“Let’s see,” Rudy says. “ I got to deduct the time I was in the coffee shop at the hospital, the fun we had at the demonstration, the laughs we had talkin’ after … I’d say I owe you about fifteen dollars.”
“We did have a good time, didn’t we? It kind of pushed the jet lag right out of me.”
“Gimme twenty dollars to satisfy the boss and maybe you can buy me a burger one of these noon hours.”
“Let’s make it thirty dollars and I’ll buy you a salad with vinegar and oil dressing.”
He laughs. “Okay, okay. It’s a deal. Here’s my card.”
I hand him mine. “I will call you, Rudy.”
* * *
I’m sipping a cup of green tea, a two-bagger, which should give me a little shot of energy to get through the rest of the evening. Got the front and back door open to air out the place and I’ve let all the faucets run for a minute to flush out the rust. No one broke in while I was gone, which I always worry about and, except for the lawn, the place is in good shape. Mai and I washed all my clothes before I left Saigon so I just got to put my things in drawers. It’s midmorning in Vietnam and there is where my mind and body are right now. It took me about three days to get over the time difference when I got to Saigon so I’m figuring about the same coming home.
It’s a little after eight p.m. and in the time I’ve been back in Portland, I visited my best friend in the hospital, did a little jujitsu in the front of a cab, and I made a new friend. Can I pack a lot into three hours or what?
Mai is probably in her office working on the jewelry stores’ books, or maybe tending to her sick mother. Kim’s TB is worsening and though no one has come out and said as much, I don’t think she has much longer to live.
I tap in about twenty-five numbers, listen to all the clanking, dead air, some creaks, and finally, ringing.
“This is the devil talking,” Mai says, “who do you want?”
I laugh. “That’s almost how it goes.”
“Sam,” she whispers, her voice heating up my face. “Are you in Portland?”
“I made it back sort of in one piece,” I say, imagining all five feet eleven inches of gorgeousness sitting by the koi pond in their ornate backyard, the color-splashed, wiggling fish nibbling at her dabbling fingertips—lucky fish.
“I miss you,” she says softly.
“I miss you more.”
“You are probably correct.”
“How is your mother?”
Long pause, then in a halting voice, “Oh, Sam. I am so scared. She talked about dying last night. Father got angry with her and I just cried. This morning she acted like she had not talked about it at all.”
“I’m so sorry, Mai. How is Father?”
“He is quiet. When he is not with Mother, he sits by the koi pond. I am worried about both of them. If something happens to Mother … I do not know what will happen to him. He lost his teacher nine days ago and if he loses Mother …”
When my father dropped into my life, Mai was attending Portland State University and was about to graduate with a degree in business. My father, who is Mai’s stepfather, traveled to Portland to see her graduate. Over the years he kept abreast of his hometown by regularly reading the Oregonian newspaper online, and two years ago he came across a story about my mother’s death in a traffic accident. The story caught his eye because around the time he went into the service he had dated a young girl with the same last name. When he read she was survived by, at the time, a thirty-two-year-old son, Sam Reeves—his first name—as well as the same number of years he had been in Vietnam, he put two and two together. He was captured after only a few months in Vietnam, and if she had mailed him about being pregnant, he never received the letter. After he read about my mother, he would see my name ever so often in the online newspaper regarding a police case. He also found Internet sites about my martial arts and my competition years when I was younger. A few weeks before he came over, and probably the deciding factor in meeting me, he read I had shot an armed robber.
“Mai, I wish I could say or do something to make all this better. I hate to see you hurting.”
She doesn’t say anything for a moment, then, “You are doing something by being here for me.”
“I can say the same thing to you.”
I tell her about what happened to Mark and David, my new friend Rudy, and our run-in at the women’s clinic.
“How sad about Mark. I know he is a good friend; I hope to meet him some day.”
“When you come.”
“With Mother sick, I do not know when I can.”
“Don’t worry about it right now, Mai. There is where your head should be, with your mother. We’ll make it happen when the time is right. And I can always come back over.” Neither of us speaks for a moment. Then I hear her sniff. “Mai?”
“What did you call it … LDR?”
“Yes, we have a long-distance relationship. Some couples say they have an LDR when they live a hundred miles from each other in different cities. We live nearly eight thousand miles apart so we win the LDR. But no two hearts are more together than ours.”
She sniffs a couple of times. “That was good, Sam.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” We both laugh.
“Have you think—er—thought more about what you want to do?”
“Sorta. I thought I was pretty certain about resigning from the PD, but after talking with Mark at the hospital, I don’t know. My original reasons for joining the PD came rushing back.”
“We talked about it before and you said it was because you hate bullies.”
“That’s the simple reason, yes, although bully is a pretty feeble word for what’s going on. It angers me my friend was hurt because of who he is. Also, I’ve heard there have been a series of possible hate crimes. Most recently a black man was found lynched from a lamppost. I haven’t heard yet if it was a hate crime, but I’m betting it was.”
“Hate crime?”
“It’s an additional charge on someone who commits a crime against another person because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, and other things.”
“Oh yes. We talked about it once in a class at Portland State. I think the professor called it a bias? Yes, a bias crime. I think Portland had a lot of it.”
“There was a huge wave of it about twenty years ago. It seems like every twenty years or so, it flares up and there will be a lot of incidents for a while, and then it will die down again. To me, it’s bullying at its ugly worst.”
“It sounds like you decided. I think the protector in you is deciding.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’m just more confused than ever. And there’s another not so little issue. I don’t want to ever pick up a gun again.”
“You have to wear one, right? To be a policeman?”
“Yes, every officer must. There are desk jobs but still you must carry one.”
Mai is quiet for a moment, then, “When you were here you said you could live in Saigon.”
“I did, and I still think so. But I’m not sure Vietnam is where I’m supposed to be. Samuel, er, Father said he sees my destiny here, in Portland.”
“Oh,” she says in a small, disappointed voice. Mai holds our father and his beliefs in high regard. So do I.
“He also said you could end up here, in Portland. With me.”
“He