During the next hour in Martín’s sun-saturated living room, Arthur humiliated himself twice, first by seizing -Norma’s hand and, without warning, bursting into tears, and second by confessing to having cashed out his life insurance policy. Norma did not ask how he had spent the money, and Arthur did not have the heart to tell her about Pechanga, the Indian casino in Temecula where he had lost seven days of his life, as well as all his money. For a long time Norma was silent, but when she sat down at last, he knew she had resigned herself to seeing him through his illness. When she put one hand on his knee and the other to his cheek, he also understood that the autoimmune hepatitis was God’s sly way of keeping them together. This was the one benefit he could find in what was otherwise a disaster, the fear of which kept him awake at nights, staring into the darkness and wondering what lay beyond it, if anything. It was the first time he had ever been afraid for his life.
His one chance was the transplant. He fantasized about it the way he used to dream about winning the lottery, imagining how he would be a new man; someone kinder, more reliable, harder-working; somebody to make Norma proud. Thinking about the organ that would save his life, he invariably also thought about who the donor might be. In the months of waiting for news of a liver, he and Norma debated whether they should ask for the donor’s identity if Arthur was so fortunate as to receive an organ. Sometimes, Dr. Viswanathan explained, donors or their families brushed away their right to anonymity. Eventually, however, Arthur and Norma decided in favor of letting modern medicine maintain its air of mystery and the miraculous. Thus it was not by choice but by accident that they discovered the liver’s origin, a year after the operation, when Arthur was back working as an accountant for Martín at Arellano & Sons, the landscaping service founded by Arthur’s father, Arturo, known by one and all as Big Art. The revelation arrived in a manila envelope from the hospital, left in the mailbox of the Spanish-style cottage that Arthur and Norma were renting from Martín at a substantial discount. Inside the envelope was a quality of life survey with the donor’s name printed next to Arthur’s own, courtesy of a bug in a hospital computer, as they and several dozen others eventually discovered when the scandal reached the headlines. On seeing the name, he felt a tremor run through his liver. He blamed it at first for what he thought was a delusion, but when he passed the survey to Norma, she saw the name as well.
“Could it be Korean? Like the Parks?” she asked, referring to their dry cleaners, Mr. and Mrs. Park, migrants from Incheon via Buenos Aires who spoke better Spanish than the Arellanos did. “If it’s not Korean, maybe it’s Japanese.”
For his part, Arthur had no idea. He had trouble distinguishing one nationality of Asian names from another. He was also afflicted with a related, and very common, astigmatism wherein all Asians appeared the same. On first meeting the Parks, he had not thought that they were Korean, or even Japanese. Instead, he had fallen back on his default choice when confronted with a perplexing problem of identification regarding an Asian. “There are a lot of Chinese around here,” Arthur said. “I’d bet this guy is Chinese.”
In fact, Men Vu was from Vietnam, a widower and grandfather who had been killed in a hit-and-run, a story Norma discovered by sleuthing online. Faced at last with a real person and a real name, Arthur reluctantly concluded that he could not go on acting as if he did not know the origin of his transplant. As long as the donor was anonymous, Arthur was not obligated to him in any way. But now that he had a name, Arthur believed it was only right and proper to find someone, anyone, related to Men Vu to whom he could give thanks for having saved his life. Finding that person was more complicated than Arthur expected, since there was no Men Vu in the phone book, leaving him to call every Vu listed in Orange County, of whom there were hundreds. After going through those who spoke no English, those who hung up on him, and those who uttered something rude in a foreign language, Arthur found, at last, Louis Vu, who listened without interruption and then said, with only the slightest accent, “I’m the one you’re looking for, Mr. Arellano.”
Louis pronounced his first name “Louie,” or, as he put it, “the French way,” and for their meeting provided an address ten minutes distant, in Fountain Valley, a pleasant suburb of tract homes, condominiums, and sprawling apartment complexes Arthur had always admired for its forthright and modest motto, which embodied all that Arthur had wanted for himself, Norma, and their brood. Those unassuming words were printed on a stone block situated on a meridian at the city’s border, greeting Arthur, Norma, and all who entered Fountain Valley with this promise: “A Nice Place to Live.”
Only when he was in his own living room that evening after a long afternoon of balancing the books at Arellano & Sons did Arthur remember what he had forgotten, just as Norma unlocked the front door. He turned off the television broadcast of the World Series of Poker, and as he explained that he had overlooked running down to Park Avenue Dry Cleaning, he discerned her unhappiness by the way she uttered “hmmm” without making eye contact, the noise vibrating somewhere down deep in her throat. She said “hmmm” when he asked her what she was cooking for dinner, and then said it again when he asked her what was for dinner the next day while she washed the dishes. Only when he stroked her back in bed, with the lights out, did she finally say something else.
“Let me make something very clear to you, Arthur.” The pillow into which her face was turned muffled her voice. “Do not touch me, and do not come close to me.”