As we go through our lives there is sometimes a place or thing or an event will become a central fixture around which our lives are centered. What were you doing or where were you when you heard about 9/11? is one example. But for most people the central fixture is more mundane, more personal, Grandma's house, the cabin by the lake, the county fair, or if you're in Don and Lanh's circle of friends and family in Grant Valley, it is The Pond.

The pond is a lake on Campbell's farm that was instrumental in draining fields and watering cattle, but it provides the golden opportunity for recreation: boating, swimming, skating, fishing, and friendship. The pond became the background for so much of the activities of the two families and helped bind them together. Minnesota calls itself "the land of 10,000 lakes," but there are more than 14,380 lakes and if you ask you will find out that this one is the most important.

As always there is no sex for anyone under 18. Don't worry about Don and Lanh, they're good kids, they can wait.

Chapter 02 - The Pond

Winter

One of the best things about living in Minnesota is the summers; boating, camping, swimming, and all forms of outdoor living give Minnesotans a reward for surviving the long, frigid winters. Of course, winter doesn't bring a halt to outdoor activities, but the complexion of them changes. For one thing, the "Minnesota Salute" (swatting mosquitoes) goes away. Sports take on a different flair, instead of running or jogging, hearty Minnesotans chose cross country skiing or snow shoeing. Fishing remains a big part of the Minnesota lifestyle, but it does take on a flavor all to itself; rods and reels give way to ice augers and tip-ups.

A few weeks into the new year Don invited his tutor to go ice fishing with him out on the pond, but her father Duong forbade it declaring that they were seeing too much of each other. So, on the weekend she was supposed to be ice fishing with Don, Lanh found herself bussing tables at the restaurant. Of course, Don had volunteered to come help at the restaurant but in the end, they decided that it would be best not to antagonize her dad. Lanh spent Saturday afternoon bussing tables, washing dishes, and pretending to be from a country that even her parents did not remember because they emigrated to the US as very young children.

"It's not fair!" pouted Lanh as she brought another load of dirty plates, bowls, cups, and silverware into the kitchen.

"Life is not fair, why should it be any different for you?" asked Lan's older sister Kim-ly who was also working this weekend.

"No! I finally find a reason to stay alive and I'm stuck here... oh shit." Way too late, Lanh realized she said a lot more than she should have said.

"Come here tôm," Kim-ly grabbed Lanh and pulled her in close for a hug.

"I am not a shrimp!" she cried, but Kim-ly had a size advantage over the tiny girl and held her close refusing to set her free.

"Shhh, shhh. I understand," she said as she stroked Lanh's hair knowing that would anger Lanh, and it did, Lanh began to struggle even harder.

"How could you understand? You're tall and you're beautiful, and you can date anyone you want. You probably have all the frats at the university lining up to ask you out."

"Ok, first of all, I'm five foot six, that's not tall anywhere in the world. Second, beauty is a curse, and if you look at the genetics of this family, you're probably in for a double dose yourself. And who wants to date a drunken frat boy?"

"Genetics," Lanh huffed, "Bao told me that má and ba found me in the cat's litter box and felt sorry for me."

"You know that's not true! Silly tôm, we felt sorry for the cat... Oh wait! Come back! I'm sorry!" But it was too late, Lanh dashed from the kitchen, into the family apartment behind the restaurant, and raced up the stairs before Kim-ly could see her cry.

Tam, who was still on semester break, sat at the table in the family's dining room working on a paper for class. She let Lanh rocket past her, but when Kim-ly came by Tam reached out and grabbed her by the wrist. Tam's grip of iron stopped Kim-ly in her tracks. "What did you do to her?" Tam asked without looking up from her paper.

"I didn't do anything; she just got mad and took off."

"What were you teasing her about?" Tam still hadn't looked up from her paper. She brought a cup of coffee to her lips with the other hand and sipped.

"Why do you think I was teasing her?"

"You always tease her. You're like a cat with a wounded mouse." Tam finally looked up at Kim-ly with a glare that could melt glass. "She is not your personal wounded mouse." Tam rose and continued to glare at Kim-ly while tightening her grip. Kim-ly's hand started to go numb from Tam's grip cutting off the circulation. In a low steady voice that started to scare Kim-ly Tam said, "She didn't ask to be born a preemie, she didn't ask to be so sick as a kid she couldn't go to school, she didn't ask to be the only Asian in her entire school when we moved here, and she certainly didn't ask to get her first period at the same time she finds a boy who likes her!"

A door slammed upstairs announcing to them both that Lanh just heard every word that Tam has said.

Kim-ly looked like she was suddenly stabbed, "That's why she said that" she whispered.

"Said what?" hissed Tam, her grip tightening if that was possible, but Kim-ly didn't answer. "What... Did... She... Say?" growled Tam now twisting her sister's wrist.

Cowering in pain and fear Kim-ly said "She said that she finally found a reason to stay alive..." Kim-ly suddenly realized the implications of what Lanh said. "You don't think..."

"You're the one who doesn't think," snarled Tam and she released Kim-ly and headed up the stairs.

Tam found Lanh sitting on her bed, hugging an ancient and well-worn teddy bear, rocking back and forth, waiting for Tam to arrive. The scene broke Tam's heart, she couldn't imagine what was going on through her baby sister's mind, she had never experienced the emotional turmoil that Lanh had to endure. Tam was born healthy and beautiful, the first child of the children of Vietnamese refugees. She was raised in a big city, schooled in a large, diverse Catholic school system where she was not unique not only for her race or her beauty and her wisdom. She was accepted into every peer group, lauded by faculty and students, and sought after by guys and not a few girls. She went on to NorthWestern University where an academic scholarship was waiting for her. With her bachelors under her belt by 17 she transferred to the University of Minnesota and nailed her doctorate in Psychology at the age of 21. She is now a star and rising fast in the academic world aiming for a professorship in the Psychology department.

Lanh was born tiny, fragile, and terrified of the world. In school she was a curiosity, a miniature, fearful, near sighted ugly duckling whose curiosity and social awkwardness led to disdain by her classmates, and her perfect grades led to distrust by her teachers. Being the shortest, skinniest student in the school was one thing, but being the only Asian in her high school made her a twice damned outcast. At birth Mai and Duong worried and prayed for their tiny baby constantly, loving her like no other child, and praying for her in terror that she wouldn't survive. For her first year, Lanh spent more time in the hospital connected to machines and living in an incubator than she did at home. As Lanh finally began to grow, she outgrew many ailments caused by her premature birth and diminutive size. And while she had the mental capacity and in many ways was more intelligent that her fast achieving siblings, she didn't have the physical capability to achieve scholastic goals as fast as her siblings did, so in the end she completed her schooling at the same pace as her average classmates

When Lanh was a child, Tam and her mother Mai came to an unspoken agreement that Tam could function as Lanh's mother all she wanted if Tam didn't hurt Lanh or contradict any of Mai's rules and covenants. For Mai, a mother of six, the co-owner and manager of a family business, and dealing with a rambunctious pair of toddler twins, Tam's help was a godsend. For her part Tam was happy to do so, in her childhood she doted over the preemie Lanh. At first Lanh was a tiny, animated doll that nine-year-old Tam could carry around with ease, carrying her infant sister on her hip like she saw grownup women carry their children, and soon a deep love developed between them that rivaled the love between Tam and her mother Mai.

Gazing on the heartbroken young teen, Tam remembered so much of Tam's childhood, her first fumbling steps, then tiny two-year-old Lanh laughing with the simple joy of being able to walk after months and months of learning. The look of wonder on her tiny face when she received her first pair of glasses, thick, ugly, bottle bottom things, but suddenly she could see a world that existed more than three feet in front of her. Now she could run! Tiny Lanh dashed through the house, her cornsilk fine ebony hair bouncing in waves with every bouncing step, squealing and giggling, those ugly, heavy glasses letting her navigate in safety.

Tam remembered walking home from high school and stopping at the elementary school to escort home her tiny, nearsighted first grade sister, a year older than her classmates and yet so many inches shorter. Like all Nguyen children, Tam worked at the restaurant, but she had a tiny, animated shadow that amused her customers and added to her tips.

How is it possible?

Just yesterday Tam was sitting at the dining room table doing algebra homework while Lanh sat next to her, in a booster chair, trying to write the alphabet with crayons, now her baby was a teenager in love.

How is it possible?

"I hate hormones," moaned Lanh.

