The Surrendered

SIXTEEN

IN THE DAYS AFTER SHE SLEPT tucked beside Sylvie, June crept about quietly as she dusted in the cottage, departing without saying a word. Sylvie was distant and distracted, staying and reading in the bedroom while June did her chores in the front, and then whenever she was outside it seemed she would allow herself to be surrounded by other children, who instantly formed about her like a buzzing hedge. June was afraid that she had somehow defiled their bond, had imperiled everything she had been planning. She didn’t dare ask if she could stay overnight again, not wanting to remind Sylvie in the least of what might have happened.

For what had happened? She wasn’t sure herself, save for the imprint of Sylvie’s body on her hands, the arid, smooth skin that had been almost burning to the touch, if perfectly stilled, solid, this live ingot. It was only at night, in the girls’ dorm room, well after the lights were extinguished and the other girls finally fell asleep after their incessant chattering, when she was on the threshold of slumber herself, that a seam of pressure pushed up through the trunk of her body, this ache coursing through her arm and to her hand, and which made her reach again for Sylvie, though there was only herself. Throughout the bunks there was stillness, but in her own cot there would be movement, shifting, the tiniest travel in the cot’s metal feet, and in the morning she’d awake enervated and bewildered and loathing herself yet again for pushing away the only person she loved. Her desire, she could see, was only ruining her chances for the future. She must only be a good daughter. She knew the grip of her thoughts had better be as steely as ever, as though she were alone again on the road, when her body was wild with hunger, every last cell of her about to burst in all directions with its emptiness but her mind furiously gripping at the rails. She had to be the implacable train. The unswerving force. She must do whatever she had to, to keep moving ahead.

One night, when June thought Tanner was still away, she’d awoken by habit in the early hours and peered outside to check for any lamplight from the cottage and on seeing a faint glow stole to the back to see if Hector was there. She crept beneath the window along the wall and listened for any sounds. The night air was frigid but she held herself tightly so as not to shake. But it was Reverend Tanner’s voice-he must have returned very late, contrary to plan, perhaps even to check on her-and to June’s surprise he was speaking without a stitch of suspicion or anger, in fact quite tenderly, his voice a high, soft reed.

“You’re only thirty-four, dear. Other women we know have had children as late as that. My mother gave birth to my brother at thirty-six.”

“Dorothy had six of you, before him.”

“She lost several, too, you know.”

“She didn’t lose five,” Sylvie said miserably. “Not every one.”

Tanner was momentarily silent. But then he said: “We can’t think about that anymore. Being around all these children has heartened me-but, I see now, in an astonishing way. Their spirit and ceaseless energy have brought me renewal. I feel very strong inside. And I was thinking as I drove back tonight how lucky we’ve been to have this time here. What a rare chance this is, to be amid so much possibility! So many hopeful beginnings! And here you haven’t been well and my frequent trips to Seoul and to the other orphanages have only made things worse for you.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s not at all.”

“It is my fault. Perhaps I’m not the cause, but I’ve exacerbated the situation, and I’m as culpable in the end as if I were. I’ve been negligent. I’ve been a poor husband, by every measure. Not only these past months in Korea but for years now. It’s why I returned instead of staying over in town, to tell you how sorry I am, for the way I’ve willfully disdained your unhappiness, when I should have redoubled my efforts to help you. To be with you. I’ve been selfish, and terribly self-righteous, too. I’m asking if you’ll forgive me, Sylvie. If you’ll try to forgive who I’ve been and let me come back to you.”

“Forgive you?” she cried. She was trying to say something now, but she was gasping from low in her chest, shuddering, and June was sure that she was going to confess to him, admit what he may have already known, but he was shushing her, telling her that there was nothing she needed to say. June slowly stood up to peer over the sill and through the gauzy curtain and saw him embracing her in the lamplight as she sat up in her bed. He stroked her mussed-up hair.

“Let’s start again, darling. I’ve come to have a renewed belief in our chances. I want to try for us again. We can still take children home with us, but I want you to believe that we can have our own. Can you do that for me? Will you?”

“Yes,” she said, wiping her eyes, her nose. “I will, for you. But I think it’s too late, Ames.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“But it is,” she said hopelessly. “It’s too late.”

