Silent to the Bone (5 page)

When The Ancestors found out that their only grandson was about to have a stepmother whose name was Tina Nguyen and that she was only six years old when she came to America, his grandfather had asked whether she was one of the boat people who had escaped from Vietnam in 1975 after that war. (She was.)

Branwell told The Ancestors that Tina had started school without knowing a word of English and was the Illinois state spelling champion when she was in fourth grade. His grandfather said, “Those Orientals are very good with details.”

“What did you say when he said that?” I had asked.

Branwell laughed. “I asked him if he wanted to know what word she won on.”

“Did he?”

“He said he did.”

“What was it?”

“Molybdenum.”

“What did he say when you told him?”

“He said that he wasn't surprised, and when I asked him why, he said, ‘Well, now, you know molybdenum is a chemical element. We used it in the automobile industry. There's no getting around it—those Orientals are very good at that sort of thing. Like Tina, a lot of them go into the field of science.' ”

“And fingernails,” his grandmother had added.

Branwell did not understand what the field of fingernails was, so his grandmother explained that Chrissy, her manicurist, was Vietnamese. “All the people—men as well as woman—who work there are. As a matter of fact, the Vietnamese appear to own fingernail parlors all over Florida. They do good work.”

“Of course they do good work,” his grandfather had said. “I told you, those Orientals are very good with details.”

Then Branwell issued me a challenge. “SIAS attitude of The Ancestors.”

I had to think real hard. This is the SIAS I came up with. “Those Orientals will never be
our
Orientals because they have the wrong slant on things.”

Bran gave me four stars and wanted to give me five (because, he said, it was subtle), but I told him that we were not going to have grade inflation with our SIAS's.

The Ancestors stayed with Bran for the entire week that Dr. Zamborska and Tina were on their honeymoon. Out of respect for Tina (she said), his grandmother would not allow them to eat with knives and forks. She decided that they must learn to use chopsticks. Actually, Branwell was quite good with them. The Ancestors were not. But they were determined. When Bran held his bowl up close to his face to eat his rice—the way he had seen it done in Chinese restaurants—his grandmother said, “We never allow our bowls to leave the table.” And Branwell never told them that
We
may not, but people in Chinese restaurants do.

Branwell would never choose to open up to two people who didn't want to hear that “Orientals” do on occasion allow their bowls to leave the table or that his new stepmother was a superb cook in the French manner. Branwell didn't want to talk to The Ancestors. He wanted me to see them because they, like
Margaret, would help me understand what had happened to him.

I had overheard my parents say that The Ancestors were due in town today with a famous big city lawyer they had hired. I knew that The Ancestors did not change habits easily, so if they were already here, they would be at the motel where they always stayed, which was walking distance from the Behavioral Center.

I decided to try to find them at the motel. If they weren't there, I would leave a message for them, but I hoped I wouldn't have to, because if they called my house, I would have to do more explaining than I wanted to.

(I was beginning to see advantages to being struck dumb.)

They were there. In the motel restaurant. Having the Early Bird supper special. They were surprised to see me. Mr. Branwell invited me to join them, but I told him that my mother was expecting me to have supper at home, so I ordered a Coke and a plate of French fries—something that would hold me but wouldn't spoil my appetite.

After the server brought my order, I told The Ancestors that I had just been to see Branwell, and
Mr. Branwell asked, “So how did you find him?”

“You know that he's not talking.”

“Yes,” he replied. “We've hired a lawyer—a big city attorney. He's not available until tomorrow afternoon. That's when we'll see our grandson.”

I did not know if this attorney came from a big city or if he was a big attorney from a city (big or small) or if
big
meant
best.
Like when a store advertises their biggest sale ever, and they mean their best. I didn't tell them that I didn't think any lawyer—even the biggest—would be able to get Branwell to speak. Especially if they were there when he was.

Instead, I asked them about last summer.

