Chapter Six
Tuyet’s Turn
Tuyet sat at a table alone, clutching the doll she had been given on her first night at Surrey Place.
She pulled off bits from a piece of bread and put them in her mouth. She did not feel hungry. She felt overwhelmingly sad, but Tuyet chewed on the bread anyway. After all, if she no longer had a job to do, they might stop feeding her.
Linh had not been gone for more than an hour, but it felt like forever to Tuyet. The loneliness sat like a weight on her shoulders.
One of the workers said something in English to Tuyet. She looked up.
Standing beside the worker was a woman holding onto the hands of two girls. The older child had a face that looked similar to the woman’s and the younger one had a lovely golden complexion. A friendly-looking man stood beside them, grinning. In his arms, he carried a toddler who was surely Vietnamese. Confused, Tuyet looked back at the woman. Her eyes were brimming with tears. The girls looked as if they could barely contain their excitement.
All at once, Tuyet understood. Each couple had chosen only one baby. And Linh was the only child chosen by the last couple. All of them had found families. But this couple already had three children. What they needed was a helper.
And they had chosen Tuyet for the job.
At first, her heart felt crushed with disappointment. Deep down, she had hoped to be treated like the other children, but when had that ever happened?
Tuyet pasted on a brave smile, but she was still afraid. Did they know about her weak leg and foot? Maybe they wouldn’t even want her as a helper once they saw her foot. All her life, she had worked hard to prove herself useful. She would just have to prove herself once more. Better to get it over with right away.
Tuyet put her bread down and pushed herself into a standing position. With her doll clutched in one hand, she limped to their side of the table and waited, her eyes cast down. She expected them to walk away.
But they didn’t.
Tuyet felt a pair of arms around her shoulders. The woman knelt beside her and held her tight. She said something in English, but the only word Tuyet could understand was Mom.
Tuyet’s memory flashed to the woman who had visited her in the orphanage in Saigon. Had that been her mom—the woman who stopped visiting? Was that woman no longer Tuyet’s mom?
Did this woman really want to be her mom? Tuyet was thrilled at the possibility. But what if this woman changed her mind, too? Tuyet became anxious to leave, now, before anyone had a chance to reconsider.
The care workers didn’t want Tuyet to leave barefoot. It was cold for April, and it was raining. They found her a pair of white rubber boots that were so huge they reached past her knees. It was hard enough to walk barefoot, but in these boots, it was almost impossible. Mom put Tuyet’s doll into her purse and took one of Tuyet’s hands. The man held the toddler on his hip with one hand. Then he took Tuyet’s other hand, while the two young girls walked beside them.
On their way out of Surrey Place, one of the workers wrote something on a piece of paper and gave it to Mom. Tuyet wondered what the paper said, but once they were outside, she didn’t give it another thought.
She lifted her face to the sky. It wasn’t black anymore and there were no stars. Now the sky was full of billowy gray clouds, and big droplets of water splashed on her face. It was as if the sky were crying for all that Tuyet had lost. But the cool rain that splattered on her upturned face also felt soothing, as if it could wash away the past. With each step away from the building, Tuyet felt a little less anxious.
The family hadn’t changed their mind yet.
The man opened the back door of a car and the two girls climbed in. Mom opened the front passenger door and motioned for Tuyet to get in. It wasn’t an easy job in the big white boots. So the man lifted her up to the seat, pulled off her boots, and put them into the trunk. He didn’t seem to mind the look of her weak foot and leg at all. Tuyet slid over to the middle of the front seat. The man climbed into the driver’s seat and Mom sat on her other side, with the toddler on her lap. She took the doll out of her purse and gave it back to Tuyet, who held it close.
As they drove away, the older girl leaned forward and said to Tuyet, “My name is Beth.”
Tuyet turned around to get a better look at the two girls in the back. Both looked so happy and relaxed, like they belonged. Tuyet wondered what it would feel like to belong. She just couldn’t imagine it.
6-2 — The Morris family. From left, Lara, John, Tuyet, Beth, Dorothy, Aaron
“My name is Lara,” said the other girl. “I’m adopted, too, but Beth is homemade.”