“It’s not!” he said, his voice loud enough to buzz the window glass. He paused, then spoke gently again: “It’s only too late if you believe it so. We have no chance otherwise. None at all. We must want the same thing, which hasn’t been the case for a long time. It’s not mysterious to me anymore.”

He bent down and kissed her on the forehead, and the cheek, and then on the mouth. She didn’t turn away. Perhaps she was not wholly with him but she wasn’t fleeing, or flinching, and when he pulled on the sides of her nightgown she simply raised her arms so he could lift it from her body. Her ribs showed starkly. He clasped her there and pressed his face into her breast and as they lay down on the bed he put out the oil lamp, sending the room into perfect black. June ducked, afraid her silhouette might be visible. For another half-hour she remained crouched in the near-frosty night air, listening for the scuttle of lovemaking as she did in the storeroom next to Hector’s quarter but hearing in the end only Tanner’s low, sharp breaths, half pained.

The next day was bright and glorious, the hillsides awash in a gaudy autumnal display. The shimmering glow was bounding inside of June, too, despite the terrible headache and congested chest that she’d awoken with after finally going back to the dormitory, her hands and feet and face numb with the freezing air. And she was finally realizing now how she ought for the moment to desist, pull back, force herself to recede from Sylvie, and from Tanner, too. She saw how amazingly shortsighted she had been, what a stupid, silly child, ridiculous in her neediness, mistaking her unwavering insistence on wedging herself into their lives for a strength, a necessity, when it was in fact only helping to dismantle everything she wanted. It didn’t matter if they would still have their own baby or not, or if they adopted another child or children along with her; all that mattered from this point on was that the Tanners remain as is, that they work together, as before, that they be at least accepting of their union, even if they were no longer deeply in love. She had enough love for Sylvie, she was certain, to sustain them both forever.

As for Reverend Tanner, June had already begun to practice her new way: in English class and Bible study she spoke up regularly, clearly surprising him with a new enthusiasm and the demeanor of a girl who was respectful and demure; he even took her aside afterward and asked if she was all right, as she’d steadily coughed throughout the class.

“I am fine,” she said, trying to smile for him, even as her temples pounded.

“Perhaps you ought to rest for the day. You don’t sound yourself.” He patted her shoulder. “You can see if Mrs. Tanner is inside, if you like.”

“I don’t want to disturb her,” she said, and instead headed for the dormitory, imagining with near certainty that he was nodding approvingly behind her. She would show him her restraint. Show him that despite all the fights and other troubles she had caused she was a worthy girl at core, exactly the kind of hard soul he must be here to save. She was not being so crafty or calculating, as she was exercising a differing form of the same capacity for self-discipline and self-direction she’d always possessed and counted on, but now applying it to self-reform. Was true maturity to be found in this measure of control? If so, it was a jubilant feeling. Yet as she lay down in her cot in the empty dormitory, the first rush of a fever welling in the back of her neck, in her joints, the thought occurred that it was in fact Hector Brennan who must be changed. Or even, somehow, removed from the scene; she was already painting him dark with pitch. Blacking him out. It was ironic because if there was anyone in the orphanage besides Sylvie who seemed to understand her or accept her it was Hector; he never judged her or acted as if she ought to behave differently, even when she was raging and belligerent. There was nothing conditional about his regard. He seemed amused by her, if anything, and unlike everyone else (including Sylvie) he was impressed by her regular fisticuffs with the boys, once even demonstrating from across the play yard how she ought to rotate her fist when she threw a punch, drive all the way through.

She did not spend any extra hours with Sylvie; there would be ample time in the future. Rather, she was vigilant of Hector and his movements, noting when he was at work outside on the grounds, or at the sewer ditch, or else left the orphanage at night for the red-light section of the city, which he was frequenting again. Maybe Sylvie had broken it off with him. Certainly the Tanners seemed closer than before, often sitting together at meals among the children. June was practically joyous on seeing Hector return early one morning with his fatigue jacket ripped at the shoulder, his lip bruised, not because he was injured but because he was going into town and drinking and fighting again, which in her ever-grinding calculus was a sure sign that he had relinquished any hope of a civilized future with Sylvie. Whenever Hector did emerge from his room he was always in his soiled work clothes and boots, heading for the ditch digging, which he had almost finished. He’d been working continuously and even set up an oil lamp and dug for a few hours at night before driving late into Seoul.