Nikki had been due to arrive in early July, and Bran had told me that he had hoped to be able to skip his visit to The Lovely Condominium—or at least postpone it—but The Ancestors had made it very clear that they expected him for the month. They had booked a cruise of the Caribbean and did not let Bran know about it until all the reservations had been made, and they would have lost their deposit if they canceled.

“We thought it best that Branwell not be around when the new baby arrived,” Mr. Branwell said bluntly.

Mrs. Branwell said, “We arranged everything. First-class suite. Top deck. Then we made arrangements to spend a few days in Lauderdale so there would be time to do some shopping for the clothes he would need. We allowed time for the clothes to be altered. He's growing so fast, that boy.”

Mr. Branwell continued. “We also engaged a tennis coach for the remainder of the month after we returned from the cruise. But the crucial time—the time that the baby would be born—we would be sailing around the Caribbean, and Branwell wouldn't have to put up with all the commotion of the new baby. I understood that Tina's mother was coming to help her those first couple of weeks.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Branwell continued, “those Orientals are very family
oriented.”
She stopped and laughed nervously. “Of course, Orientals are oriented, but you know what I mean.” She laughed nervously again.

Unlike Branwell, I didn't have to be their perfect grandson, so I said, “No, I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Branwell.”

“I mean that filling their houses up with lots of relatives is part of their culture. They believe in living under very crowded conditions.” Here she looked to
her husband for him to agree—which he did by shaking his head.

Then he said, “We just thought that it would be best for Branwell to be away—carefree and cruising the islands—while his house was full of new babies and foreigners. It would not be fair to have him put up with all that confusion. We figured we would keep him until the end of the month as we usually do, and by that time there would be some semblance of normalcy in that house.”

Mrs. Branwell smiled patiently. “Or as normal as you can call it with a new baby.”

Before he left for his month at The Lovely Condominium, Branwell had shown me a birth announcement that he had designed. It was a drawing of two loosely twisted strands of DNA. He had colored one pink and one blue. He labeled the pink one TINA and the blue one STEFAN. Then the strands got twisted tighter and tighter until it became a line and then an arrow. The arrow pointed to the name NICOLE. Under that, he had written:

DATE OF BIRTH_____________

WEIGHT____________________

LENGTH____________________

Branwell had expected his dad to have his design printed up and sent out to family and friends. But he never told them that. So Tina bought a package of ready-mades and sent those. Dr. Z did fill in the blanks on the one that Branwell had made, and he wrote on the bottom, “She's beautiful, Bran, and she can't wait to meet her brother.” He signed it, “Dad and Tina.” Tina enclosed a picture of Nikki on which she had written on the back, “Say hello to the incredible Nicole Zamborska, age two days.” Dr. Zamborska mailed the announcement and the photo, and they were waiting at The Lovely Condominium when he returned from the cruise of the Caribbean.

Mr. Branwell said, “Branwell couldn't wait to open the envelope. His eyes filled with tears when he saw the announcement and the picture. He wanted to call home immediately, but we”—now it was his turn to look toward his wife to nod in agreement—“we suggested that he wait until he calmed down. After all, we didn't want him crying on the phone and have his father think that we had mistreated him.”

I remembered Branwell telling me something, so I asked, “Didn't he ask if he could skip the tennis lessons and go home early?”

Mr. Branwell replied, “Yes. Yes, he did. But we told him that the lessons were paid for in advance. Actually, they were. But the real reason we didn't want to send him home early was because—as I explained—we didn't know how he would fit in to that crowd with the new baby and that mother-in-law in the house. Cooking up all that rice and baby formula. We thought it best that he stay with us.”

Mrs. Branwell nodded. “It was the right decision.”

I asked, “Were you surprised to find out that Tina and Dr. Zamborska had hired someone to help take care of Nikki?”

Mr. Branwell said, “Yes, we were. But we knew that Tina would not be a stay-at-home mom. Those Orientals are very ambitious, you know. Especially the immigrants.”

