Chapter 24

Red Rose Tea

Ma drank this brand of tea called Red Rose tea when I went back home in those

years. She said, every time she finished her tea, It would be nice to find a rose at the

bottom of the cup. I didnt want a rose at the bottom of my cup. What I wanted was a

promise that things would work out.

It was getting worse all the time for us.

By the time she was fifteen, Anita moved down the highway way faster than her

father and I could; the places she headed to by then were places we didnt know as

anyplace at all. She went past Ann Arbor into places that were like countries at war: She

moved on past south Ypsi to apartments on Detroits Six Mile with doors that didnt open

unless you had cred. She searched those places out like they were her mother country, the

place every internationally adopted kid should return to. What she got in those places was

nothing like anything we could give her. When Ken went looking for her, if he was able

to find herin a parking lot or on a streetshe was angry the minute she saw his face,

the anger and fear in his eyes. If he found her and brought her back, she resented the fear

and anger. Sometimes, I had this crazy thought that she was mad we didnt greet her like

she had just come off the plane again, that she wanted us to reach out and sweep her up

into our arms. Anita, Anita! Youre our sweetie pie.

No more sweetie pie. We were always caught between relief and fury. We steeled

ourselves, prepared for the time she might be gone for good. We gave her fewer of our

kisses. I allowed myself to imagine life without her. Sometimes, she looked hurt; she

knew. Then I turned away and, the best I could do, offered her the last slice of take-out
pizza. I know its hard to accept this, said the psychologist, the recommended one we

were still seeing, but you have to remember its harder for her than it is for you. I

couldnt see that my daughter had pleasure in her life, so it made sense. But how much

more could we manage?

One Friday we had to leave town for a funeral. Grandma K had died, somebody

who, although she was not an actual grandmother, gave the kids dollar bills and bags of

strawberry Twizzlers. She was the mother of Mary Ann, my sister-in-law, and shed been

a part of our lives for many family celebrations, had known the kids since they landed.

I like being your pretend grandma, she said to them. They were glad to call her

Grandma, have somebody else to give them treats. Karen and Cathy, John and Mary

Anns daughters, were willing enough to share their grandmother. Grandma K couldnt

see in the last years, so, when we visited, the kids would stand in front of her, and she

would reach out and touch their heads, tell them they were growing too fast, pretty soon

they wouldnt want dollar bills and strawberry Twizzlers. But, they always said, no, no,

they were glad for her treats, and they meant that. They would sit beside her and let her

hold their hands as long as she wanted. They understood that she was reaching out from

the dark and they tried to make for a shorter reach. It seemed to me, watching all of them,

that they recognized each others hurt, were clustered together with no words needed.

I got the call that Grandma K had died on a Thursday in early November, a mean

kind of day somewhere between sleet and rain. We would need to go to Cleveland for the

funeral. I told the kids when they came home from school. The boys let out a cry. Anita

put her hands over her ears, slammed the door to her room, and stayed there. Next

morning she ate cinnamon toast, then left for school with Minh, her pack slung over her
shoulder. I called out to the two of them, Come home right away. We need to leave as

soon as we can. She turned back to give me a hug. We held each other full frontal and I

kissed her cheek. Minh slid behind the drivers seat of the rusted Chevy and yelled for her

to hurry it up, called out that I shouldnt worry.

Minh came home, on time. But there was no sister in the car with him, no idea

where she was.

We waited. Sometimes thats all a person can think of to do. Just to wait and then

wait some more. I stared at the last of the Michaelmas daises, sniffed the air as though I

could find her scent, but there was nothing. Nothing in the air, nothing in the sky, nothing

on the ground.

We were hours late leaving. We needed to go. Thats what Ken said. His jaw

locked, like it was cemented in place. No grief for him this time. He was not going to

listen to me plead for a little more time, one more phone call, a drive round to check on

possible places.

How could I leave town without my daughter? Without knowing where she was?

I cant. I cant, I cried. Lets call the police.

Ken shoved suitcases into the car, shouted at me: We have to go. Anita wont be

back anytime soon; you know that. We cant go looking this time. There are other people

besides Anita who matter. The police wont help.

I remembered how we had called the police about our daughter the very first time

she had gone missing. I had seen them in our living room with their thick black shoes and

holstered guns: sturdy people with I-have-seen-it-all eyes. Sturdy people who said there
was nothing much they could do. Did we suspect foul play? I shook my head no. I didnt

suspect it. I tried not to think about it.

I kept stalling. Ken grew implacable.

This is Grandma K dead. I needed to realize whom the funeral was for:

Grandma K, not Anita. At least, probably not Anita. We have to go to this funeral. Come

on, Mary. His voice softened; he put his arm around me.

We did have to go. So I went. I willed myself to get into the car. I increased the

distance between me and my daughter. Even if a person tries to learn nonattachment, lies

in the yoga pose called Savasana, corpse pose, meditating every single day,

relinquishment can feel like terminal bleeding and youre the person who made the cut.

Go, I said to Ken. Go.

Her brothers turned to look back as we pulled out of the driveway like they

thought she might be standing in the window or doorway, calling for us to wait, she was

coming.

We drove off, the four of us.

I left phone numbers, times, and places pressed to the counter on orange sticky

notes. I drew a large red exclamation point on white construction paper and taped the

exclamation point to the back door. Underneath the exclamation point, I wrote: See notes

on counter. She would come in the back door if she came back.