June openly followed him one morning. He paid no attention to her. He went straight past the Tanners’ cottage on the pathway down the hill to the end of the dig, a mere ten meters to go to the as yet empty pit, setting to work immediately, pickaxing as if he were attempting to injure the ground or himself. But neither seemed to give, the soil at that spot so rocky and compacted that the ax would viciously rebound every so often and almost strike him in the face. Eventually he prevailed. He didn’t seem to tire, only the force of his blows slightly diminishing, his rhythm staying true until he was finished and simply stopped, his chest bellowing deeply in and out.

She approached him and told him that she would fetch him some water if he liked. He didn’t look up or reply, just shoveled the loosened earth and rock. She stood there for a moment and then ran back to where the kitchen aunties worked and made sure to catch the eye of Reverend Tanner, who followed her with his gaze as he conducted Bible study for the younger children beneath the pavilion. When she got back to Hector she offered him the tin bowl of water. Hector paused from his shoveling and quickly drank it all.

“Thanks,” he said, again gripping his shovel.

“Do you want more?”

“No.”

“I can bring you some food.”

He shook his head and turned to resume working.

She said, “Could I help you?”

“No.”

“I’m strong. Let me try,” she said. It was then that Reverend Tanner and the group of younger children approached the edge of the low hillside. Hector’s back was turned to them. Seeing her chance, June reached around him for the pickax.

“Leave that alone,” he said. “It’s too heavy. Just go, okay?”

But June was already removing her light wool sweater, rolling it up over her head. Her blouse was untucked from the band of her long skirt and as it was pulled by the sweater she let it ride up, over her bare chest, taking her time to unfurl the sweater from her head before the fabric naturally fell and draped down again. From his downcast eyes she knew her breasts were clearly showing through the thin white shirting. She let her sweater fall to the ground and when he didn’t move she stepped quickly to him, as if he’d pulled her in an embrace. He tried to push her away but she clung tighter to him the more he squirmed and she was exhilarated by how tenacious she could be, how resilient, though a reciprocal, near-hungering ache uncoiled in her gut from the hard pads of his hands. Finally she pushed away from him, letting herself fall to the ground.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Hector shouted.

She expected to hear Tanner’s voice but when she looked up she glimpsed only his dark minister’s jacket and the tops of the children’s heads bobbing away as they hiked back toward the compound.

“Don’t you ever do that again,” Hector growled. “Don’t you ever touch me like that.”

“I won’t!” she said defiantly.

She put on her sweater and ran off. In the central yard it was nearly lunchtime, the younger children playing tag while the aunties set up tables outside, as it was a warm fall day. Sylvie and several older girls were bringing out utensils and cups and she joined them. Reverend Tanner was already sitting at one of the tables, watching their play with an opened Bible before him. June was ready to tell him a broader story of what Hector had done, or tried to do, but Tanner said nothing to her. He only glanced at the freshly soiled patches on her skirt, on her sleeves, and although this surprised her she realized that he couldn’t talk about such things in front of his wife and other girls. In fact he didn’t need to talk about them at all, for she had done the necessary work, and as she began setting down chopsticks and spoons she felt that she was a wellspring and that Hector was a leaf just fallen on the surface, soon to be tided inexorably away.

YET HECTOR DIDN’T GO AWAY. It seemed impossible to her, but Reverend Tanner made nothing of witnessing her and Hector down in the ditch. He didn’t seem to care. A whole week went by, and at the end of it the reverend even talked animatedly with Hector about the sections of concrete piping just delivered by truck. Tanner even decided to help Hector with the job of joining the sections, suspending his schedule for two days while young Reverend Kim from Seoul came down to help Sylvie with his teaching and liturgical duties. June and some other children watched them from a perch above the gently sloping hillside. Each thick-walled concrete section was a half-meter round and as long as a man and it took them past dusk of the first day to lug all the sections of pipe down the run of the ditch. It was simple work and they didn’t have to say much of anything to each other and labored in a steady rhythm, lifting a section from the pile beside the main outhouse and walking it down sideways or with one of them backpedaling. As night fell one might have thought the two men were interring corpses in a strange, threading line of a mass grave. The next day it rained lightly and they shifted the sections, using shovels for leverage in order to connect them, and by the end when they shook hands ever so briefly they were covered brown-gray from head to toe in mud and joining mortar.