That's when I thanked them for the French fries and excused myself. I reached across the table to shake their hands and, as I shook Mrs. Branwell's, I said, “Nice nails.”

She hurriedly withdrew her hand from mine, blushed, and said, “Thank you.”

When I got home from my meeting with The Ancestors, I called Dr. Zamborska and told him that I would like to be there when Branwell met with them and the lawyer they had hired, whose name I found out was Neville Beacham.

Since Branwell was only allowed to have two visitors at a time, I would need special permission to be allowed to see him at the same time as one of The Ancestors and Beacham. I suggested to him that I should be allowed to go in as an interpreter just as the hearing impaired have an interpreter doing sign language. I didn't want to reveal to him my means of communicating with Branwell (I don't know why), but I knew that I would if I had to.

As it turned out I didn't have to.

I think the fact that The Ancestors had not bothered to consult with Dr. Zamborska about hiring another attorney and the fact that they obviously didn't want him there helped convince him that I should be a third—or fourth—person present. He agreed to call and request permission. And then I told him my other problem: I couldn't be at the Behavioral Center until school was out, which would make it necessary for The Ancestors to change the time of their appointment. I think Dr. Z was enjoying putting up obstacles for them.

I don't know how he did it—except that he is a lot more competent than he appears to be. Early the next morning before I left for school, he called to tell me that he had made it happen.

Dr. Z left it to me to call The Ancestors at their motel to tell them that their time to visit Branwell had been changed. Mrs. Branwell answered the phone, and I could tell she did not want to believe me or believe that I had the right to be telling her in the first place. I told her that she better believe me or she would get to the Behavioral Center and find out that she and Mr. Branwell and the attorney they had hired couldn't get in. She said, “Perhaps you better explain this to Mr. Branwell.”

He was even less accustomed than his wife to having someone my age tell him to change his plans. He said that he would call the Center to get the facts. I mentioned that the offices at the Center were closed now, and I suggested that he call at nine when they would be open. He sputtered on his end of the phone, which I interpreted to mean that he did not approve, so I said, “See you at four,” and I hung up.

I had to do all that before I caught the bus for school, but this was Thursday, and Thursday has always been my lucky day.

When the guard at the desk did her usual search, she pulled my flash cards out and jerked her head toward The Ancestors and Beacham. I gave her a minimal shake of my head. She smiled knowingly and quietly dropped them into my backpack.

The Big City Lawyer turned out to be a man of average height with a Hollywood hairstyle and a capped-tooth smile the likes of which I had only seen on one person—a TV evangelist. He was from Detroit. I may be interpreting (what else did I have to go on?), but I did think Branwell looked relieved when he saw us enter alphabetically: Ancestors, Beacham, Connor.

Since I had been coming to the Behavioral Center, Branwell and I were developing a new kind of understanding. I know this will sound funny, but I've thought about it a lot, and I don't mean it in any negative way. The relationship that Branwell and I were developing was something like that between a boy and his dog. This is the way I mean it: For one thing, we had developed a means of communication that was verbal on only one side. I could speak; he couldn't. But it wasn't just that. Branwell had become dependent on me for his contact with the outside world. And it wasn't just that either. It was also that I had developed a dependence on him for needing me. He needed me, and I needed him to need me. That's what I mean about a boy and his dog—nice, like that.

Even though Branwell did not speak a word during the whole meeting, he said a lot, and as things turned out, it was a good thing—a very good thing—that I was there.

It was almost comical to see Big Beacham try and try again to get Branwell to talk. When Branwell would not even make eye contact with him, he spoke louder and louder. Even Mr. Branwell realized how wrong this technique was, because he turned his back to me, cupped his mouth with his hand, and
whispered something directly into the attorney's ear. They looked at me. After all, I was there as Branwell's interpreter, but I was not about to reveal my technique for communicating with him. I shrugged and held my hands out, palms up, in a gesture of helplessness. At that point, the attorney took a little cassette player out of his briefcase and played the 911 tape.