Digging to America Read Online Free

sure that Kiyan would have known much, either, about the process of becoming an American man.
    And if Kiyan could have shared grandparenthood with her! That was a major sorrow, now that Susan was here. She imagined how it would be if the two of them were babysitting together. They would send each other smiles over Susan's head, marveling at her puckery frown and her threadlike eyebrows and her studious examination of a stray bit of lint from the carpet. Kiyan would have retired by now. (He'd been nine years Maryam's senior.) They would have had all the time in the world to enjoy this part of their lives.
    She went out to the kitchen and took the rice off the stove and dumped it briskly into a colander.
    By the time Ziba had returned from work, Susan would b e awake again and drinking her post-nap sippy cup of apple juice, or she'd have moved on to haul forth from the toy chest everything that Maryam had put away. Ziba would scoop her up even before she'd taken her blazer off. Did you have fun with your Mari -june, Su-Su? Did you miss your mommy? They would delicately touch noses Ziba's profile beaky and sharp, Susan's as flat as a cookie. Did you think your mommy would stay away forever? Always she spoke English to Susan; she said she didn't want to confuse her. Maryam had expected her to lapse into Farsi from time to time, but Ziba plowed heroically through the most difficult words think, with its sticky th sound, and stay, which came out es-stay. (To her own puzzlement, Maryam found Ziba's broken rhythms much easier to understand than Sami's smooth, easy flow.)
    Maryam located her purse and put on her suede jacket. Don't go! Ziba would say. What's your hurry? Let me make tea. Most days, Maryam declined. Issuing farewell remarks instructions for heating dinner, message from the dentist's office she would blow a kiss toward Susan and let herself out the front door. She was trying to be the perfect mother-in-law. She didn't want Ziba to consider her a nuisance.
    Often when she reached home she would just vegetate awhile, slumped in her favorite armchair, free at last to relax and let herself be herself.
    Jin-Ho's mother phoned in October to invite them all to supper. This was while Maryam was babysitting, and so she was the one who answered. You come too, Bitsy told her. It's going to be just us, our two families, because I believe the girls should get to know each other, don't you? So as to maintain their cultural heritage. I meant to ask you before this but what with one thing an d another ... An early, early supper, I thought, on Sunday afternoon. We'll rake leaves beforehand.
    Maryam said, Rake ... ?
    She wondered if this was some idiomatic expression having to do with socializing. Break the ice, mend fences, chew the fat, rake leaves ... But Bitsy was saying, We still have elms, believe it or not, and they're always the first trees to shed. We thought we'd throw a big jolly leaf-raking party and let the girls roll around in the piles.
    Oh. All right. You're very kind, Maryam said.
    She liked the way Bitsy called the babies the girls. It made her visualize a Susan of the future, wearing knee socks and a pleated skirt, with her arm linked through her best friend's arm.
    Logically, they should have taken separate cars to the leaf-raking party. The Donaldsons lived in Mount Washington and Maryam a short distance south of them, in Roland Park. (The wrong side of Roland Park, so called, although even the wrong side was very nice, the houses just a bit smaller and closer together.) Sami and Ziba, coming from the north, would have to drive right past the Donaldsons' neighborhood to get to Maryam's; but even so, they insisted on giving her a ride. Maryam suspected that this was because Ziba felt the need of moral support. Ziba was subject to fits of insecurity every now and then. And sure enough, when they arrived at Maryam's where Maryam was already waiting out front, so as not to hold them up Ziba popped from the car to announce