Sylvie was again not well. Maybe it was the pressure of her husband’s new wish for a child, or her own guilt about Hector, or else that she was craving him even as she knew she should not have him, but June could see the parched quality of her skin, the streaks of red at her elbows where she constantly scratched at herself showing through her blouse sleeve. She needed medicine for her kit.

June kept telling herself that she could be the remedy. She told herself to keep disciplined, to stay the course she had laid out, to remake herself along the lines of an entirely different girl: someone who was not an orphan at all, had not lost anyone in her life, much less witnessed any horrors or degradation. She was a normal child who would soon have a normal life. And it was shortly borne out: after the morning prayer Reverend Tanner announced that at the end of October young Reverend Kim, who substituted for him when he was away, would take over as director of the orphanage. “But what will you do?” a boy obtusely asked. “Mrs. Tanner and I must be leaving,” Tanner solemnly replied. “We have to go back to America.” There was a long second of silence and then all the children were crying, many outright wailing, some fallen to the ground, the rest crowding around him and Sylvie, both of whom were crying, too.

Only June did not fret, knowing that she would soon be asked to prepare for the journey. She knew from others they would fly first to Japan, then go on to either Alaska or Hawaii, before landing in San Francisco. From there they would take a shorter flight to Seattle, where the Tanners were from, a place that Sylvie had once described to her as a city shrouded in constant rain and fog, a place on earth but stuck in clouds, where one always felt the weight of dampness in one’s clothes and hair and skin, which was strangely comforting, once gotten used to. Naturally some found it oppressive. But June liked the idea that the weather was a near constant, like a too-loyal friend, something to bear around and tolerate and maybe cherish, even if it would never leave you alone. And she knew that she and Sylvie would be just that for each other, and in time perhaps she could prove the same for Reverend Tanner, who would come to see her not as a bane he had yielded to but the living picture of his grace.

So she organized and reorganized her small footlocker, which every child had, discarding the pairs of socks that were past darning, resolving to wear the ugly olive-drab trousers as often as she could to preserve her two decent blouses and skirt, which she snapped in the air to rid of dust and then tightly folded. She polished her ill-fitting leather shoes, knowing that she would have to wear them on the plane. She went through her workbooks and tore out the pages marred by idle sketches or doodles and she honed her three pencils against the floorboards to sharp pinpoints. She cleaned the footlocker itself, removing the grime from the handle with a kerosene-dipped rag and sanding the rust from the rivets and steel-clad corners. Lastly she borrowed a pair of good scissors from the aunties and trimmed her own hair (which was in a rough, unkempt pageboy because she never sat long enough for them to cut it properly), smoothing out the line of the ends and pinning up one side like some of the other girls did but with the fancy, large tortoiseshell hair clasp Sylvie had given her very early on. It was in the shape of a butterfly, which she loved, but she had not used it even once out of fear of losing or breaking it. But she was wearing it constantly now, to remind herself to keep her hair and face and fingernails neat and clean, to be polite, even smiling and pretty, just as the younger girls who had been adopted before had been polite and pretty, so eager to please, but mostly because she was confident that her time here was truly ending, that her life was about to begin anew.

Thus it didn’t bother her in the least that the atmosphere of the orphanage was lifeless for some days after the announcement of the Tanners’ departure, the boys not even playing soccer or tag during free time. The aunties seemed less patient with the children, scolding them more hotly for not clearing the tables fast enough, or for making too much laundry. In fact it was mostly just Hector who seemed as active as ever, maybe more so, as the winter would soon be approaching and countless repairs needed to be completed before the frightful cold descended again upon the hills. As June watched him work at reframing a window-his face unshaven, his hair unruly, his eyes unwavering from the task at hand-a pang of recognition struck her low momentarily: his life was about to begin again, too. She almost felt sorry for having tried to bring him trouble. What would he do, after they were gone? It was why she could smell him from a distance, the boozy smell and the sharp body smell and the faintest ashen smell of someone’s embittered heart.

It was with the news that visitors from a new adoption agency in America were coming to take photographs of the children that the compound came back to life. The aunties heated water the entire day to draw enough for bathing all forty children, separate boys’ and girls’ tin tubs accommodating three or four of them at a time.

