gifts — a television watch also, and a plastic scuba diver with pellets to make bubbles come out his mask. Mauro brought out a big snifter full of water, into which Bennett deployed the frogman. For a moment they all sat, watching the fizz rise. It seemed to go on forever.
Mauro served coffee. Edison checked his watch. “Hon, might we retire to the den? There’s an important news item I think we all should see.”
They sat around Edison’s beloved big-screen TV. Hyla dimmed the lights, and Edison turned to ABC. The regular show had been preempted for a special network news report. Peter Jennings had the honors. Sitting beside him in the studio was Lucia Parsons. She looked like a million bucks. Jennings welcomed his viewers and said that the government of Vietnam had made an unprecedented “and perhaps historic” move: They had requested American air time to broadcast via satellite a live statement from the Vietnamese Council of State President, Truong Ky. Truong had said that the statement would be of special interest to the West. Jennings said that the President of the United States had personally called the network, urging that the broadcast be carried. Jennings speculated that the topic was American POWs. He asked Lucia.
She nodded, almost serenely, Frye thought. “I think, Peter, that is exactly what President Truong has on his mind.”
“Oh, my,” said Hyla.
Edison stared gravely at the set.
Bennett sat on the couch, arms crossed and silent.
“... as you know, and the MIA Committee has been lobbying the Vietnamese government through the Vietnamese people for nearly two years. I’ll put it bluntly, Peter. We all hope, we’re all just praying right now, that our labors have paid off.”
Jennings noted that ABC would supply an English translation in voice-over during the address; then the image of Truong appeared.
The picture was hazy, drained of color. He was sitting at a simple desk, a bristle of microphones in front of him, a Vietnamese flag behind him. He blinked into the lights. He was slight, gray-haired, dour. Without smiling, shuffling paper or any other visible preliminaries, he started speaking. The voice-over was heavily accented.