In fact, his daily grouchiness was mostly due to his loathing for his job, which he kept mainly for its substandard health insurance. At work he had to walk around in the parking lot constantly, and at the close of the day his legs were heavy and stiff. He often returned home loaded with gas. His family kept out of his way most of the time and avoided eating with him. This aggravated him more. As a result, he ate without restraint and often finished whatever Pingping put on the table. His wife joked once that she was afraid he might eat the plates and bowls as well. Despite the voracious eating, he didn't gain weight and even looked more haggard than before.
16
THOUGH he didn't see his dad very often, Taotao would play pranks on him whenever he could. The boy loved his father and by now knew his parents couldn't possibly mail him back to his grandparents. On the last Saturday morning of March, Nan came back from a graveyard shift with a stiff neck and shoulders. The moment he pulled into the yard, Taotao ran to the front entrance of the house and locked the screen door from inside. His father saw him, but exhausted and moody, Nan shambled over without looking at his son and yanked the door open. The latch snapped. The boy stood stock-still as his father checked the broken catch.
Heidi had seen everything. She said to Nan, "Why did you bust the latch on purpose?"
"I'm sorry. It was already loose," he mumbled, though that was true.
"But didn't Taotao lock the screen door when he saw you coming in?"
"He did."
"Well, you should have it fixed." "All right, I will do zat."
"I have Bob's phone number. You can call him." "Sure, I will eef I need him."
Bob was the carpenter who had put the latch in the previous spring, and Heidi assumed Nan was going to call him in to install a new one. But after breakfast, Nan unscrewed the catch. Then he and Taotao set out for the hardware store at the town center, carrying the broken part in a brown paper bag. Nan wasn't sure if they could find a match. All the way he blamed his son for being so careless. This time the boy remained quiet.
Without difficulty the salesman at Motts Hardware, who eyed Nan enviously for his fatherhood, found the same kind of latch, which cost less than seven dollars. Although Nan needed only the catch, he had to buy the whole set. On his way back, his mood lifted and he began talking with his son casually. Taotao told him that he had several friends now, Mark, Ralph, Billy, and others. He had risen to the reading group of the second level and was doing superbly in the arithmetic tests.
"How about Loreen?" Nan asked in English, remembering the frail, freckled girl who had often read to his son. "Her family moved." "Where did zey go?"
"Her dad retired from the Celtics and they went back to Indiana." "Do you miss her?" "Not really."
"Wasn't she your friend?" "She was okay."
"She helped you a lawt, didn't she? You shouldn't forget her."
The boy fell silent. Nan was amazed how easy it was for him to speak English with Taotao. Perhaps from now on he should talk with him more often to improve his own English.
Together father and son installed the catch. The whole job took just a few minutes. Heidi was impressed, saying, "Bob charged me eighty dollars for it last time. I didn't know it was so easy."
That was a major problem in this household, Pingping and Nan had noticed long before. People sometimes overcharged Heidi when they worked for her. Very often a mechanic or plumber or carpenter didn't finish a job and would soon have to come back again. Heidi didn't have the vaguest idea how much the cost should be. Over the winter a mechanic who spoke only Portuguese had come three times to fix the cooking range, just to make two burners work again, but he had billed Heidi more than $150 for each visit, plus the parts. Once a huckster had stopped by with a powerful vacuum cleaner that could pick up an iron ball four inches in diameter; Heidi was so taken with his demonstration that she paid $1,000 for the machine.
Heidi was impressed by Nan 's ability to fix small things. He had always changed the oil in his car and replaced the battery by himself, and once even repaired the rear brake of Nathan's bicycle. The previous winter he had replaced the toilet flapper to stop a leak in the bathroom next to the kitchen. Pingping was pleased by his handy-manship and praised him. Back in China he had been a clumsy man and couldn't even patch a flat bicycle tire, which most men could do. In their neighborhood he was known for being lazy. He wouldn't do any housework and instead raised four doves, which were snow-white and lovely, each wearing a brass whistle on its wing, so they'd emit a fluty sound when flying. Several times the wives in the neighborhood complained to Pingping that their husbands had begun to emulate Nan and had stopped doing household chores. They urged her at least to let him wash dishes and his underwear. She promised to make him work, but he seldom lifted a finger to help her. Even Nan 's mother said that if a bottle of cooking oil fell over and spilled, he wouldn't bother to pick it up.
American life had changed him. Now he loved hand tools-oh, the infinite varieties of American tools, each designed for one purpose, just like the vast English vocabulary, each word denoting precisely one thing or one idea. What's more, Nan was always ready to run an errand for his wife, though he still grumbled on occasion. This was mainly due to the job he hated intensely but had to keep. Even he could feel the change in himself. He wasn't a feeble bookworm anymore; he was no longer ashamed of working hard to make a dollar.
17
NAN and Pingping sometimes quarreled when their son wasn't around. But they had agreed to stay together until Taotao grew up. Nan once asked Pingping, "What will you do after that?"
"Either go to a nunnery or kill myself," she said. Ever since girlhood she had been infatuated with the image of a nun: the long gown, the flying headpiece, the white gloves, the glossy rosary.
"I'll be a monk, then," said Nan.
"Let's go to a temple together so we can often meet. Promise, you'll spend some time with me every week."
Nan always liked her peculiar kind of innocence, and replied, "You're talking as if all the monks will leave you alone."
She punched his arm. "I'm serious."
Nan said no more. How he wished he could work up more emotion to reciprocate her love. If only he weren't so exhausted and so sick at heart. If only he hadn't been wounded so deeply by that fox Beina.
Sometimes when Pingping couldn't stand his impassivity anymore, she'd pick up the phone and call someone. Nan would do the same when he was unhappy. He'd talk with Danning, and most times they'd chat for a long while. His friend would urge him to be more considerate to Pingping. For better or worse, she was willing to sacrifice everything for their family and was absolutely loyal to him. What else could he want from her? Where could he find a better woman? He ought to feel fortunate and grateful.
Unlike Nan, Pingping didn't have a friend of her own. Then who did she call when she was upset or angry? Nan often wondered and got unsettled. Sometimes the instant the line went through, she'd hang up. Once he asked who she was phoning. "None of your business," she said. "I can call anyone I want to."
One evening in mid-April they quarreled again. She dropped his tea mug on the floor. About that he said nothing and just wiped the wet spot on the carpet with a rag. He was afraid she might go so far as to tear one of his books, which she'd done before. Yet today his silence incensed her more. She rushed out of the room, picked up the phone from the top of a wooden chest and began dialing. He followed her out and pressed down the plunger of the phone. She glared at him, her eyes flashing madly.