June refused at first to bathe, for there was no reason for her to do so, she was already spoken for, but as one of the aunties berated her she realized she ought to take every chance to better herself, as much as stay in line. And so she got in with three much younger girls, soaping up their hair for them, reminding them to shut their eyes, even drying them off quickly in the chilly air and helping them get dressed in their best outfits. She put on her own good clothes and accompanied the younger ones out and waited in line with them for their photographs, except that the kindly-faced, plumpish older couple who arrived by taxi had no intention of taking portraits but rather wanted to meet all the children in the hope of taking home as many as they could manage. They had a camera, but only for taking snapshots of their journey. Reverend Tanner was confused, as he’d obviously received erroneous information from the church office in Seoul, but he still had everyone meet the Stolzes, who sat in chairs in the central yard and shook each child’s hand. Sylvie had not yet reemerged from the cottage after the midday meal, Reverend Tanner making her excuses to the couple, telling them she had a bad cold.

Reverend Tanner introduced each child by name and age, adding some humorously flattering description or anecdote, and when June stepped up he didn’t hesitate at all, saying she was self-possessed and highly independent, adding that she took and gave no quarter to the boys during games, eliciting approving nods from the Stolzes. When they asked him about her English, she answered that she spoke it well, surprising and impressing them. Mrs. Stolz, wearing a dark green dress and black shoes, asked how she had learned the language and June explained that her father had been an educated man, a teacher, and had attended a top university in Japan.

“And what about you, June? Would you like to be educated?”

“I am already. Mrs. Tanner has been teaching me.”

“I can see that!” Mrs. Stolz said to her, with a spark of delight. “And do you have any brothers or sisters here?”

She didn’t answer but Reverend Tanner pursed his lips and shook his head, which Mrs. Stolz immediately understood to be a topic for another time. She took June’s hand and patted it tenderly, her hands thick and fleshy and warm.

“What do you think about living in America? Mr. Stolz and I live in a place called Oregon. Do you know where that is?”

She shook her head.

“It’s near Seattle,” Reverend Tanner said, his mention of it significant to June but not in the way he was thinking.

“You know Seattle?” Mr. Stolz asked her. “That’s way too big a town for me.”

“We’re close enough, I suppose,” Mrs. Stolz added, if perhaps somewhat confused herself. “It’s a half-day’s car ride.”

June said, “I will go there soon.”

“You seem quite certain of that.”

“I am.”

“Well, I guess why shouldn’t you be?” Mrs. Stolz said, gently squeezing her palm. “You’re a very strong girl, aren’t you?”

June was about to tell her it didn’t matter what she was but Reverend Tanner answered for her, pronouncing with a strange, surprising tone of pride that she was “as strong as they come,” and it was then that Mr. Stolz stepped forward and aimed his tiny camera right at her and quickly clicked the shutter. He had taken pictures of only a few other children. June’s instinct was to put her hand over the lens, but Reverend Tanner immediately introduced the boy behind her and Mrs. Stolz tightly pressed her hand in farewell as one of the aunties ushered June away.

By the time the Stolzes got around to meeting the last child in line June was back to the girls’ bunk room, where she changed out of her good blouse and skirt. She had first gone straight to the Tanners’ cottage, tapping on the front door and then going around to the back, but a new dark brown window shade had been put up, covering the glass right to either edge of the frame. There was no answer at the rear door, either. Despite her resolve not to bother her, she needed now to see Sylvie right away, not to interrogate her or make her promise anything but simply to stand before her and read her eyes, her face. Did she know what the old couple was here for? Was that why she had not come out? Was she hoping that someone like them would take her? Relieve her of this burden?

“May we come in?” a voice said. It was Mrs. Stolz, her head poking in the doorway of the bunk room. When she saw that June was dressed she entered, her husband at her side. They seemed somehow shorter and even plumper now that they were standing up: these two smiling folk dolls, their cheeks round and pink. He was dressed in a denim work shirt and rough wool trousers and scuffed-up shoes, and though they seemed to her as impossibly rich as all the other civilian Americans she had ever seen, she understood now that they were probably country people, small-town citizens like those in the village where she had grown up. But rather than feeling enmity toward them for how those villagers had treated her mother and father with suspicion and resentment and ultimately callousness and cruelty, instead a tide of longing unexpectedly washed over her, this longing for the days before her father yielded to his demons and retreated to his study, longing for her mother’s proud face, longing finally for her two brothers and two sisters who could not even stand here as she was in an ugly, too-large pair of trousers, and all at once June was not mature or resolute or strong in the least but a fallen pile of child, sobbing and shaking.