Tam sat down next to Lanh, put an arm around the tiny girl and said in a sing-song voice "Hormones are special chemicals your body makes to help it do certain things -- like grow up! Right now, you're loaded with hormones that tell your body that it's time to start changing."

"Well, they're late, and I was doing just fine without hormones," groaned Lanh as she leaned against her sister's side.

"This is what you call fine?"

"Yes, what do YOU call it?"

Tam was silent for a long time, then finally she said, "I know about your stash of sleeping pills." Since moving to Grant Valley Lanh has been stealing and hiding her mother's sleeping pills one by one in the eventuality that she might need to commit a painless suicide. Tam would scream in horror if she ever found out how often Lanh was tempted to eat that entire bottle after a day of non-stop taunting and insults at the hands of her classmates. Now the only thing that stopped her was the thought of seeing Don in school the next day.

Tam felt Lanh go limp in defeat. She hugged her little sister closely. "Now what if that boy comes skedaddling over here on Monday, like he does every Monday, and you had gone and killed yourself because you had to work today."

"It seems like forever since we said goodbye," said Lanh, her eyes closed.

"It may seem like that, but it's only been..." Tam looked at her watch, "eighteen hours."

"He even likes my glasses," said Lanh with a dreamy smile that scared Tam. Tam remembered when she could smile like that. "He says my eyes are beautiful and these glasses are perfect frames for a masterpiece," sighed Lanh.

He's right thought Tam. Her perfect eyebrows that need no plucking or tweezing, her long, almost artificial looking lashes, her almond shaped eyes, a deep rich brown that nearly looks black, all are so beautiful and can say so much. Lanh learned to talk with her eyes long before she ever spoke. It was time to throw some water on this fire, "Honey, he's your first boyfriend...".

"But he GETS me," said Lanh. "We can talk! I even told him about Marissa, and he didn't laugh at me."

"Did you show him Marissa?"

"No! Of course not! She's in my bedroom... I can't let a man in here." Marissa is Lanh's closest confidant, even closer than Tam, she's a small fantail goldfish and the sole occupant of a 5-gallon aquarium that Lanh keeps meticulously clean.

Tam tried not to laugh, "Man? He's younger than you are."

"Only two months younger! He got held back when his mom died." Then surreptitiously she added "I think he's running late, like me."

"I think you may be right, but boys go through puberty a bit later than girls."

"Ssshhhh!" Lanh desperately tried to hush her sister, "Kim-ly is probably listening!"

Tam almost laughed, but she choked back her chuckle. "Did our prince charming sweep you off your feet?"

"I don't know... it's a mutual sweeping I think," smiled Lanh, hugging Tam tighter.

"That's the best kind. Tell you what, hand me those sleeping pills and we'll go see what our mom is up to."

"Really?" Lanh practically leapt at the opportunity. Their mom, Mai, was at the Campbell's farm, Don's dad was teaching her how to make lefse. Lanh's lefse was such a hit with the family at Christmas that Mai was thinking of selling lefse at the restaurant. Lanh went over to Marissa's tank and reached behind and there behind the tank is where she stored the various chemicals, medicines, and foods that she needs to raise one goldfish. From that collection she extracted one container formerly used for fish food and placed it in Tam's open hand.

"I understand, I really do. But no more, ok?" Tam placed the bottle in her purse without looking in it. "If things get bad and you feel the need for something like this, you call me, and I'll come get you, no questions asked, and we'll take off somewhere cool."

"Like Duluth?"

"How about Marquette?" smiled Tam.

"Yeah!" sighed Lanh. When she was young, the Nguyen family went on a vacation on the upper peninsula of Michigan and Lanh fell in love with Lake Superior and every town on its shores. Duluth Minnesota, Superior Wisconsin, Marquette Michigan, they were all synonymous with heaven to the young girl.

As they headed out of town in Tam's beat up old Toyota, Lanh asked her sister what Kim-ly meant when she said, "beauty is a curse." Being a psychologist means that Tam is incapable of answering this question in the 10 minutes it takes to drive out to Campbell's farm, "Beauty is subjective," she started, "some guys think women with big breasts are beautiful, others like skinny butts. To some men our eyes are beautiful, to other's they're not..."

"I know all that, but why did she say it is a curse?"

"Because guys are visually oriented, and many times your looks are all they care about. And many of them like to be seen with a beautiful woman because they think it makes them look good, they think they're making other men jealous, and it has nothing to do with the woman at all."

Lanh shook her head, "I don't understand."

"Hmmm, let's try this. Do you think that Don is attracted to you by your looks?"

"I'm surprised he doesn't run away," huffed Lanh.

"Why is he attracted to you?"

"I don't know, I guess we just connect. We can talk about anything." Just the memory of their conversations made Lanh happy, and she smiled dreamily. A smile that almost caused Tam to start laughing.

"Exactly, now imagine your relationship without that connection," said Tam, "without those conversations."

"Uhhh..." she frowned, "there is no relationship."

"That's the problem many beautiful women, and men, have. That connection isn't there. Their relationships are shallow because people want them only because of the way they look."

Lanh considered Tam the most beautiful women she ever met, and most people would agree with her. "Do you have problems like that?"

"No," answered Tam.

"Why not?"

"I don't date."

Before asking the inevitable "Why not?" a sudden thought popped into Lanh's head. "Pull in here!" Tam wheeled the Toyota into a parking spot in front of Helgeson's Five and Dime, and Lanh jumped out calling "I'll be right back." Helgeson's has everything, from the specialized supplies that caring for Marissa demands, to rare and unusual cooking utensils that every kitchen needs, but rarely uses until company arrives and Grandma's recipe box is opened.

She found what she was looking for quickly and ran to the counter. As usual, Mr. Helgeson was at the ancient cash register, doing an inventory of a shipment he just received. "Miss Nguyen! I didn't expect to see you today, how is Marissa feeling?"

"She's fine, she really likes that new food we're trying."

"Excellent! And young Master Campbell? How is he today?"

Lanh should have been shocked, her relationship with Don isn't public knowledge, but there's no secrets in this county that Mr. Helgeson isn't aware of. "He's ice fishing today," she said as she paid for her purchase.

"Good day for it, not too windy. You be sure to dress warm, you betcha, it's down to zero out there." He placed her purchase in a bag and added a flat, polished stick that looked like a paint stirring stick. "You'll need one of these too," he smiled.

"Thank you, sir!" she called as she ran out the door and leapt into Tam's car. Minutes later they parked in the Campbell's drive behind Duong's car. "Ba is here?" asked Lanh.

"Má probably dropped him off at the legion, it's Saturday," said Tam. Saturday was the day that their father shoots pool at the local American Legion post.

When they got to the front door, Lanh just walked in, she didn't make a pretense of knocking. "I'm home!" she called. Then she turned to Tam, "Take your boots off! I just shampooed the rugs."

"You're home?" came her mother's incredulous cry from the kitchen.

"Can't have the lady of the house stand knocking at her own front door, can we?" said Ralph who was also in the kitchen.

"That was just for Christmas," insisted Mai. Lanh was made the "Lady of the House" at the Campbell farm over the Christmas holidays because she wanted to cheer up Don and his dad Ralph and decorate their home for Christmas.

"She was so good at the job we kept her on, hey there tôm!" said Ralph as he gave his son's diminutive girlfriend a hug. "How ya doin' baby doll?"

"I missed you poppa!"

"How come you get mad at Kim-ly for calling you that?" asked Tam as she sampled some lefse. Tôm is the Vietnamese word for shrimp.

"Because she knows what it means. Mister Ralph thinks it means cute and little, Kim-ly thinks it means stinky sea bug." Then Lanh turned to her mother and formally bowing deeply at the waist she held out the gift she bought with both hands.

Mai turned and was a little shocked to see her youngest daughter, the one who disdains almost all of her ancestral culture, handing her the gift with a very Vietnamese show of respect. She took the bag and thanked her profusely, then opened the gift a little confused. "A lefse roller? We have one right here..." but Lanh grabbed the roller that Mai was using off the kitchen counter where Mai was crafting the lefse.

"This roller stays here, with this house, with this family. Now you have one of your own that you can take home and use if you'd like." Lanh then turned to the sink and began to clean the ancient roller the way that Ralph had taught her. "You can hand it down to Kim-ly if she ever learns to cook."

Tam stifled a guffaw.

