The Wonder Garden Read Online Free PDF Page B

the room that Nayana will share. Rosalie has purchased a roll-out trundle for her, along with cheerful bedding, careful to avoid television characters she might not recognize. At home in Bangladesh, according to the exchange agency, the girl sleeps in a single room with her entire family. Rosalie has a picture in her mind of this room, of disheveled blankets, stained mattresses on the floor. The mother probably sweeps with a straw broom, ushers the dirt right out the door. Is there electricity? This point has been omitted by the agency. Rosalie has warned her children that this might be the student’s first experience with it.
    At dinner, the family eats quietly, a kind of humming suspense in the air. Rosalie is pleased that the kids have remembered her guidelines, to not ask too many questions and to speak more softly than usual. Nayana’s family is probably not as rambunctious as the Warrens. There are cultural differences that need to be respected. Rosalie sorts through a muddle of feelings as she watches Nayana pick at her macaroni and cheese: pity for the girl, mixed with pride in herself for having invited her here, and a surging affection for her own children, sitting respectfully with their forks and knives, each of them excellent in his or her own way.
    The girl is obviously exhausted. She lays her fork down as if its weight is too much for her and looks up to Rosalie in supplication.
    â€œWhy don’t you go ahead and get ready for bed, Nayana. I’ll show you where everything is.”
    Rosalie leads her down the hall, past the framed array of black-and-white photographs, a gallery of family joy. As they walk, Rosalie is almost ashamed of her tremendous fortune, and feels a shiver of gratitude for who she is, for what she has been given.
    In the girls’ bedroom, Nayana opens her suitcase, revealing a compact mound of clothing, and pulls out a pilled pajama set the color of mud. Rosalie waits outside the bathroom as she brushes her teeth, or completes whatever cleansing rituals she has learned at home. Before the rest of the family has finished eating, she is under her generic pink blanket, asleep.
    In bed, Michael remarks, “She’s quiet.”
    Rosalie stiffens. “Well, that’s to be expected.”
    â€œI know. I was just making an observation.”
    She lets a beat pass. “It’s going to be a great experience for the kids.”
    â€œI’m sure it will be. You always do wonderful things for them.”
    There is, Rosalie thinks, a sardonic inflection in his voice, passing beneath the words like a water moccasin. What is wrong with doing wonderful things for her children? This is an argument not worth having before bed. She has every confidence that, by inviting this girl into their home, they will all learn about the world. They have not traveled since Ethan was a baby, when they’d visited Mexico and Rosalie had gotten sick from the water. Now that they are a family of seven, now that Michael’s work has intensified and airfares have risen, now that places like Mexico have dropped into the quicksand of crime, it makes more sense to stay home and bring the world to them.
    The agency had allowed her to choose the nationality of her student. To Rosalie’s dismay, many of the available students seemed to be from Middle Eastern and North African countries. Muslim. Rosalie had to admit she felt unprepared for that. She was more open-minded than most, but as a Christian and peace-loving American, she had mixed feelings about certain tenets of the Islamic faith. Not to mention that she was uncertain as to how her own community, having lost so many husbands and fathers in the terror attacks, would react to such a youth in its midst. And what would such a youth have in common with the Warrens? Wouldn’t she feel uncomfortable, out of place, in her burka, or face veil, or whatever covering she was required to wear? Rosalie had to be honest with herself: it