“Oh my dear, oh my dear, dear,” Mrs. Stolz cooed, embracing June and pressing her to her ample breast as they sat on the cot. “It’ll be fine now.”

“Easy there,” her husband said, leaning over them as he patted June on the back. “You have a family again. We’re going to take six of you. We have plane tickets for six.”

“For goodness’ sake, John, we haven’t even asked her yet!” she said to him, shushing him. And then to June: “Would you like to come live with us, sweetheart? As my eager husband said, you’ll have sisters and brothers. We’ll have plenty of room and plenty to eat. We have four of our own but they’re pretty much grown up. We have a big farmhouse and barns and surrounding us are all the fir trees you will ever want to see.”

“Not like here.”

“John, please!”

“You should know we have animals, too,” he went on anyway, as though he had practiced his pitch and didn’t wish to lose the chance. “Horses and milking cows and chickens, not to mention dogs and cats. Do you like animals? Do you want to have a pet?”

She didn’t know whether she did want one or not, but she nodded, weakly, for it was all she could manage, the rest of her gone slack in Mrs. Stolz’s arms. June had no feeling in her limbs. And if she felt no love or kinship yet, it was enough to be absorbed into this kind stranger woman’s flesh, to lose herself and still be alive, to shed the tyranny of this body, always aching and yearning, always prickly and too aware. Even more than death, she was sure, she hated this enduring. This awful striving that was not truly living. But maybe it was ending now…

“You don’t have to tell us right this minute,” Mrs. Stolz said. “We’ll be staying here for a couple more hours. We’re going to go talk to some other children now, but we made sure to see you first.”

“Nobody chose me before.”

“We’re all the more fortunate, then! We’re lucky. There must be a reason. You have a spirit in you that is wondrous, anyone can see it, and you’re going to be happy in our home.”

“You’ll be the oldest,” her husband said. “You can help with translating, among other things. There’ll be some chores, naturally, just like the jobs Reverend Tanner says all of you do around here.”

“You don’t have to help with anything you don’t want to,” Mrs. Stolz said, glaring at her husband. “I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through already. What you’ve had to live through and see. But I can promise that you’ll be safe and sound with us. You’ll always have our love and support. And God’s love, above all. You’re going to begin a whole new joyous life.”

She hugged June closer, and despite a seam of unease, June shut her eyes, bracing the woman tightly in return, while Mr. Stolz took a step back to snap another picture, this time of the two of them; but he found he had run out of film. While he turned the crank to wind in the roll, Mrs. Stolz stroked at June’s temple, her hair.

“What a lovely thing,” she said, touching the tortoiseshell clasp. “You know, it’s the first thing I noticed when I saw you. I thought it made you look so beautiful and graceful. Just like a fluttering butterfly.”

No sooner had Mrs. Stolz spoken the words than June tried to break away from her. The woman, not understanding, clutched at her again, holding on, but June warded her off with a forearm that pressed stiffly enough against her clavicle that the woman gave out a panicked cry: “Oh no, what’s wrong? Please!”

Her husband took hold of June, more in confusion than anger, but she rose and stamped on his foot, causing him to drop the camera, the back panel springing open and exposing the stretched film. June heard him curse loudly as she ran away, Mrs. Stolz weeping beside him as she sat crumpled on the bunk room floor. She ran as fast as she could, up into the bare hills, climbing until she started to descend, the sun following her down in the next valley until it grew dark.

When she finally returned, just before lights-out, the Stolzes were long gone. No one knew the Stolzes had come to see her, and she had only missed dinner, which she sometimes did before, staying in with Sylvie Tanner. The ten-year-old girl in the next bunk, So-Hyun, told June that they had adopted six of the children, just as they said they would, three girls and three boys, of varying ages. They were in Seoul now, and in two days they would be leaving the country. They didn’t have room for the children’s footlockers and so they’d left them behind, each child taking only one sentimental object, like a doll or book or blanket; the rest of their things were distributed to the others. So-Hyun had gotten a sweater, which she showed to June, a red wool one that was of good quality but was pocked with several moth holes in the chest and back.