"That roller belonged to Don's mother and his grandmother," said Ralph quietly. "Don presented it to her for Christmas."

Mai's perfectly coifed eyebrows shot up. She turned to Lanh and said in Vietnamese "Thank you very much dear, this was extremely thoughtful," and she bowed to her daughter, neither Lanh nor Tam have ever seen Mai Nguyen bowing to one of her children.

After Lanh finished cleaning her heirloom roller and was satisfied that the new roller was working properly for her mother, she asked "May I show Tam around the farm?"

"Be careful, it's cold out."

Yes má!" And Lanh ran to get her boots.

Mai turned to Tam and said, "Did you get them?" Tam handed the fish food bottle over to Mai who looked inside to see Lanh's stolen sleeping pills. She gasped in terror, there was more than enough pills in that bottle to kill her baby. She shuddered to think of what could have happened... finally she sighed "Thank God... thank you so much," and she gave Tam a hug. Then in a young mom voice that she hasn't used in years she smiled and said, "now go play outside with your little sister."

Tam smiled and rolled her eyes. She was pulling on her boots when Lanh started calling "Let's go!" and soon Lanh was dragging her sister out the door. Once they were outside, Mai went back to rolling and grilling the lefse while Ralph went back to folding and bagging the completed lefse.

As he placed more lefse in the freezer he asked Mai, "do you think she will be upset when she finds out?"

"She would be more upset if I told her," Mai sighed thinking of the surprise her daughter is in for. "She'll survive."

Inside the barn Lanh gave Tam the full tour, starting with the milking parlor, how all the piping worked, then working her way up to the hayloft to the cliffs of hay bales where she and Don jump and freefall into piles of hay, then out into the farmyard where she introduced Tam to her favorite cows. "Only one has a name, the rest have numbers, but Mr. Ralph told me that I could name the calves this spring."

"Which one has a name?" asked Tam to be polite, she wasn't sure if she would be happy eating a Nadineburger.

"That black one over there, her name is Spot."

Tam walked as close as she dared to Spot, close enough to see the name Spot written in magic marker on her numbered ear tag, but she found no evidence of a spot. As far as she could tell, Spot was a pure black cow. "Ok, what am I looking for, what color is her spot?"

"It's black. It's a pretty big spot." Lanh giggled the cutest giggle Tam had ever seen, then she groaned.

"Farm humor. Gotta love it."

"They got me too," grinned Lanh remembering when Ralph introduced her to Spot. "She's a Holstein cow, just like her sisters, she just came out that color." Completely identical to her black and white sisters other than that one big spot that covered 100% of her body, Spot was indeed a Holstein. Lanh then showed her sister the tractor shed which was nearly as big as the barn, it was filled with numerous farm implements and Lanh explained each one to Tam. In the back sat a large green behemoth with the words John Deere in yellow barely visible through the dirt and dust. The big ancient tractor showed signs of being worked on recently. "This one doesn't run yet; Don and his dad call this their hobby tractor and they're rebuilding the motor. Don must have taken the Ford back to the pond, come on!"

The walk to the pond was further than Lanh had imagined, all she knew of the farm outside of the farmyard is from what she was told by Ralph, Don, and her brother Bao who went in the woods beyond the pond with Don on Christmas eve to cut down a Christmas tree. Most of the walk was between what Lanh thought was a pasture on their right because it was surrounded by barbed wire fence, and on their left a corn field which had corn stubble poking up through the snow.

"I think we should turn around," said Tam, "it's starting to snow."

Lanh was about to agree with her, but she wanted to see if the pond was just ahead where the ground started to dip downward into a shallow valley. "There it is!" Lanh cried and started to run.

Tam was impressed, she could see cattails in the distance poking up through the snow marking the edge of the pond. This "pond" was a good size lake! Next to the near shore a tractor was parked, it was hitched to a single axle trailer that was clearly home built. Out on the pond was a fishing hut constructed from scrap lumber and tar paper. "Slow down girl!" Tam called out as Lanh slipped in the tractor wheel ruts in her haste.

Lanh couldn't be slowed, her excitement drove her on. She approached the Ford tractor and climbed up into the seat waiting for Tam to catch up. When she finally did, Lanh bounced a little on the seat and turned the wheel left and right a bit and said, "Don's going to teach me to drive this, I can't wait. I want to see what it's like this have this much power between my legs!" and she stood on the clutch pedal thinking it was the gas pedal.

"Was that an innuendo?" Tam asked surprised.

"Yeah!"

"Not bad for a first try," said Tam, giving Lanh a punch in the shoulder.

Lanh hopped off the tractor and they strode out on the ice to the hut, following the footsteps that led out there. From the hut the sound of a hockey game on the radio could be heard, as could be heard the tell-tale hissing sound of a propane Coleman stove and the rhythmic gurgling of a coffee percolator. Lanh opened the door and the first thing she saw was Don, her face broke into a huge, excited smile. The second thing she saw was her dad. Her smile disappeared and she let the door slam shut. "Let's go!" she announced and started to walk back toward the farmhouse.

"Em yêu! Wait!"

Lanh stopped, 'Em yêu' is the Vietnamese term of affection for someone slightly older than you, the Vietnamese form of "sweetheart." She whirled around, her face a mask of anger, "Who taught you to say that? Was it Bao?"

"No, it was your dad."

"Did he tell what it mean?" Now Lanh's face was a mask of confusion. She couldn't believe that her dad taught Don a term of endearment! In her anger her diction started to break down, her accent was no longer a light lilt, it now made her nearly impossible to understand.

"Yes, he said that it is the way you address the woman you care for, like sweetheart."

"It mean OLDER woman you love," sniffed Lanh. Her diction was really starting to fall apart.

"I know that we've been working on pronouns, and he told me what yêu really means."

"What did he tell you that yêu really means?"

"He said it means if you end up pregnant before we graduate that they will never find my body."

"That sounds like him," growled Lanh as she allowed herself to be led back to the hut.

"He taught me cung, but I still think I'm mispronouncing it," said Don pulling Lanh to a halt.

"It's pronounced cưng," said Lanh, who would rather be called "my baby" in English.

"I knew what yêu means, Bao taught me. Remember?" Barely a month ago Lanh's brother convinced Don that saying 'Lanh à, em yêu chi' means 'Lanh, I give you this gift with affection.' But, it really means 'Lanh, I love you.' He looked her in the eye and said "Em yêu?"

Lanh melted. She felt the initial anger flow out of her body, this whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing is going to take some getting used to. She leaned her head back for a kiss, "Em yêu," she said after the quick little kiss. It was the first time she called a man her sweetheart and she will never use that term for another man, "I really like this pond, I can't wait to see it in the summer."

"We're going to have fun," promised Don as he opened the ice shack door for his cưng.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Spring

This was the best time of the year! School is almost done; final exams are being held and Don has one more to go -- advanced algebra. He went from being dead last to top in the class thanks to Lanh's expert tutelage. Having a tutor who cares and a goal to reach helped Don's grades skyrocket to untold heights. Was it Lanh's style of teaching or was Lanh the carrot held before the horse?

For her part, Lanh loved the Campbell's farm. As farms go, it's nothing special, they have a small dairy herd, some corn, some row crops, but their number one cash crop is hay which they sell to other dairy and livestock farms. The farm has a small lake that Lanh was learning to pull perch, trout, and bass out of with regularity. And springtime meant calves! Lanh wanted to be present for every calf born, which with school was impossible, but she did harass her brother into driving her out to the farm at 3:00 AM on a Saturday morning to help her favorite cow, Spot, with her birth.

Baby cows are so cute!

But now calving season is almost over, planting is done, school is almost over, summer is almost here! It was such a beautiful day that Don and Lanh studied for tomorrow's exam in the hayloft. After several exercise exams, Lanh declared Don ready for the real thing and they packed up their books and headed down the ladder. "After I enlist, I'm just going to stay in the military long enough to learn a trade and get the G.I. Bill so my college is paid for, then I'll come back here," said Don as the two exited the big side door.

"Then what?" asked Lanh, she looked up and saw Don's dad walking toward them. He pulled a camera out of his pocket to take a picture of the kids. He was so enamored with Don and Lanh that Ralph was constantly taking their pictures.

"I'll run the farm; with the skills I learn working on military equipment I'll work on the machines here, and with my college education I'll do accounting, y' know, inventory and sales and taxes and stuff, I'll manage the farm's finances."

