When Heaven Fell by Carolyn Marsden Read Free Book Online Page B

stories tall, made of yellow brick, as large as buildings Binh had seen in pictures of Ho Chi Minh City.
    Binh looked closely. So this was how a school looked inside — rows of desks and chairs. Instead of the blue and white uniforms of Vietnam, the children were dressed in regular clothes. Didn’t they have money for uniforms? And such plain clothes . . . plain like Di Hai’s.
    A few of the children had black hair. Just a few had narrow, brown eyes. Most had round eyes. Some hair was light brown like Di Hai’s. Other hair shone like the sun. One girl had hair the color of the orange cat that visited Binh’s cart.
    Binh had an urge to put her finger on one of the desks in the front row of the classroom. She would sit right there. The teacher would hang her work on the wall.
    “Tell me about these girls,” Binh said. “Tell me all about American girls. Do they all have cell phones?”
    Di laughed. “Most do. Other than that, they’re a lot like you, Binh. They like friends. And clothes. They have schoolwork to do. . . .”
    Binh bit her lip.
Schoolwork.
How would she catch up with those American girls? She didn’t even speak English. Instead of sitting in that front row, she’d be hiding in the back. She’d have no work for the teacher to hang.
    As Binh looked away from the pictures of the school, Ba Ngoai, glancing at her, said, “It’s time for us to visit the house of the ancestors.”

P lans had been made to take Di Thao to the house of the ancestors the morning after her arrival. All the relatives wanted to accompany her on the trip down the highway and up the hill on the other side of the river. They were waiting under the arch of bougainvillea in the yard, beneath the spreading tree. The men stood with their hands clasped in front of them, and the women leaned close to chat, crossing their arms and tucking their hands into their sleeves.
    Children chased each other wielding long juicy stems notched so they snapped like whips.
    Cuc, in a yellow dress with white dots and the hem let down, asked Binh, “How is your auntie?”
    Binh paused. How
was
Di Thao? “She’s doing well,” she replied.
    “Did she give you anything more?”
    “Not yet.”
    Cuc made a face. “Why isn’t she more generous?”
    Binh thought again of her silly blue rock. “She showed us photographs,” she said.
    “Pictures?” Cuc wrinkled her nose. “What can you do with a picture?”
    Binh couldn’t explain how each photo opened a window in her mind, windows she looked through to places she’d never dreamed existed.
    But she also thought of how instead of placing the photos of her parents on the ancestral altar, Di had slipped them back into the plastic and put them away.
    She thought of how Cuc had given Di Hai her bit of gold silk. All for nothing.
    Binh found Di Hai standing beside the big table, gazing at the baskets of tiny bananas, translucent yellow star fruit, and the purple lilies that Ma and Ba Ngoai had prepared early in the morning. “So beautiful,” she murmured to Binh.
    The relatives whispered among themselves, glancing at Di Thao from time to time.
    “Why do they all keep staring at me?” Di asked.
    “They think your dress is pretty,” Binh answered, although the olive green dress hung plainly on Di’s tall body. She didn’t add that it wasn’t only the dress they talked about behind Di’s back, but also Di’s lack of husband and children, and her job teaching a useless subject.
    Cuc came to the table too. In fact, she pushed herself in between Binh and Di, taking Binh’s place.
    Binh noticed that Cuc’s yellow dress was ironed, making Binh’s dress look even plainer.
    Usually, Binh loved being with Cuc. But today her presence felt different, as though Cuc were trying to steal something that was hers.
    “Your mother wants you,” Binh said to Cuc.
    “Where is she?” Cuc stood on tiptoe, peering out over the sea of faces.
    “Over there,” Binh gestured vaguely. “She was waving and calling