He shook the finger at her.
– Nu-uh. No more. Listen to me. Listen.
–
He snapped his fingers, a meaty slap of flesh.
– Shht. Now!
She stopped talking and looked down at her feet in their pink and white sneakers.
Po Sin pointed at her brother.
– Does Yong ever lose his Legos, Xing?
She bit her lip, not looking up.
Po Sin put a finger under her chin and tilted her face to his.
– I asked a question.
She blew out her cheeks.
– You
– And now I want you to answer. Does he ever lose his Legos?
– I don't
– Yes you do. You know he doesn't. Sometimes people take them at school. But he never loses them. Because after your mom and me and his loving sister, the most important thing in the world for Yong is his Legos. Isn't that right?
– I don't
Po Sin straightened, folded his arms, shook his head.
– Xing, I will never take you to the American Girl store ever again if you don't stop lying.
Her eyes went big. She looked at him, found him unyielding; looked at her mom, found her utterly fed the fuck up. Her eyes darted from side to side, surveying the room, found no escape. She made little fists, pounded them against her thighs twice.
– But I
Po Sin held out his hand.
She frowned, squatted, unlaced her left shoe, dug a finger inside and came out with a little knobbed bit of black plastic.
She put it in her father's hand.
– It's just a
Po Sin folded the piece in his hand.
– And they're all equally precious to him. Just like the two of you are equally precious to us. We wouldn't want to lose either of you, no matter how much we love the other one.
– But he has so
– That doesn't matter, honey.
He turned and walked to his son.
– That doesn't matter at all.
He squatted and opened his hand in front of Yong's face. Yong looked at the piece, started to reach for it, stopped. Po Sin nodded, set the piece on the floor. Yong snatched it up, opened a zipper on the side of his backpack, dropped the piece inside, and zipped it back up.
Po Sin held out his index finger again.
– Now can I have a real hug?
Yong nodded, wrapped his little hand around Po Sin's finger, squeezed, and let go.
Po Sin looked over his shoulder at us.
– There, all better.
– Today was a bad day.
I walked with Lei to her car.
– Usually he's more interactive. But when something gets out of sequence, or lost, he gets untracked, his mind, and he can't focus on anything else. Emotions don't make much sense to him, so he has to concentrate very hard to read signs he's been taught to recognize. When he can't, he gets confused and scared. He withdraws. And touch is difficult. He doesn't like too much contact. Random contact. It's hard to explain. He loves being sandwiched. We have these pads at home we can put him between and apply pressure over his whole body and somehow that comforts him, makes it easier to think. But generally, he needs a task to focus. The Legos.
She opened the driver's door of her tiny yellow Scion.
– Those kits? The impossibly difficult ones? Cities, trains, huge airliners. He opens the box, glances at the instructions, and builds them without ever making a mistake. You can take thousands of pieces, mix them all up, pull out one and show it to him, and he'll know exactly what kit it's from, where it goes, even what page it's on in the instructions, and its code number. The other kids know he's different, but they're young enough to think it's cool that he knows so much about Legos.
She shaded her eyes from the sun to look up at my face, smiling.
– They come to him with all their Lego dilemmas. He's like their shaman. Treasured for his oddness. For now, anyway.
A big sigh.
– We'll see in a couple of years how they deal with him.
– Um, Lei.
– Yes?
– Speaking of touch, could I have my hand back.
She looked at the hand she'd not released since she first took hold of it, laughed, let it go.
– Sorry. Sorry. Poor Yong hates to be touched, and his mother is so touchy-feely. I have to struggle not to hold his hand or rub his neck. And then it gets bottled up sometimes, next thing I know I'm stroking the cheek of someone I met five minutes ago.
She raised and dropped her shoulders and climbed into the car.
– I've invaded the personal space of every checkout person at our Ralph's. The tellers at the bank, they're lucky they have those Plexiglas shields to hide behind or I'd be hugging them every time I go in.
I pushed the door closed and she rolled down the window.
– Nice to meet you, Web. Glad we finally did. When I didn't see you last year, at the memorial, I was disappointed. I'd wanted to thank you. I was going to track you down, but then Po Sin said he ran into you at your friend's shop. I figured it was a matter of time before he got you over for dinner or something. And then time kept passing. I stopped thinking about it as much. I guess I got lazy about finding you and telling you how grateful we were of you sitting with Xing. Taking her off the bus. Her teacher told us she wouldn't get out from under her seat for him or any of the police. And I know how. You must have been very. Upset is a lame word. But. So to go back on the bus and help get her off and sit with her and help settle her. That was special. It meant a lot when we heard about it.
She reached out the window and grabbed my hand and squeezed.
– So there. I said it without crying, and you didn't even run away.
She let me go.
– Hope I didn't freak you out too much, Web.
I showed her the hand she'd held.
– Nothing a bar of Ivory won't cure.
She laughed.
– Takes more than that to get me off.
She put the car in reverse, started to roll.
– Hey keep an eye on Po Sin for me. Don't let him eat crap. If he has a stroke and dies on me I'll be stuck alone with Xing, and I just know she'll kill me in my sleep one night.
She pulled into traffic and drove away.
I went to the door and stood there and watched Po Sin on the floor, taking turns with Xing, handing Lego pieces one by one to Yong, who assembled them.
I came into the room.