Lanh grabbed the straw hat off of Don's head, put it on her own, and put the stem of hay she was holding in her mouth and said, "Sounds like a plan," as Ralph's camera flashed, while inside her head she said, 'let's do it together.'

"Wanna go swimming?" he asked.

"I didn't bring a bathing suit," she said. She's been waiting since January for the opportunity to take a dip in the pond and she was severely disappointed. She knew she should have left a suit here at the farm, just for opportunities like this.

Don thought for a moment, then said "You can wear one of my old t-shirts, I have some small ones."

"Ok," Lanh nodded while eying the tractor, "can I drive?"

Not long later, while wearing one of Don's old t-shirts, tied off in the back so it didn't balloon out in the water, Lanh eased up on the clutch of the old Ford tractor. This time she didn't panic when the wheels started to turn, she continued to ease out on the clutch and rather than stalling like it did the previous six attempts, this time it started rolling. "I'm driving!" she cried, her grin of accomplishment spread across her tiny face, her braces glittered in the sunlight of the hot late spring afternoon. Don stood beside her, leaning against the fender of the tractor, an incredibly unsafe thing to do, which never stopped a Minnesota farmboy from doing it. He patted her shoulder for encouragement and left his hand there, because it felt right to be there touching her.

Unseen, Lanh and Don's audience gave each other a ghostly high five and cheered on the tiny girl's accomplishment. "I love watching this," grinned Past Karole as Ralph stood in front of the tractor to capture the moment on film, "but I hope it is the last time I get to watch," she said with a sidelong glance at Karole. Ralph had more than enough time to step out of the way of the tractor that roared off toward the pond at a "breakneck" four miles per hour.

Not long later, Tam's old Toyota pulled up into the farmyard, she had just returned from university, and she wanted to say hi to her little sister. She knew from talking to Lanh and their mom that looking at home for Lanh would be fruitless, as she spends all her free time at the farm and is only at home to sleep or when she can't talk her way out of working at the restaurant. Tam stopped at the restaurant only long enough to pick up Kim-ly and some supplies, then they headed out to Campbell's farm with a picnic lunch and a cooler full of Old Style beer.

After checking in with Ralph who was working on an implement that looked like a bunch of leaf rakes were turned into pinwheels. "Whatcha working on Mr. Ralph?" asked Kim-ly as the girls walked into the shed.

"Just getting the hay rake ready, the first cutting is coming up soon. Your sister says she wants to help with the haying once exams are done."

Tam smiled at the thought -- Farmer Lanh! A year ago, she wanted nothing to do with anything or anyone but Marissa, Lanh's only plan for the future was to avoid it at all costs. Now she's milking cows and cutting hay, what a good man will do for you! Tam couldn't wait to find one of them. "Where are those two at?"

"Back at the pond, they finished their cramming for the exam and headed back for a dip."

With a couple of borrowed folding lawn chairs, Tam and Kim-ly headed back to the pond carrying the cooler between them. As they drew near the pond, they could hear Lanh occasionally yell "Nhanh lên! Nhanh lên!" (Hurry up! Hurry up!)

"This could be interesting," grinned Kim-ly as they grew nearer to the pond.

"Probably not," frowned Tam, "at least I hope not."

Occasionally they heard splashing and laughter but other than that, it was quiet and peaceful under the warm early summer sun. As they approached the pond Lanh changed her shouts, now she was calling "Đi đi mau! Đi đi mau!" (Go! Go! (Roughly translated)) followed by the occasional splash and a shriek of laughter from Lanh.

"What the hell...?" Tam and Kim-ly stepped out from a grove of pine trees and saw down on the pond that Don and Lanh were in a small rowboat. Don was in the middle seat rowing while Lanh sat in the stern acting as coxswain. Occasionally she would cup her hands and shout "Nhanh lên! Nhanh lên!" which from a distance sounded like "Yen yen! Yen yen!"

"You're supposed to say "Stroke," called Don.

"Do that on your own time," laughed Lanh, knowing what was coming next. With a quick flip of the right oar Don was able to splash Lanh causing her to squeal and laugh.

"Did she just say what I thought she said?" gasped Kim-ly.

"Yeah, that's two innuendos in the span of six months," grinned Tam as she cracked open a beer and relaxed in the folding chair.

"You raised a demon," said Kim-ly as she pulled off her t-shirt and leaned back topless to do some early summer tanning.

"Excuse me!" growled Tam.

"What?"

"Your chest?"

"We're in the middle of nowhere," exclaimed Kim-ly.

"Your kid sister is right there with her boyfriend and you're sitting up here with your boobs hanging out," scolded Tam.

"They're both as blind as a bat, and they both have their glasses off," insisted Kim-ly as she opened her own beer.

Tam looked and sure enough, she could see what looked like their glasses were atop a pile of towels on the floating dock at the other end of the pond. She shrugged and took her own T-shirt off and began sunning topless also as she watched the young friends play in the boat.

At some point Lanh reached in the water and started splashing Don, who retaliated by standing up and jumping overboard, his splash soaking Lanh. Being a good swimmer Don would duck under the boat and pop back up where Lanh would least expect it, and it became a game trying to see where he would pop up from, because when he would pop up and she didn't see him, he would reach over the gunnel and tickle her, or better yet, grab her tiny butt.

Finally, she picked up an oar and pretended to swat him, so he started to swim toward the shore. "DON! Come back here and save me!" she shouted but he stayed well out of reach of her swinging oar. Frustrated, she sat down and put the oars in the oar locks and tried to row. She flailed around for a while, but she eventually found a rhythm that got the boat moving. "I'm coming to get you Donovan Campbell!" she called.

"Well, you're going the wrong way," he said as his smiling face popped up over the stern gunnel.

"Oh you..." she jumped up and dove toward him and he caught her under the armpits and hauled her over the gunnel and into the water with him. Tam jumped up and was preparing to run down to the pond to rescue Lanh but Kim-ly grabbed her older sister's arm and held on tight.

"Just wait," said Kim-ly. Either Don was going to hoist Lanh back into the boat or Lanh was going to beat the hell out of him, either way it was going to be entertaining.

For a split second Lanh panicked, she threw herself at Don and wrapped her arms and legs around him and held on for dear life, but when she forced herself to open her eyes, she saw that they weren't drowning. Don had a strong grip on her and on the boat. "Easy baby, I have you," he said softly.

"Why did you do that?" she said. She wanted to splash him or something, but she didn't dare let go.

"I wanted to hold you; it's been forever since we hugged." She smiled and held him tight, resting her head on his shoulder. "You know, you were doing pretty good on those oars," he continued. "If we get you up to snuff, you can pace me while I swim," he said.

"Teach me," she said.

"Ok, let's get this boat to the dock, grab on to the stern here..." he transferred her hands to the stern of the boat and together they started kicking and propelled the boat to the dock. Rather than getting in the boat, they decided to lay in the sun and dry off. Don's t-shirt clung to her like a second skin as they lay side by side and as they lay together and studied each other's eyes.

"I'm sorry I'm so skinny," she said quietly.

"Stop," he said, "I like Lanh Nguyen and everything to do with her, and skinny is part of you."

She thought about what he said for a long time then finally said, "I think I'm going to keep you."

On the other side of the pond, their audience struggled to stay awake. "Bor-ing" said Kim-ly in a sing-song voice.

"Boring is good, I like it like that," replied Tam, ever the mom.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Summer

"Just remember what I told you, if you hit a rut, hold that wheel tight and jump on the clutch, the tractor will stop herself, ok?"

Lanh nodded; her long ebony hair pulled into pigtails bobbed as she nodded her head.

"And don't let the steering wheel spin in your hands, the spoke will come around and dislocate or even break your thumb or fingers, ok?"

Again, she nodded her head vigorously, eager to get to work.

Ralph was worried, he allowed Lanh to talk him into letting her bale hay for the first time. She cut it with the ancient side cutter and did quite a nice job, she even cut the frontage alongside the highway and trimmed out the ditches. She was out there at once to rake the hay into neat wind rows, beautifully straight and even. Then she watched it day by day like she watched her pregnant cows, until it was dry enough, then she got the tedder out and fluffed the wind rows, an important part of preparing her crop, and she realized that hay is a cash crop. She did a remarkable job of getting the hay ready for bailing, now she wants to get the old International Harvester baler out and bring her crop in.

