Gertie's arrest was the worst news to break, obviously - I can still barely think about it without wanting to break something or curl up in the fetal position on the bathroom floor - but it was hardly the only stunner. Observe:
Monday: Rosalind and the ugly baby
Rosalind went into the hospital last weekend with acute appendicitis. I skipped my usual Sunday visit to the Vietnamese house, so I didn't find out until Monday. Very few people knew what was going on, and my frantic questioning of all the Vietnamese turned up exactly zero details.
I had a hard time finding Rosalind at the hospital, since she was pretending to be Cambodian and had given the hospital staff a fake name, but I hunted her down eventually: a pale, stick-thin figure drowning in blue hospital pajamas. Her hand was cold and clammy, bony fingers slippery with sweat, clinging weakly to mine as I held them both against my heart like some kind of goddamn Victorian damsel.
The incision was surprisingly large, not unlike an off-center cesarean section. "It's like you had a baby," I told her. "A really ugly baby." She laughed, then cringed with pain, and I regretted the joke.
I asked her if she wanted me to stay, and she said yes. So I did, perched on the bench between Winnie, who rested her head on my shoulder and massaged my hand, and Saul, who told me the whole story - that is, as much of the story as he could get out between Rosalind's frequent interruptions. "He's lying," she'd say, rolling her eyes a little. "That didn't happen."
Objectively, of course, she looked like deep-fried crap: greasy hair sticking up in all directions, dark puffy bags under her eyes, nails yellowed and bare of polish for the first time in our acquaintance. But she was awake, and smiling, and okay. Beautiful.
Her standard line is that she doesn't want the baby. Under pressure, though, she's admitted to Pippi that she does like the kid, but her mother won't let her keep her. Pippi is trying to convince her to stay here with Pippi Two for a couple years and finish school, get her shit together, but Sally is determined to give the baby away again and leave the shelter sooner than later.
Fran had been planning for a while to take Blue back to Burma. I wasn't the only one who strongly opposed this idea, for reasons that should be glaringly obvious, but she was insistent. The problem, she said, was that Blue needed papers. Without the assistance of his douchebag father, who had unsurprisingly vanished without a trace, he couldn't get papers here in Thailand. If she didn't get him Burmese papers within a certain time frame, he would be doomed to statelessness, belonging nowhere.
On Thursday, Fran went with Agatha the social worker and somehow secured the necessary Thai papers. I doubted very much that the process was particularly legal, but I didn't give one single flying fuck. What mattered was that Blue had the papers he needed, and Fran wouldn't have to take him back to Burma. They could stay here, safe and supported, and start building a real life.
On Friday, though, Fran went out again and found an apartment. She told me she's leaving on April 1. No doubt she'll go straight back to the bars, where it's easy to make money and even easier to find yourself knocked up and abandoned.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
Rosalind is home now. I've gone over to the Vietnamese house almost every day this week to spend a few hours with her, gossiping and shooting the shit. I keep forgetting that I'm not supposed to make her laugh; yesterday she got the giggles so bad that she had to haul herself to her feet and hobble out of the room. She walks like an old woman, hunched over and clutching her incision. She spends most of our time together lying in bed, one skinny hand wrapped around mine or resting on my knee or fiddling with the seam on my jeans. Her medication makes her sleepy, and I usually sneak out after she's dozed off. It doesn't matter: she knows I'll be back.
Pippi Two is absolutely gorgeous. She's so much bigger than the little fairy girl that left in January: the first time Sally shifted her into my arms, the weight of her took my breath away. She's still thin, but her arms and legs are terrifically strong, and she holds up her own head like a champ. Her eyes are enormous and pitch-black, and she stares at me while I hold her, her squishy pink mouth forever pursed in an expression of mingled concern and curiosity. I can still get her to stop crying by jamming my finger in her mouth. And sometimes, when it's just the two of us, I'll still sing to her, just to watch her tiny, sparse eyelashes drift down over those massive cartoon eyes.
Blue is not the world's cutest baby. He looks like an old man, jowly and grumpy-faced, and his shorn hair is growing back in the most hideous Friar Tuck pattern. He's hard to please, unhappy on his back or when it's hot for him to lie on his stomach, and he tends to fall asleep with his sweaty, bristly head shoved right up under my chin. To make matters worse, he's had wicked diarrhea recently; I don't mean to be dramatic, but I think it’s safe to say that I’ve wiped that kid’s ass more in the last couple weeks than I’ve wiped mine in my entire life. I sit at my computer, unable to type with my hands full of this Benjamin Button baby - sweaty and scratchy and heavy, leaking poop like a punctured water balloon - and when Fran asks if I want her to take him now, I shake my head. "Mai bpen rai," I say. It's okay.
It's okay.
I had a hard time finding Rosalind at the hospital, since she was pretending to be Cambodian and had given the hospital staff a fake name, but I hunted her down eventually: a pale, stick-thin figure drowning in blue hospital pajamas. Her hand was cold and clammy, bony fingers slippery with sweat, clinging weakly to mine as I held them both against my heart like some kind of goddamn Victorian damsel.