Whatever the girl said must have been funny, because the two adults chuckled.
Beth pointed to the toddler and said, “That is Aaron. He’s adopted, too.”
Tuyet was pretty sure she understood three things about that conversation: the older girl’s name was Beth, the younger girl was named Lara, and the baby was Aaron.
She pointed to herself and said, “Tuyet.”
Beth clapped her hands and grinned. “Pleased to meet you, Tuyet.”
Lara bounced up and down. “Hello, Tuyet!”
Beth pointed to the man who sat beside Tuyet, and said, “Cha.”
Tuyet knew about moms. In the orphanage, many of the children would talk longingly of their moms. But a dad was a different matter. Tuyet had listened as some children talked about their dads, but they didn’t seem very real. She had never actually seen one. To her, a dad was like a made-up person, a ghost.
She thought back over the last few days. So many babies and children had been chosen by couples—men and women together. She realized that each family had a man and a woman in it. So here, in this country, it seemed, dads were more than ghosts.
Out of the corner of her eye, Tuyet looked at this man, this actual dad. He seemed friendly.
Tuyet listened to the girls chattering away in the back. Beth seemed to be around four years old and Lara was a bit younger. Aaron couldn’t be more than two.
Tuyet heard the crinkle of paper from the back seat. She turned to look. Beth had opened up a small package of crackers. She gave one to Tuyet and one to Lara. Tuyet looked at the cracker. She was not in the habit of saying no to food. Who knew when she would have a chance to eat again? But she was so nervous that her stomach was doing flip-flops. She wasn’t sure she would be able to eat.
Beth popped her own cracker, whole, into her mouth and chewed. Lara took nibbling bites. Tuyet didn’t want to say no. Even though Linh had told her that no was the magic word in English, she was afraid to use it now. Maybe they would return her to Surrey Place if she didn’t like the food they gave her.
She took a bite of the cracker, then another.
Soon it was gone.
Beth handed her a second cracker and she ate that one, too. But then Beth gave her another, and another. Tuyet didn’t want any more crackers, but she was afraid to refuse them. She did not want the family to be angry with her.
Tuyet’s stomach lurched with queasiness. She wasn’t sure if it was from so many crackers, the car ride, or the excitement of being with this family. She looked behind at Beth and was thankful to see that the package of crackers was empty.
Tuyet looked out the front window and watched trees and buildings speed by, but that didn’t help her stomach. She could feel the crackers rising in her throat. What should she do? She couldn’t very well throw up in this fancy car! She would be taken back to Surrey Place for sure.
Tuyet swallowed and tried to breathe slowly. She put both hands over her mouth. She tried to swallow down a gag.
They traveled in silence for a while, and Tuyet concentrated on not being sick. The car turned off the busy road and onto smaller winding ones. Tuyet looked out the window and saw houses, each one a different color. Some houses were made of wood and others were stone or brick. Flowers and sometimes big trees grew in front of them. Each house sat on a smooth carpet of green—it reminded Tuyet of rice paddies. The sight calmed her. It was good to know that one of her favorite foods grew in Canada.
For a moment, she forgot about her upset stomach.
Dad pulled into the driveway of a gray brick house with cheerful red trim. Flowers grew up through rocks, and a rice paddy sat in front.
“We’re home!” cried the girls in the back. As soon as the car stopped, Lara opened her door and hopped out. Beth was close behind.
Now that the car was no longer moving, Tuyet hoped that her stomach would settle down.
Mom opened up the passenger door and got out with Aaron in her arms. Dad opened up his door and went to the trunk to bring Tuyet her boots. He set them on the driveway in front of her.
Just as she was sliding her feet into the boots, Tuyet felt her stomach roiling once again. She put her hands over her face, but this time she couldn’t stop. Vomit shot out of her mouth and all over her clothing, doll, and boots. She stumbled forward, anxious to keep the vomit away from the car.
To her horror, the last of the vomit came out over Dad’s shoes.