This is something Don has been doing since he was nine but, he had been driving a tractor since he could reach the pedals. Lanh just started driving a tractor three months ago. None the less, she is approaching the job with an eagerness that surprised Ralph. "No sharp turns when hauling a bailer and a wagon, work the field like a Zamboni works the ice, big wide turns."

"Yes poppa, I know."

When did she start calling me poppa? Ralph wondered. "Ok, take it easy, nice and slow, and don't forget you have a crew back there, listen for them in case there's trouble. And stay clear of the PTO shaft! We don't need you getting your arms ripped off."

She looked back on her "crew" which consisted of Kim-ly standing on the hay wagon and waiting anxiously for Lanh to get going so she can start drinking the beer that she brought. Lanh leaned over in the tractor seat and gave Ralph a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you for worrying poppa." Then she straightened up, set the choke and throttle, stepped down on the clutch, turned the key and hit the big starter button. The tractor coughed to life and the rough rattling roar slowly started to smooth out as the engine warmed up. As it did, she eased in on the choke until the motor was running smoothly and Ralph gave her a thumbs up.

Just as she was getting ready to ease up on the clutch, Tam appeared and climbed up on the right footboard then propped herself on the right fender like Don did when Lanh was first learning to drive the tractor. Tam was wearing a non la, the traditional Vietnamese conical hat and she held one out to Lanh, who slipped it on and tied the chinstrap ribbon under her chin. "I didn't look Asian enough for you?" she asked Tam, squinting her eyes to make the epicanthal fold of her eyes more pronounced behind her thick glasses.

"It's all about tradition," said Tam as Lanh put the tractor in gear. Years ago, someone had mounted a horn off an old Army Jeep on the tractor and Lanh loved it because it sounded like the roadrunner from the cartoons. Lanh gave two quick beeps to warn anyone in the area that she was going forward: "Meep! Meep!" and with that she eased out the clutch and they began to move out into the fields. She was pulling the old, faded red baler and behind that the large green hay wagon where Kim-ly and Ralph sat.

Finally, she got out to the field and looking back over her shoulder she saw Kim-ly had set up a lounge chair on the hay wagon and was enjoying a cold drink. "I wish we had a kicker," muttered Lanh. The kicker launches hay bales from the baler into the air to land in the hay wagon. They land generally right where Kim-ly was sitting. Ralph was sitting next to Kim-ly, he came along to make sure that the girls had this under control. It wouldn't do to bean poppa with a square bale of hay.

Finally, they reached the field that Lanh had cut and prepared for this moment. She pulled up to a wind row and stopped, lowered the three-point hitch lowering the baler intake tines to the ground. She engaged the PTO, and the baler came to life. Squeaking and groaning, it began to scoop hay even before Lanh put the tractor in gear. Tam hopped off the tractor with an encouraging "you got this" and stepped back to the hay wagon and climbed on with Kim-ly and Ralph.

Soon they were really bailing hay! It took Tam and Kim-ly a half dozen bales to figure out that the best way to get the bale on to a neat stack after it came off the conveyer and drop onto the trailer was to do it together. These bales weigh fifty pounds, each girl could deal with one, but it was hard work. If they both grabbed the hay bale and carried it to the stack the job went much easier. Ralph laughed and helped the girls learn the ropes; he had never had so much fun bailing hay in his life. Twenty five years ago he bailed a field of hay with the beautiful young girl that would eventually become Don's mom, which was fun too, but for a wholly different reason.

They finished up the row and Lanh made the turn and lined up the feeder tines of the bailer with the wind row perfectly, not a straw of hay was missed as she started to scoop the hay into the bailer. As the stack grew higher it became more difficult for Tam and Kim-ly to lift the bales, and Ralph took pity. "If it's too much for you, if you can't do it, I can get Don when he gets home from your momma's restaurant, and he can get it for you."

That was the exact right thing to say, Tam pushed the brim of her hat back and said, "We're just getting organized Mr. Campbell. We'll be done before Don gets back from his shift at the restaurant."

Ralph chuckled. "If you insist, now let me give you a hint, when the stack gets too tall, build a step to stand on. Let's see how you can stack them bales."

Tam and Kim-ly went back to work, grabbing the bales as soon as they came off the conveyor and lifted them into place, the job getting easier as they learned to work together. "We should mention this at the dojo," chuckled Kim-ly.

"I've heard worse ideas," said Tam. She and Kim-ly study martial arts due to attacks in their past, now there will be no more drunken frat boys stalking their nightmares anymore.

Lanh made her next 180 degree turn and Ralph hopped off the hay wagon and stepped out in front of the tractor and waived his arms for Lanh to stop. With a long "MEEEEEEEEP!" to tell her crew she was stopping Lanh brought the tractor to a stop and disengaged the PTO, silencing the bailer then shut down the engine. Tam shut off the boom box on the hay wagon and the three hopped down and huddled around Ralph.

"You girls are doing incredible!" Ralph gushed as they gathered around him. "I never would have guessed you have never worked a farm before."

The girls were hot and sweaty and each one had a huge grin. "It's the hats," kidded Kim-ly as she gave Tam an elbow in the ribs. "They give us the agrarian superpowers of our ancestors."

"Well, you keep on doing like you're doing, and you'll have one of the best harvests we've ever produced. The bales are good and tight and will fetch a good price."

"We're just trying to kill a warm summer afternoon," said Tam.

"I'm impressed, Little Bit," he said to Lanh, "when you're done, just drop the trailer behind the tractor shed and drop the bailer by the door, I'll have Don put it away later."

"Yes, sir," said Lanh, grinning in embarrassment that her boyfriend's dad used his pet nickname for her in front of her sisters. She's not going to hear the end of this. She looked at Tam and Kim-ly who were looking at her with evil glee. Somehow these non la hats made her sisters look even more sinister.

As Ralph headed back to the farmhouse the girls returned to their posts. Kim-ly sneered at Lanh and said "Little Bit? That's so cute."

"It's starting already," muttered Lanh as she fired up the tractor and set the PTO. The grinding of the bailer drowned out Tam and Kim-ly's calls of "Let's go Little Bit!"

Lanh eased out on the clutch and the work resumed. It was a little bit easier now for Kim-ly and Tam because Ralph wasn't on the hay wagon with them. It's not that he wasn't a nice guy, he was a tremendous fellow, it's that he worried about them and tended to get in the way.

It was a beautiful summer afternoon and even though the three sisters had been working together their entire lives this was the best teamwork they have ever shown and the first time that little Lanh stepped out at "team leader." As they moved farther and farther away from the farmhouse all three girls stripped off their shirts and began working in their bikini tops that they wore under their shirts. The sun was hot, the breeze was refreshing, and the work was dry and dusty. Soon all three girls were covered in sweat and dust and were loving it. All were enjoying a chance to get out, do something they've never done before on a warm summer day.

Finally, the hay wagon was full, the hay was stacked up to seven feet high and Tam and Kim-ly climbed on top of the hay for the ride back to the farmhouse. They quickly dropped off the wagon and Lanh backed the baler into the tractor shed, parking it where it normally sits just to prove to Don and Ralph that a girl can do it. As she unhitched the baler Sandy came out of the farmhouse and asked, "How many bales did you get?" Sandy is Ralph Campbell's "lady friend." She's widowed like Ralph and is the pianist at the church that Ralph and Don attend.

Unaware that they should have been counting, they counted five bales high six bales wide times eight rows equal two hundred and forty bales the girls put up. Lanh did the math in her head, 240 bales at 50 pounds each, "That's six tons!" she grinned.

Tam and Kim-ly sagged at the realization of all the work they put through. "Holy shit," groaned Kim-ly.

"That's right, six tons of hay, good job girls," smiled Sandy as she wrote the figures on the back of an envelope.

"Where's Mr. Campbell?" asked Tam.

"He's ahhh... indisposed," said Sandy.

"The bikinis?" asked Kim-ly suddenly realizing how skimpy her bikini top was. Her tiny shorts didn't help project an aura of innocence either.

"Ahhh... yeah," smiled Sandy as she headed back to the house. Sandy raised four rowdy, righteous girls by herself, putting up hay in a bikini was dusty and scratchy, but not unheard of. Ralph on the other hand wasn't prepared for the Nguyen sisters.

Lanh decided that she needed to wash off and cool down so she told her sisters, "I'm going back to the pond to wash off this dust, wanna come with?" and soon, after hooking up the small home-made flatbed trailer to the tractor, all three were heading back to the pond, bottles clanking in the cooler, boom box blasting the top forty.

