Digging to America Read Online Free Page B

the Yazdans waded up the front walk, and the porch was strewn with bicycles and boots and garden tools. It was Brad who opened th e door, wearing corduroys and a woolen shirt stretched taut across his belly. Well, hey! he said. Welcome! Great to see you! and he chucked Susan under the chin. This kid has plumped up some. She was looking a bit peaked at the airport.
    Fifteen pounds, three ounces, at her last doctor visit, Ziba told him.
    Fifteen? He frowned.
    And three ounces.
    I guess she's going to be one of those petite little people, he said.
    Jin-Ho was going to be an Amazon, Maryam thought when she saw her straddling Bitsy's waist. She was stocky and bloomingly healthy-looking, with fat cheeks and bright, laughing eyes. She still wore that squared-off hairstyle she had arrived with, seemingly all of a piece, and although she too was in corduroys, her top was a multicolored, quilted affair with striped sleeves and a black silk sash the kind of thing Maryam recalled from the days when Sami and Ziba were researching Korea. Hasn't she grown? Bitsy asked, shifting Jin-Ho slightly to give everyone a good view. These pants are size eighteen months! We had to switch her to a full crib the second week she was here.
    Bitsy herself wore a black-and-white-striped jersey and black slacks and fluorescent jogging shoes. There was something aggressive about her plainness, Maryam thought her blatant lack of makeup, her chopped hair and angular, rawboned body. She might almost be making a statement. Next to her, Ziba looked very glamorous but also a little bit flashy.
    First they sat a few minutes in the living room, waiting for Jin-Ho's grandparents. Both couples were coming, Bitsy said, but none of the aunts or uncles or cousins because too large a crowd might overwhelm the girls. In fact, the girls seemed fairly impervious. They sat on a braided rug and pursued their separate activitie s Jin-Ho piling alphabet blocks into a dump truck, Susan trying to maneuver a jingle-bell out of a wooden rattle. Susan was so sweet and intent, and her fingers worked so cleverly, that Maryam wondered if the Donaldsons might feel slightly envious.
    Bitsy and Ziba were discussing lactose intolerance. Bitsy blamed it on a clash of cultures. It wasn't in the Asian tradition to slug down gallons of milk, after all. No wonder Jin-Ho had tummy trouble! Did Susan? Or ... Bitsy grew unaccountably flustered. Or maybe your people don't drink milk either, she said.
    Well, Susan does, Ziba said, but so far she's been fine.
    You might want to give her soy milk. Soy is more culturally appropriate.
    Oh, maybe I will, Ziba said obligingly.
    Though Maryam, in her place, would have asked why. Hadn't Ziba just now said that Susan was fine?
    The Donaldsons' living room was attractive without trying too hard. Sunlight poured through the uncurtained windows, and the furniture was old but well made, perhaps handed down from previous generations. Brad was slouched in a leather armchair that creaked each time he moved. Sami sat in an antique rocker a good six inches lower. He was nodding at Brad's description of the joys of fatherhood. Sunday mornings, Jin-Ho and I go out for croissants and the New York Times, Brad said. It's my favorite thing of the week. I love it! Just me and my kid together. You ever do that with Susan? Go off on your own for a jaunt?
    So far Sami lacked the confidence to do that, Maryam knew. But he didn't admit it. Gazing up at Brad from his lowered position, which made him seem touchingly humble, he said, Well, I've been thinking of buying a jogging stroller.
    Jogging stroller! Great invention. Fellow up the street has one. I'll find out the brand. Be good for your wife, too; good for Ziba. Get her out of the house.
    Zee-buh, he said, almost zebra, and he slid her a look. American men always found Ziba mesmerizing. Maryam was amused to see that Brad despite choosing such a homespun wife himself was no exception.
    The two sets of grandparents arrived at