I lied to everyone I talked to at the viewing. I stood near Grandma Ks casket and

I lied to my sister-in-law, Mary Ann. I lied to cousins and friends of the family who knew

us. I said Anita was in a school play, had the lead. It was a big play. People were

depending on her. I said she was so sorry. If people knew I lied to them, they never said
so. But I dont think they knew. School plays were the norm. What we lived was not the

norm, and I had not told anyone in Cleveland the truth about our life. Id only hinted at a

bit of trouble. They were good people; they would not have judged. They would have

tried to help. But I held my grief as if it were a private treasure, something nobody else

would know how to take care of.

Ken went along with my lie. This surprised me because he was not a guy who

lied, not even to be tactful. He went along with that lie though, didnt give a single hint

that our daughter was gone, and we had come to the funeral in a town two hundred miles

from Ann Arbor, no idea where she was. Maybe he had his own private cache of grief that

he didnt want on view.

Do good mothers and fathers do that? I lay awake in Phyls guest room, the night

before the funeral service, and remembered how Anita had looked when she went out the

kitchen door. She gave me that hug and hitched her pack over her left shoulder. Then she

got into the car with her brother. She had her hair frizzed in front, the bangs a big pouf.

She had painted her nails maroon.

Sung came into our room in the middle of the night, crying that we had driven off

and left his sister behind. Would we leave him too? No, no, I said. We will find her;

we will not leave you. He curled up at the bottom of the bed, covered with my coat,

whimpering like a dog. I reached down to pat his back until he slept. I searched for Kens

hand in the dark and whispered that we didnt know that we would find her. We will, he

said, sounding grim, like hed abandon the search if that were possible. God. She

distributed pain like it was so many sticks of gum.

 Soon enough the funeral service was over and Grandma K was wheeled out of the

church. We drove to the cemetery where we placed a rose on the casket and then left her

to be lowered into the ground.

I wished, as we headed back home, that I had stayed in Cleveland, had lain down

beside Grandma K in her beige coffin with the pale peach lining. I would have fit, so

skinny with worry. Calm. It would be calm. My troubles would fall away; my skin would

fall away, and after a while, only bones would be left, mine next to Grandma Ks, gray-

white and clean, still as could be on pale peach silk.

But I was not in the coffin. The coffin was in the ground at Holy Cross Cemetery

and Grandma K was alone. I was in the car headed home, and it was just past dark on

Saturday night when we pulled into the driveway of the green house, dinnertime, about

six thirty. Minh and Sung yelled that they saw lights on in the kitchen; somebody was

there. We got out of the car and went into the house.

Our daughter held up a pan-roasted chicken for us to see, fresh out of the oven.

She was smiling. She had set the table in the dining room. There were the Michaelmas

daises in my best blue vase in the center of the table. There was salad with the very last of

the gardens tiny grape tomatoes rimming the last garden lettuce. Glasses of water with

slices of lemon floating at the top.

She wore my green oven mitts, one on each hand, and balanced the pan carefully

so as not to spill the juices. The chicken was perfectly browned. Had she gone to Kroger

and bought a roasting chicken? Had she walked home with it in her pack? Had whomever

shed taken off with on Friday driven her to the store and waited while she shopped?

What had she done for cash?

 I never found out. I wanted to scream. Loud.

Anita talked like a hotel receptionist greeting arrivals. I found your notes. I made

supper. Was she saying she was sorry? Did she have any idea? What were we supposed

to say: How was your trip, Anita? We went to a funeral, Anita. Remember Grandma K?

The smell of roasted chicken hung in the air. It would be years before I could bear

that smell again.

When I think about that time, and its years past, I realize I never talk about that

dinner with her. We talk about things from that time now. But that scenes like a bad

picture in the family album: something went wrong before the shutter clicked. I shiver

when I think of it. I keep that picture in an album on a high shelf in the back room closet,

someplace I never dust.

I can put myself back there though, fast. There was the girl-woman holding that

roasting pan in my kitchen, offering me food and words: Eat, eat, take it and eat it. Ive

made this just for you. Who was that girl?

I wanted to grab hold and shake her, shake her hard. But I did nothing.

Anita grew angry at my silence and banged the pan onto the counter; juice

splattered the counter and wall, dotted her red silk shirt. I ignored all of it, the food, the

girl, everyone. I went upstairs to bed and pulled the covers over me.

Ken stayed in the kitchen and tried to settle things.

I dont know what happened to that meal. When I came down the next morning,

there were no signs, no leftovers in the refrigerator, no chicken, no salad. Even the

flowers were gone. The stove and walls were wiped clean. Somebody had opened the

windows and a little bit of wind moved through the room. Maybe it moved things a bit
because I found one of my sticky notes, lying on the floor in front of the stove. WE ARE

NOT LEAVING YOU! Thats what I had written in bold orange marker. In caps. Printed.

Just to be clear.

I heard her bedroom door open, her feet move over the wood floor. She came into

the kitchen wearing gray sweats with a Pistons logo. I didnt recognize them, but then,

she had this tendency to gather souvenirs of her travels, so they could have been from

anyone, anywhere.

I put on the kettle, asked her if she wanted some tea. We might be able to manage

tea even if we couldnt eat together. We sat at the table and sipped. No pink Melmac, no

Red Rose. We poured tea from a brown pot into two lime-green mugs. Darjeeling. For

something to sayI would not talk about the weekendtalking about that felt like trying

to move a boulder stuck somewhere inside meI told her about my mom, about the Red

Rose tea. She looked at me, her eyes the same dark brown as my mothers. I wish, she

said. I wish.

And, right then, I knew she did wish. Like my mother, like most of us, my

daughter wished. I poured more of what I had to give her and let my hand rest with hers

on the handle of her cup. The two of us looking, both of us wishing.