It was still early in the afternoon, and it was warm and sunny back at the pond. They pulled up to the floating dock and hopped off the tractor and trailer and walked out to the end of the dock. The floating dock is merely a dock made of wood planking on top of several empty plastic fifty-five-gallon drums. Pulled up on shore was a ten-foot rowboat and a canoe. It felt strange walking on the dock because it rolled and rocked as you walked on it, but they got to the end, a large eight foot square area where Lanh loved to go fishing. Looking in the water she could see the blue gills and "sunnies" swimming in and out of the shadow of the dock.

"I'm going skinny-dipping, who's with me?" called out Kim-ly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Don walked back to the pond pulling a utility wagon with a cooler full of cold drinks, sandwiches, and snacks for the girls. He was impressed with the amount of work they completed, and he was shocked that his dad let them complete the bailing with a customer waiting for their promised five tons of sweet alfalfa. Normally Don would do the hay cutting along with Ralph and Cliff, their hired farmhand, but they had to get it in before the rain started tomorrow and his dad found a buyer who wanted the hay as soon as possible.

Don heard the sisters splashing and playing in the pond and he veered up toward the pines where he likes to camp, and there he set up a nice picnic dinner for the girls as a thank you. His campsite has a nice firepit and several level areas for pitching tents. The thick mattress of pine needles made it difficult to pitch a tent, but he has a stash of extra-long tent stakes made from rebar just for camping under the pines. His camp site even has a big picnic table that he made from a stash of 2" x 4" studs and painted Kelly green so it looked like a table you would find at a forest service picnic site. He was ready to call the girls, so he stepped to the edge of the woods and looked out over the pond and what he saw made his mouth run dry.

There down on the pond he saw them. They were five hundred yards away, so his vision was quite blurry even with glasses, but he thinks that all were naked... or maybe he wanted to think they were naked. "Lanh!" he gasped as he saw the tiny Asian pull herself out of the water on to the floating dock, just to be tossed back in by one of her taller sisters. With a laughing squeal she hit the water then disappeared under the surface and did not resurface. After a minute Don saw the girl in the pond treading water suddenly disappear with a startled yelp. He grinned; the underwater attack was a move he taught Lanh.

Lanh resurfaced and started swimming toward the center of the pond, her strokes looked perfect, they had spent hours in the pond, and he taught her to swim, and she was becoming very good at breaststroke and free style. When she got to the center of the pond, she took a deep breath with a kick she dove deep. She was gone almost two minutes, then she surfaced near where she submerged and after a few breaths she yelled something to her sisters.

He wanted to go join them so badly, not just for the illicit thrill of skinny dipping with the most beautiful women he had ever met and one of them that... that... "Oh wow," he groaned. Don just now came to the realization that he wanted Lanh. Since they first danced eight months ago, they were rarely separated, they were buddies, pals, they occasionally kissed, but she was a girl, and he loved her like a...

Don now realized that he wasn't sure how he loved her. He realized now that his feelings toward Lanh were different, they were evolving. HE was different and evolving too, later than every other guy in his class and on the swim team, but just in time for his seventeenth birthday. Hormones began to course through his body, occasionally his voice would squeak and drop an octave, but there were other changes too.

He used to daydream of just hanging out with Lanh, to walk hand in hand, picnic lunch back here at the pond, swimming and playing in the pond, he even taught her the illicit game of bumper sliding in the winter, but the future... His dreams of his future all revolve around Lanh. He used to dream that she'd enlist with him too, or maybe she'll get commissioned, but now there's no uniforms in his dreams.

He sighed and stepped back to the campsite, to the crackling fire he lit, because what's a campsite without a campfire? Sitting there he got an idea to let the girls know he was here without embarrassing them. He collected an armful of long pine needles from under the stand of white pines and threw the armload on the fire. It almost put the fire out but soon the pile of needles started pouring a huge cloud of white smoke into the air. The white smoke rose a hundred feet, above the treetops, a smoke signal to Lanh and her sisters. He dug an M-80 firecracker out of his pocket and lit the fuse. He let the fuse burn down until the sputtering flame was at the body of the explosive charge, then with a practiced heave he threw the M-80 high into the air. The M-80 exploded with a deafening roar inside the column of smoke. That should get the attention of the girls.

If that didn't get their attention, the pine needles soon were heated to their combustion point and burst into a roaring orange conflagration which was fueled by the pine needles and the pine tar they contained. The white smoke immediately stopped as the huge orange flames roared skyward. The flames should be seen from the pond, even through the trees.

"The water is so cold down there!" gasped Lanh as she re-emerged from her deep dive.

"How deep did you go?" asked Kim-ly who was sitting on the dock, enjoying the feel of the warm breeze on her naked skin. None of these girls had ever been completely naked outdoors before, the feel of the cool pond water caressing every inch of their bodies was incredible. Even though they had gone swimming all their lives, and in Kim-ly's case had worn skimpy bikinis, the feel of being naked in the water was new and exciting.

"I don't know how deep this pond is, maybe fifteen feet?" guessed Lan. "I dove until I felt seaweed."

Suddenly a loud explosion startled the girls, they looked at the cause of the sound and saw a huge column of white smoke rising out of the pine trees. As they watched, the source of the smoke stopped producing smoke, and huge, angry orange flames could be seen between the trees.

"Holy shit!" cried Kim-ly, "What the hell just blew up?"

"I dunno," said Lanh, but she couldn't suppress her smile, she knew of Don's love of fireworks. He was there at his camp site, and he was up to something.

"She knows something," said Tam as she tried to swim after Lanh, but Tam hasn't swum in years and Lanh's form is perfect from swimming with Don so often this summer. She was able to stay out of Tam's reach and circle back around Tam and get back to the dock before her. Lanh was able to pull herself up on the dock and grab her shorts and bikini top before Kim-ly could stop her, then she tried to make it to shore alongside the dock but Kim-ly headed her off and caught her as she stepped up on shore. Kim-ly held the squirming, giggling Lanh until Tam finally caught up to them and helped Kim-ly restrain a laughing Lanh.

Don watched the sisters wrestle, it looked like they were getting ready to toss Lanh back in the pond. He guessed that Lanh told them he was here because two of the distant figures began looking around. That allowed the smallest one to dash for the tractor and hop up on the seat. The other two dashed back to the dock then back to the tractor, Don guessed they picked up their clothes. The tractor started up and dressing on the flatbed trailer the girls slowly rounded the end of the pond and headed toward him.

Fifteen minutes later the three sisters were eating hotdogs they cooked over the fire on long forks along with chips and washing them down with ice cold canned sodas and what beer they had left over. Lanh sat sideways on the picnic table bench seat, Don sat behind her, combing out her long glistening black hair as it dried. Tam and Kim-ly sat across from them and the three girls laughed and recounted the events of the day's work and play. Lanh practically purred with delight as Don combed out her hair and occasionally pulled her back to his chest for a hug, and the best part was that Tam and Kim-ly acted like it was the most natural thing in the world for their mousy little sister to enjoy her boyfriend in front of them.

"I'm so jealous," said Don as the conversation reached a stopping point. "You guys have so much fun. It was just me and dad for years, milking cows, cutting hay, planting corn." He sighed; how different life would have been if he had brothers.

"This doesn't ever happen, em yêu," said Lanh.

"No, it doesn't," agreed Kim-ly

"It was a first," said Tam, and the sisters became strangely silent, reflecting on the day. Don was beginning to worry that something was wrong among them when Tam got up and walked around the table and sat down facing Lanh. She took Lanh's hands and said "Em có cảm thấy ổn không em gái?"

Lanh smiled and said "Không, nhưng mỗi ngày tôi lại gần nhau hơn," causing Tam to lean forward and hug her little sister. With a mewl of joy Kim-ly leapt up and joined them in a sisterly hug which seemed to go on forever. Don didn't want to interfere, but Lanh leaned back against him, adding him to the hug.

Eventually they broke the hug and moved over to the fire and sat around telling stories of their childhood, mostly of how Kim-ly was so jealous of Tam's doll. Kim-ly huffed, "That's all she wanted to do was play with that doll, she'd dress it up six times an hour and give it four baths a day, I never got to play with Tam after she got that doll."

"That's not fair," said Tam, "it was my favorite doll, and I promised má that I would take care of it."

