Sophie and the Rising Sun by Augusta Trobaugh Page B

can’t quite describe the look that was on his face. Like maybe he’d been expecting someone. But who?
    “Could you come help me get my sink unstopped?” I asked, still wondering.
    “Oh, yes!” Why, he seemed excited to be unstopping my sink! But I couldn’t have said why. And that wasn’t the only unusual thing about that day, sure enough.
    I remember it so well. He looked absolutely happy to have something to do. And while he clanked around under the sink and muttered to himself softly—but not in English—I began wondering if he were lonely.
    Strange that I’d never wondered about that before, but I hadn’t. And now that I think back on it, I guess what happened in the garden the week before started me to thinking, too. When he acted so strange, I mean, like he’d seen something out of the ordinary.
    What if he were becoming ill? Who could I call? Did he have any family? And where were they?
    So while he finished up under the sink, I decided to invite him to have a cup of tea with me. Then I could ask some questions—very politely, of course. And find out what I might need to know. I put a clean cloth on the kitchen table and set out two cups. I’d certainly never invited a gardener—much less someone who wasn’t white—to sit at my own table with me before, but for the life of me, I couldn’t imagine why not.
    “All fixed.” Mr. Oto backed out of the cabinet under the sink, returned the wrench to the toolbox on the floor, and stood up—just as the kettle began to whistle.
    “Would you like to have a cup of tea with me?” I tried to sound casual about it, but I realized right away that I’d put both of us in a pretty uncomfortable situation. Because what would happen if he declined my invitation? That would make things awkward between us, sure enough, so I guessed all those unwritten rules about how you’re supposed to act around people who work for you had some advantages after all.
    “Excuse me?” He seemed so surprised that he even put his finger on his chest as if to ask, “Me?”
    I nodded, but much to my alarm, he bowed deeply and then fairly bolted right out of the kitchen. What on earth? I went to the window and watched him scurry across the yard toward the back wall and beyond it to the cottage.
    Goodness! Who would have thought that he would run away like that?
    But in only a few minutes, he came running back, with his face fresh-scrubbed to a glow and his hair wet and combed, and wearing a clean—albeit unironed—white shirt. Well, Mr. Oto may very well have been my gardener, but I know a gentleman when I see one, and it was sure enough a gentleman who came to have tea with me that day.
    He sat down in the chair just as gently as if he thought it would shatter at any minute and waited silently while I poured the tea and passed a cup to him. That was quite something to see—his thick fingers grasping that fragile cup. And I was very careful when I brought up the subject that had prompted me to ask Mr. Oto to tea.
    “Well, tell me, Mr. Oto,” I began, trying to keep my voice light and friendly. “Do you have family anywhere?”
    But I saw a flush creeping up under his brown skin, in spite of my care, and so I hastily added, “It’s just that I wonder if... you’re very lonely.”
    Somehow, the added words soothed both of us.
    “I have family,” he said, letting his eyes meet mine, but only briefly. “But very far away.”
    “In China?”
    He looked down at his lap and smiled. “No, Miss Anne. Not that far away. I have family in California. I was born there.”
    “But you’ve never gone to visit your people, not in two long years,” I stated. “Why?” I knew that I was really beginning to pry into his business, but I needed to know.
    He waited before he answered, and when he spoke, his eyes remained on the cup in his hands. “Please,” he breathed. “I am very happy here.”
    And somehow, I could tell by the way he said it that he wasn’t willing to say anything