Read Dragon House for Free Online Page B

to breathe. Two weeks earlier, Qui had used every bill and coin she possessed to take Tam to a hospital. Several doctors had spent hours with them, and many tests had been run. Qui had left the hospital with Tam on her back and had cried, just as she did now. Soon Tam would be taken from her. No matter how much she loved her, treasured her, and wanted to protect her, Tam would be taken. Stolen forever.
    Her tears dropping like rain from a statue’s face, Qui continued onward.
    “Will Momma kiss me tonight?” Tam asked, as she did every day.
    Qui sniffed, pretending that something was lodged in her throat. “She’s . . . still in Thailand. Working hard so we can buy your medicine. She loves you so much, Tam. She and I love you so very much.”
    Tam didn’t respond, and Qui wondered what she was thinking. Was her sweet, innocent mind able to guess that her own mother had abandoned her, and probably would never come back?
    As she did many times each day, Qui prayed that her daughter would return. She begged Buddha to be compassionate, to send her daughter home so that Tam could hold her again before she died.
    Qui turned toward the canal that stretched below their home. She tried to quiet her despair, for soon Tam would look upon her face, and her granddaughter could never see such tears. Qui had told Tam that someday she’d fall into a sleep that would magically take her into a different world, into a realm where children weren’t sick, where they swam in warm seas, where they awoke each morning nestled between their mother and father. Tam believed in this realm, and Qui could never destroy this belief. So she could cry only when Tam’s eyes couldn’t find hers.
    The buildings of modern-day Ho Chi Minh City disappeared. Tin shanties soon encroached upon narrow passages, and Qui tried to ignore a variety of ever-present sounds—a baby’s wail, children laughing, moans of pleasure. Tam asked about these noises, and Qui told her stories that had been repeated scores of times. After a few more blocks, just as Qui felt she could go no farther, her feet fell on planks that lay perched above brown water. She followed these planks until arriving at a vinyl tarp that covered the entrance to their room, which sat on stilts above the canal.
    Perhaps seven paces wide as well as long, the room was mostly empty. Bamboo mats covered the tin floor. Plastic garbage bags full of crumpled balls of newspaper comprised a bed. Stacked neatly in the corner were metal plates, an iron pot, and a pan. A tiny, wood-burning stove was also present, as was a trio of potted plants. Hanging below the room’s lone window were two sheets, an extra set of clothes for Qui and Tam, some pajamas, and a small towel. A square hole in the floor served as a toilet. Near the hole was a plastic bucket with a rope attached to its handle.
    Qui carefully knelt on the bamboo mat and removed Tam from the sling. Tam groaned at the pain that movement brought. Moving as swiftly as she was able, Qui plucked a sheet from the wall and placed it over the garbage bags. She then lowered the bucket into the canal below, hauled the bucket up, and dipped a corner of the towel into the murky water. She lifted Tam, setting her on the far side of the makeshift bed.
    “Let me clean the day from you,” Qui said, kneeling next to Tam, using the damp towel to wipe soot from her forehead. Tam smiled faintly, and Qui leaned closer. “You like that, don’t you?”
    “Rub my back, Little Bird.”
    “I have to clean you first, sweet child. I can’t let you go to sleep so dirty.”
    “My blanket?”
    “Oh, sorry about that. Here it is.” Qui started to clean Tam once more but quickly stopped. “My wits have left me,” she muttered, reaching into her pocket to produce a plastic bottle with several pills in it. She set a pill aside and stood up, dipping a cup into a wide bowl in which she collected rainwater. After Tam had swallowed her medicine, Qui wiped her closed eyes with