"You never wanted to play with me!" said Kim-ly.

As they taunted each other Lanh leaned over and clutched Don's arm, clutching tighter and tighter with each taunt. Finally, Don asked Lanh "What's wrong? Did you break Tam's doll?"

"No," she replied, "it wasn't a doll, it was ME!"

"No, seriously."

"SERIOUSLY," Lanh shouted, "I was a preemie tiny and Tam adopted me because Bao and Kim-ly were such brats that má had to spend all her time spanking them.

Don chuckled, "Really?"

"You laugh," Lanh pointed an accusing finger at her sister Tam, "she took me to show and tell!" cried Lanh.

"Twice," said Tam with an ill-concealed grin.

"TWICE?" Lanh shrieked.

"I did a changing demo," said Tam as Kim-ly laughed loudly.

"Everyone saw my âm đạo?" gasped Lanh, she buried her face in Don's chest. "I can never go out in public," causing Tam and Kim-ly to double over in laughter.

About an hour later Don and Kim-ly walked down to the pond with plastic buckets to get water to drown the fire, it was time to head back. The girls didn't know it, but their hay was sold for a good price and Ralph was waiting for them to give them their share of the profits. As Don and Kim-ly walked down to the pond Don finally asked Kim-ly "What did Tam ask Lanh after we finished eating?"

Kim-ly thought for a moment, then finally said "She asked are you feeling ok little sister?"

"And what did Lanh say?"

Kim-ly paused even longer this time before saying "She said No, but every day I get closer." Before Don could ask another question, Kim-ly said "If you want to know more, you need to talk to Lanh, or Tam, or your boss." The boss Kim-ly was referring to was Mai, their mother. Don reports directly to Mai whenever he works at the restaurant. "All I can say," continued Kim-ly, "is that when you'd ask her that previously, every time she would say no."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Autumn

Lanh's tongue peeked out from between her lips as she concentrated. She can milk cows alone, she can (almost) birth calves by herself, she can cut hay, she can bale hay, she can stack hay (sort of), why can't she hook this worm? And why is it so active? It's freezing out, it should be almost unconscious. With more effort than it may have been worth, she hooked the squirming worm and cast the line. It was a cold autumn morning in mid-October, the sun reluctantly began to melt the frost from the grass and corn stubble.

They should be goose hunting, the season opens soon, and landowners tend to start early before the "city folk" mess up the hunt, but Lanh is terrified of shotguns, so she will leave the goose and duck hunting to Don and Huy. She was more comfortable with her.22 rifle and woe be to any gopher who dare dig its burrow in the cow pasture and threaten the safety of her "girls." No broken legs from stepping in a gopher hole while Lanh is on patrol.

Lanh's oldest brother Huy fell in love with shooting clay pigeons with Don on a visit this past summer and shooting clays has become a passion for waterfowl hunting for the two. Lanh noticed with some jealousy that Don and Huy were becoming good friends, their seven-year age difference meaning nothing to them. It was interesting to see a first-year corporate lawyer paling around with a high school junior. While Don taught Huy to hunt and fish, Huy taught Don to play golf and play handball up in the hayloft.

Lanh cast the line into the pond off the stern of the rowboat and when the ripples stopped radiating from the bobber, she handed the pole to Don who sat in the middle seat facing the stern of the boat. Lanh then baited another hook and cast her line forward and they sat, side by side, Lanh facing the bow, Don facing the stern. Neither spoke in the early morning calm, they relished their closeness and the last chance to use the boat this year and they weren't going to let anything deny them their chance for one last fish. They leaned on each other, and both prayed that the fish were sleeping in this morning. When they reel in their lines for the day, they have to pull the floating dock ashore and load the rowboat on the trailer and haul it back to the barn for her annual rest and maintenance and that will be it, summer will officially be over.

Right now, the hunting and handball were at a stop, and both Huy and Trung promised to show up and help land the dock and the boat. Lanh looked at Don's bandaged left hand, his arm in a sling yet still holding the pole. He was turned so she couldn't see his left side, the bruises, the swelling, but she knew it was there. She stifled a sob, but he tried to calm her with a "Shhhhh," and he pointed to his bobber in the water indicating she should be quiet because of the fish. She sighed and leaned on his shoulder, a perfect moment on such a horrible day.

It was a few days ago when Lanh was excused early from her AP Lit class and she headed over to the Industrial Arts wing of the building. Don was in class over there and she was planning to wait in the hallway for Don's computer class to let out so they could walk together to lunch and enjoy nearly an entire hour together, a luxury that was becoming rare with their hectic schedules. The computer class was in the old Drafting classroom, and it was here because this wing of the building was the only part of the building that had the electrical grid to handle that many computers and monitors and the only classroom that had enough room for that much equipment.

Lanh was a stranger to the Industrial Arts wing of the school. A different kind of student inhabited these hallways, a rougher, more tactile oriented person than the academic centered students that she meets daily on the other side of the building. Over here the average student was lucky to be able to read their textbooks, yet they could tune an engine blindfolded.

She was leaning against the wall outside of the computer class and was reading a paper she was going to turn in later in the day and feeling entirely uncomfortable in these dim hallways. The sounds that filled the air here did not sound like a school, screaming saws from the wood shop, the banging of hammers from the metal shop, the churning of the presses from the print shop and the revving of engines in the auto shop mate a cacophony of noise that set her nerves on edge and was starting to cause a headache.

Then she heard a gruff voice and the scuff of boots getting closer. "Hey!" She looked up and saw Joshua Grimes approaching her. He was the biggest movable object in the school, he was a senior and stood six foot two and weighed almost three hundred pounds. It's said that he was thrown off a high school football team in Minneapolis for being too violent. He had two hangers-on with him, and all three boys eyed her like a prime cut of beef. "Hey little girl," grinned Joshua. "Is chink pussy slanted like they say it is?"

Lanh tried to ignore them but Joshua shouted, "Hey!" again. Lanh simply turned to move away from them, but found herself in a dead end hallway, they had her blocked in. "I was talking to you!" snarled Joshua. He reached out and slapped her books out of her hands, "You don't turn your back on me!" He reached for her again and this time he tore her blouse open.

Buttons flew everywhere and she screamed "NO!" at the top of her lungs. Angered by being told "no" Joshua slapped her which almost drove her head through a locker and that set off a frenzy between himself and his two toadies. Now their hands were everywhere, touching, grabbing, and she started screaming "Không phải anh! Không phải anh!" which in English means "Not you! Not you!" She was reserving her body for only one male on earth, and he suddenly appeared.

Lanh's shrieks of outrage and terror could be heard by Don. He bolted from his computer class with the entire class following and turning the corner he saw it all. When he saw Joshua slap Lanh in the face his blood ran ice cold. His vision went red with rage, how dare they touch MY love! And without thought he put his head down and charged as hard as he could and slammed bodily into Joshua Grimes, driving him into one of his toadies and drove the two of them into the lockers with a loud metallic clang. All Lanh remembered was Don suddenly crashing into Joshua who was nearly twice his size, and she was free.

A surprised Joshua grabbed Don and threw him across the hall where the slim boy slammed into the lockers, the clang of Don hitting the lockers was drowned out by Lanh's screech of horror. Joshua then proceeded to beat Don to a bloody pulp helped along by his two lackies while the entire class who followed don into the hall just stood and watched. Between the sickening thumps of fist on flesh she heard Don say "Lanh, run..." and the beating never slowed. A beating that will cause Lanh nightmares for months.

Even when it was over it was horrible. The cowards ran when they realized Lanh's screaming drew a crowd and Lanh refused to leave Don's side. She stayed through the beating, she heard every thud, every grunt, every crack as Joshua Grimes beat Don senseless. She stayed through those horrible long minutes waiting for first aid to arrive, he wouldn't move, he would only gasp and groan. He wanted to cry but Lanh was here, he had to stay strong. She stayed and hugged him, his blood staining the remains of her pretty blouse. She whispered to him that he was going to be ok and in response he would quietly say "Are you ok? Did they hurt you? Did he touch you?"

Lanh wept when she realized his only concern was for her. Classmates tried to pull her away as the EMTs began to work on Don, but she turned and demanded to know why no one helped him while he was being beaten so viciously. But they didn't understand, and she asked again, screaming, and they just shook their heads not understanding and they started to back away. She was so upset when she screamed at them it came out "Tại sao anh không giúp chúng tôi?" Why didn't you help us?

