“Please,” Anh said now standing at the front of the table with Grace and smiling as she saw Molly take the lime and sprouts. “No good basil at store and beef not cut just right, but we make as good as we can.”
Jack considered mentioning that he had been lucky enough to taste ph? a few times but decided against it. Instead, he pulled his chopsticks apart and then looked over warmly at Grace, then Anh. “Thank you, ladies, for inviting me tonight. It looks like you both worked so hard.…” He glanced over at Katie’s empty seat at the table. “I hope Katie isn’t going to miss it.”
“She’s just running late. They had a lifeguard meeting at the club she had to go to,” Tom answered. “Nothing to worry about. Unless we eat her share, right?” Tom looked over to his wife and smiled. “Really, honey, it looks and smells great.”
The thing about Jack was that even with only one good eye, he still had a keen ability to pick up small details from other people’s behavior. When Katie finally bounded into the room, he noticed she barely looked at anyone when she plopped down in her seat.
“I’m famished,” she groaned as Grace got up to bring her a bowl of ph?. Within seconds, she had taken her spoon (she remained the only one at the table who didn’t even attempt to use the chopsticks Grace had provided). Tom had given up after a few awkward attempts to shovel the noodles in his mouth, but Molly and Grace were slowly getting the hang of it.
The little boy, however, had lifted his head several times from his bowl to look at Jack. It wasn’t something that bothered Jack as much as it used to. As a matter of fact, part of him preferred people who were willing to lift their eyes toward him, rather than purposefully avert them.
“Will B?o be in the same grade as you?” Jack asked.
“Yes,” Molly answered before B?o could reply.
“They’ll have tutoring at school,” Grace added. “But he’s already doing so well.” She looked over at him and smiled. “I’d like to think it was meant to be that afternoon I found B?o.” She glanced at the opposite of the table to where Anh was. “We wouldn’t be having such a nice dinner like this, if I hadn’t.”
Jack caught sight of Katie rolling her eyes.
Grace noticed too, and he watched her face redden.
“Life’s kinda like that, right?” Jack pushed into the conversation awkwardly. “Meeting Tom that day at the VA hospital, that sure made my life a whole lot better.…”
“Aw, come on, now.” Tom chuckled and lifted his beer in Jack’s direction. “Let’s not go overboard. I’m just happy to have you now as a buddy.” He took a swig of his drink. “And let’s not forget you can repair even the most pain-in-the-ass watch better than anyone I know.”
Something in B?o’s face flickered. Jack saw it like a recognition of something. It lit up the little boy’s whole face.
He tapped his wrist. “You fix watch?”
Jack’s eyes studied B?o.
“I do,” he answered. “I work in Tom’s shop.”
Jack squinted at the boy’s wrist and thought he saw a horseshoe-shaped scar, but he wasn’t sure if it was a trick of his impaired vision.
“We saw it other day. We look in window.” Anh smiled. “I learn later this is the Goldens’ family shop. You have many beautiful things.”
“You make them new again?” Curiosity spread on B?o’s face.
“Well, actually, yes.” He lifted a finger toward the bad side of his face. “I only have one good eye, but I can still see up close. And I use a magnifying glass, too.” To better explain his words, he pretended to bring something imaginary up to his one good eye and squinted.
“B?o’s father was good at fixing things, too,” Anh added. “My husband no such much, but he was better farmer.”
The boy smiled and nodded. “Radios. Not watch.”
Jack’s heart constricted in his chest.
Just the mention of B?o’s father working on radios back in Vietnam made him remember the radio he had carried strapped to his back, and the final moments of him taking the hand receiver from Lieutenant Bates just before the terrible explosion.
“You all right, Jack?” Tom looked concerned. “You’re looking kind of pale.…”
Jack took a few seconds to reply. When he finally looked up from his bowl of soup, Molly was beside him offering him a glass of water.
Jack accepted the glass and swallowed hard.
“Yeah,” he answered. He felt the flashbacks begin to settle. “I was just thinking about how it takes a certain type of person to have the patience to fix things. Not everyone has that, you know? The desire to make what’s broken right again.”
Jack’s words floated over the women at the table, none of them registering the sentiment. But Tom looked down, acknowledging them quietly, and the little boy also nodded, his eyes burning bright.