The incision was surprisingly large, not unlike an off-center cesarean section. "It's like you had a baby," I told her. "A really ugly baby." She laughed, then cringed with pain, and I regretted the joke.
I asked her if she wanted me to stay, and she said yes. So I did, perched on the bench between Winnie, who rested her head on my shoulder and massaged my hand, and Saul, who told me the whole story - that is, as much of the story as he could get out between Rosalind's frequent interruptions. "He's lying," she'd say, rolling her eyes a little. "That didn't happen."
Objectively, of course, she looked like deep-fried crap: greasy hair sticking up in all directions, dark puffy bags under her eyes, nails yellowed and bare of polish for the first time in our acquaintance. But she was awake, and smiling, and okay. Beautiful.
Wednesday: Sally and the bug-eyed baby
For once, she wasn't bullshitting. She arrived at the shelter with Pippi on Wednesday, bringing her goggle-eyed baby girl with her. Unfortunately, the reasons they're both back with us are rather grim. You may recall that Sally gave Pippi Two to her aunt. Soon after, the aunt apparently decided she didn't actually want the baby, so she shunted her back to Sally. Meanwhile, Sally's parents decided to move to the city - without their youngest daughter and infant granddaughter - leaving Sally alone with the baby she didn't want in a village that really didn't want them there. Cue Pippi's arrival, a few calls to Harriet and Robin, and Sally's (sort of) triumphant return.Pippi left on Sunday for a surprise visit to Sally. She wasn't due to arrive in Sally's remote village until Tuesday, so I was surprised to answer my phone Tuesday morning and hear Sally herself shrieking at me in broken Thai - hello, I miss you, do you miss me, the baby is big, I'm coming back.
"Say what?" I gurgled, wondering if someone had slipped something into my water bottle, but she had already hung up in a fit of excitement.
"Say what?" I gurgled, wondering if someone had slipped something into my water bottle, but she had already hung up in a fit of excitement.
Her standard line is that she doesn't want the baby. Under pressure, though, she's admitted to Pippi that she does like the kid, but her mother won't let her keep her. Pippi is trying to convince her to stay here with Pippi Two for a couple years and finish school, get her shit together, but Sally is determined to give the baby away again and leave the shelter sooner than later.
Friday: Fran and the hairiest baby of all
Fran had been planning for a while to take Blue back to Burma. I wasn't the only one who strongly opposed this idea, for reasons that should be glaringly obvious, but she was insistent. The problem, she said, was that Blue needed papers. Without the assistance of his douchebag father, who had unsurprisingly vanished without a trace, he couldn't get papers here in Thailand. If she didn't get him Burmese papers within a certain time frame, he would be doomed to statelessness, belonging nowhere.
On Thursday, Fran went with Agatha the social worker and somehow secured the necessary Thai papers. I doubted very much that the process was particularly legal, but I didn't give one single flying fuck. What mattered was that Blue had the papers he needed, and Fran wouldn't have to take him back to Burma. They could stay here, safe and supported, and start building a real life.
On Friday, though, Fran went out again and found an apartment. She told me she's leaving on April 1. No doubt she'll go straight back to the bars, where it's easy to make money and even easier to find yourself knocked up and abandoned.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
Sunday: silver linings
Rosalind is home now. I've gone over to the Vietnamese house almost every day this week to spend a few hours with her, gossiping and shooting the shit. I keep forgetting that I'm not supposed to make her laugh; yesterday she got the giggles so bad that she had to haul herself to her feet and hobble out of the room. She walks like an old woman, hunched over and clutching her incision. She spends most of our time together lying in bed, one skinny hand wrapped around mine or resting on my knee or fiddling with the seam on my jeans. Her medication makes her sleepy, and I usually sneak out after she's dozed off. It doesn't matter: she knows I'll be back.
Pippi Two is absolutely gorgeous. She's so much bigger than the little fairy girl that left in January: the first time Sally shifted her into my arms, the weight of her took my breath away. She's still thin, but her arms and legs are terrifically strong, and she holds up her own head like a champ. Her eyes are enormous and pitch-black, and she stares at me while I hold her, her squishy pink mouth forever pursed in an expression of mingled concern and curiosity. I can still get her to stop crying by jamming my finger in her mouth. And sometimes, when it's just the two of us, I'll still sing to her, just to watch her tiny, sparse eyelashes drift down over those massive cartoon eyes.
Blue is not the world's cutest baby. He looks like an old man, jowly and grumpy-faced, and his shorn hair is growing back in the most hideous Friar Tuck pattern. He's hard to please, unhappy on his back or when it's hot for him to lie on his stomach, and he tends to fall asleep with his sweaty, bristly head shoved right up under my chin. To make matters worse, he's had wicked diarrhea recently; I don't mean to be dramatic, but I think it’s safe to say that I’ve wiped that kid’s ass more in the last couple weeks than I’ve wiped mine in my entire life. I sit at my computer, unable to type with my hands full of this Benjamin Button baby - sweaty and scratchy and heavy, leaking poop like a punctured water balloon - and when Fran asks if I want her to take him now, I shake my head. "Mai bpen rai," I say. It's okay.
It's okay.
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