Read Online Butterfly's Child by Angela Davis-Gardner - Free Book Online Page A

on his chest, he liked to close his eyes and think of Rice Ball. He was white all over except the tip of his tail, blacklike it was dipped in ink. Mama said maybe Rice Ball wrote or made pictures at night when they weren’t looking. Rice Ball had gray eyes like a gaijin, a cold pink nose, and stiff white whiskers he didn’t like touched. Rice Ball was Papa-san’s cat, Mama said, and Benji was a good boy to look after him so well until Papa came back.
    One night when Benji had a bad dream about Mama and the blood, he took her picture from its hiding place in the kimono and held it against his chest. He wished Mama had put it there for him but it had been Suzuki because Mama was dead. The dream came back to him. It was too hard to think about.
    He pulled Kaki under the covers with him, like he did with Rice Ball in his futon, and thought about Rice Ball helping him fish in the pond, leaning over so far Benji was afraid he’d fall in but he never did, only put a paw in the water and shook it off fast. He remembered his feet in the cool pond, and the orange fish brushing past, and in the fall, leaves that looked like red stars on the water. To go back to sleep, he put himself in the pond, floating with the sun on his face and Rice Ball watching over him.

 
    It fell to Kate
to teach the boy English. Frank’s efforts, when he made them, continued to involve pidgin Japanese.
    She devoted herself to Benji, to win back his trust. She cooked his favorite food—he preferred noodles, with bits of chicken and vegetables—and at bedtime sang nursery rhymes to him, just as she longed to do for her own children. Benji watched her warily, holding the cat. She prayed that God give her renewed patience.
    The veterinarian, Keast, had recommended that she consult Miss Lena Ladu, the new schoolteacher who’d just relocated to Morseville, the small town between Plum River and Stockton. Both Keast and Miss Ladu roomed at Mrs. Bosley’s boardinghouse, where he had on several occasions conversed with her; she was steady and intelligent, he said, with a good measure of common sense.
    Miss Ladu agreed that the boy should be weaned from his native tongue. Since he seemed to be such a bright child, he would in all likelihood pick up English in a natural way, by hearing it spoken in the home. She commended Kate for the approach she was taking. He would probably master nouns first, Miss Ladu predicted; that was the way of American children.
    Kate kept the boy with her part of each day as she went about her chores, gesturing, naming:
stove, kettle, bread, broom
. When he stared at her with those eyes, she shifted her gaze away and tried not to think of his origins.
    â€œLand’s sakes,” Mrs. Pinkerton said one day, when Kate introduced the words
sifter, dough
, and
rolling pin
. “He’ll never understand all that.”
    â€œNaturally he can’t at present,” Kate said, trying to sustain a pleasant tone. “But he will, in time.”
    Mrs. Pinkerton gave the boy a biscuit slathered with blackberry jam; she didn’t need to gesture for him to sit at the table. Food he understood. They watched as he devoured the biscuit. “It’s a wonder you brought the boy here,” Mrs. Pinkerton said, “not knowing a word.”
    â€œHe’s making progress.” Kate dumped more flour onto the sticky bread dough and kneaded it savagely. “We saved him, you know. It was God’s will.”
    Mrs. Pinkerton made no comment but to sweep the floor in brisk, dismissive strokes.
    Kate’s eyes stung. No one appreciated her efforts and her sacrifices, not even Frank. He was indifferent and stubborn in a way he’d never been during the two years of their marriage before the catastrophic trip to Japan. It occurred to her that Frank—though perhaps not aware of it—clung to the Japanese language because of that woman. Kate must give him children of their own; then he