“Did they seem upset?”

“They were all crying,” So-Hyun said, a bit glumly. She was a bit of a smart aleck, which made June admire her. “But I think it was in happiness.”

“I meant the American couple,” June said.

“Oh, them,” So-Hyun said. “The woman was crying, too.”

“In the same way?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me!”

“I guess so. Yes.”

“Did Reverend and Mrs. Tanner see them off?”

So-Hyun said, “Just the reverend.”

“How was he?”

“He wasn’t crying,” So-Hyun said, sleepy now as she lay in her bed. “He asked where you were.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“What we always say. ‘Who knows! Who cares!’ ”

The lights went out then, one of the aunties padding through the bunk room with an oil lamp to make sure everyone was in bed. When she got to June she gave her a cross look, but June didn’t care. She didn’t care, either, about what So-Hyun said, even if she acidly added the latter line, because of course it was only the truth. All that was important now was that the Tanners would soon depart, as the couple from Oregon had, but with her in tow. She didn’t care anymore if there were others they might take along as well. Or whether Sylvie became pregnant again. In fact she herself was hoping for it now. For if they had a baby, June would cherish it as her own, give her life over to the child, if necessary, in all the ways that she had not been able to do for her siblings.

She couldn’t sleep that night, overeager to bond with Sylvie again (after their weeks of observing a mutual distance), to go over the plans she surely had to make for their imminent travel and resettling in Seattle. She would explain, too, if Sylvie asked her, what had happened with the Stolzes, that despite the woman’s kindness and the very fine life she described, June had realized just in time that she was not meant to go with them. She could not be a part of any other family again. In a different lifetime she would have her parents back, her older brother and sister would be healthy, the twins happy and whole; but in this one she had been paired up, she and Sylvie aligned like twins themselves, if by one of them not quite acknowledged.

Just before dawn broke she got out of bed, her mind feeling as honed and ready as a newly forged blade. Though her belly was unfilled from not having eaten supper or lunch the previous day, the emptiness felt more like purity than privation, what she imagined a pilgrim might feel at the end of an arduous journey, this state of cleanly ecstasy that suddenly became, in the last meters, both its own great fuel and flame. She dressed quickly as the others slumbered and went across the yard and knocked on the door of the Tanners’ cottage. She knocked again when there was no answer. Finally the door creaked open and Reverend Tanner looked out at her in his plaid pajamas, putting on his spectacles in the blue morning light.

“What’s happened? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I want to talk with Mrs. Tanner, please.”

“Mrs. Tanner is asleep,” he said angrily, “and I was as well. What is wrong with you, June? You make everything so difficult!”

“I do not mean to.”

“I don’t believe you!” he said, barely in control of himself. He stepped outside, closing the door behind him. “Or else I must think you have a wrecking force within you. Mrs. Stolz was terribly, terribly upset. She actually feared she’d done something awful to you.”

“She did nothing to me.”

“Of course not! But I can’t imagine what you said or did to make her think she had. If she weren’t such a generous, humane woman, they would have fled. Certainly her husband wanted to leave right away. Do you realize that? Do you realize that you near ruined the other children’s chances as well? Did you ever for one moment think about them?”

June was silent, though not in acquiescence. Not in remorse. Rather she had receded, deep within the whorl of her thoughts. She was simply waiting for Sylvie now to come out and embrace her just as fully and breathlessly as Mrs. Stolz had, to welcome her inside.

“You have nothing to say, do you?” Tanner said. “Nothing at all?” He glared at her as the first warm light arose, the cowbell for reveille suddenly clanging from the direction of the kitchen. She had heard it hundreds of times before but today the rounded hollowness of the sound struck her deeply, the echoes mapping her empty reaches. It would be breakfast soon but she did not wish to eat, despite what she would normally know as well as anyone alive to be the welling pangs of hunger. But it was not that now, she was certain, for instead of distress or panic she felt rather the strangest satisfaction, a peerless morning calm. She would remain right here until Sylvie came out, and she didn’t move or speak, even as Reverend Tanner ascended the stoop and without turning to look back at her firmly shut the door.