The firemen got Don stabilized on a backboard then lifted up onto a gurney, the whole time he was babbling incoherently but was calm when Lanh whispered to him. She stayed with them as they wheeled the gurney out to the ambulance but when she tried to get on the ambulance with Don, the younger fireman pushed her aside. The other fireman who had teens of his own realized the emotional trauma these kids were going through said, "Hold on a second Lance." They paused a moment before loading Don into the ambulance. The older fireman crouched to speak to Lanh eye to eye when he noticed the condition of her blouse, it was torn and bloody. She had been holding it closed and covered with her sweater, and nobody noticed, they were all concentrating on Don, now the EMT realized that they had a second victim. He said softly to Lanh, "That your boyfriend in there?"

She nodded her head and tried to say yes he is, but she was so traumatized that it came out "Đúng vậy."

"If you sit quietly and stay out of our way, you can come with us, ok?"

"Ok," Lanh replied, and Don didn't release Lanh's hand until after the ambulance was on its way.

The EMT who was treating Don called to the driver, "Let the ER know that we are transporting two victims and have a detective ready with a rape kit."

When they arrived at the hospital, several policemen and a social worker was there to meet Don and Lanh. She was so devastated that she could barely speak English, but luckily someone recognized her from the restaurant and in a matter of moments Duong was heading to the hospital for his little girl.

Lanh tried to explain that Don saved her but being so stressed her language was fractured and the cops got the idea that it was Don who attacked her. A cop was sent to Don's treatment room to place him under arrest, which sent Lanh into spasms of fear and anger. Finally, her daddy arrived, and she saw him through the doorway as he walked up the hall. She darted out into the hall, her torn, bloody blouse streaming behind her, and she threw herself at him.

Holding her father tight she explained in Vietnamese how Don saved her from being raped and now the cops think he did it, her Vietnamese was so rapid and broken even Duong had a hard time understanding. He eased her back into her examination room and as she calmed, she was able to explain everything and Duong translated it to the hospital staff and the police and the handcuff was soon removed from Don, who never knew he had it on.

Ralph arrived moments later, and Duong met him in the ER and explained what happened. "Thank you, Ralph," said Duong, "you raised a good man. He saved my girl."

Ralph was about to respond when Lanh came flying out of the treatment room again and threw herself at "Poppa Ralph." Dressed in an oversized hospital gown, she didn't speak, she just held on to the closest thing to Don that she could touch until Duong and the social worker and the detective that were questioning her convinced her to go back and finish up.

Don was released from the hospital the next day and Lanh was heartbroken that she couldn't stay with him. She couldn't even go out to the farm to make sure Don keeps up with his schoolwork while he convalesces, so she took his work shifts at the restaurant. Ralph told her to take it easy, he had help to cover for Don at the farm. "Maybe on Saturday." she thought, "I can get up early and go milk my girls."

Saturday morning, she woke dressed quietly and slipped out of the house long before sunrise and peddled her bike out to Campbell's farm in the frosty pre-dawn cold. The eastern horizon was barely starting to lighten up and she knew she was late for morning milking, so she rode her bike straight to the barn, where she found Ralph and the hired man Cliff finishing up the last six cows, but there was someone else cleaning the now empty stalls in the milking parlor, and that was her job. She walked past Ralph and Cliff bidding them good morning and when she got to the stalls being cleaned, she found herself staring face to face with Duong Nguyen.

"Daddy?" She threw herself at her father, hugging him tight. "Why are you here?"

"It's the least I could do for the fellow who protected my baby."

"Oh daddy," and she hugged him even tighter.

"Why don't you go inside and see if you can round us up some breakfast?"

"K' daddy," and she dashed to the house. Entering the big kitchen, she found it was already occupied and warm, and it smelled like the kitchen in the restaurant. "Momma?" Mai turned around, she was busy chopping celery, carrots, and onion, and on the huge stove simmered a pot full of ox tail broth. "What are you doing here má?"

"Your boy earned himself some more free soup," she said trying not to cry. He nearly got killed trying to protect her baby again, how do you thank someone like that? How do you reward something like that?

Now his glasses are taped together, both lenses inexpertly glued in place, face swollen so badly his left eye is closed, jaw swollen and aching and wired shut, three ribs cracked, and several bones in his left hand were broken from Joshua repeatedly stomping on his hand, left knee and ankle wrapped, those bastards went for the exposed joints on Don's body. Now Don's chance of making the varsity swim team is over for this year.

Lanh fared better physically, she has a black eye from Joshua's slap, and a sprained wrist from where one of Joshua's thugs twisted it trying to pull her back when Don crashed into Joshua. Lanh's major injuries are mental, she relives that assault every night, waking up screaming "Không phải anh!" Not with you. The only good sleep she gets is when she can steal a nap with Don.

Hours later, after a breakfast of that hearty beef broth sipped through a straw, Lanh took Don fishing one last time before the winter set in. Lanh saw ripples radiate from her bobber, probably a torpid blue gill nibbling on her worm. Fish gotta eat too... then finally, her light Vietnamese lilt thick with anguish "Why you do that? You could have been kill!"

"And you... raped," he muttered through his wired jaw, it was so hard for him to talk.

"But I would be alive," she insisted.

"I couldn't live... with... myself if I let... happen," insisted Don through the pain. "I have to be... the man you deserve... who will protect you..." His words were slow and slurred.

She looked him in the eye, the one that was still open, and drew near. He flinched thinking she wanted to kiss, but she rubbed her nose against his. "I think you are."

"Hey! What are you doing with my sister?" called Huy as he and Trung arrived at the pond.

"Please tell them this was a diving accident," she whispered to Don as she waved at her brothers. "Trung will murder them for real. Please em yêu?"

"Ok... em yêu." Don hates diving, and if he attempted it, he would probably end up in the same condition. He also knows Trung's temper. Trung is perfectly suited for hockey, he loves to play defense just because he likes to play rough. He'd rip Joshua Grimes' head off if he found out what he did. What Lanh asked Don to do wasn't to protect Joshua Grimes, but to protect Trung Nguyen from a felony assault charge.

They reeled in their lines; the hooks clean of any hint of worm. After putting the rods aside, Don stepped back to the rear seat and Lanh rowed back to shore, to the taunting of her brothers who couldn't see his injured arm. When they finally got to the dock Trung looked at Don and cried out, "What the fuck happened to you? Did you finally take up hockey?"

Don just grimaced through his wired teeth, but Lanh spoke for him as she laid the oars on the dock and held on to the dock to hold the boat steady. "He had a diving board accident, and he feels bad about it, ok?"

Trung practically lifted Don out of the rowboat as gently as possible. Being a hockey player Trung felt a special kinship with Don who was fighting to get on the varsity swim team, and he felt that sports injuries are a badge of courage. "If you need anything you let me know, ok bro?"

Don stood by and tried to direct the effort to pull the floating dock to shore but his injuries prevented him from helping which made him a bit upset. However, Trung and Huy did a good job of pulling the dock on shore without his help and they both pulled the 10 foot Jon boat on shore. As Lanh backed the tractor and flatbed trailer up, Huy took Don aside and said softly, "I somehow get the feeling that there is more to the story going on here. If you want to talk to someone impartial, I'm here for you, ok?"

Don nodded and tried to smile; it was good to know that there was someone impartial to talk with. Lanh has Syd, Don really doesn't have anyone except Craig Lewicki, but Craig isn't the kind of guy he'd be sharing secrets about his girlfriend with. He doesn't have anyone that close except maybe Huy. He sighed as Huy and Trung loaded the Jon boat on the trailer, there's a much easier way than the way they chose, but he couldn't communicate that with his jaw wired shut. Maybe next year.

Don's feelings for Lanh have been in an unsettled uproar since he saw her and her sisters swimming in the pond in August. Sexual desire finally began to encroach on Don's feelings for Lanh, Lord only knows what would be coursing through his mind if he had good eyesight and was able to clearly see the three girls frolicking in the pond instead of indistinct blurry images.

Then came his October beating and spending two weeks at home convalescing while Lanh got his assignments for him and tutored him in the evening. He thought of that beating over and over and received no joy when he heard that the three animals that attacked Lanh and beat him were expelled and the instigator, Joshua Grimes, was facing criminal charges. Those long lonely days were spent watching daytime TV on a tiny TV in his room and dreaming of merely holding Lanh. And then came the joy of their reunion every day at three thirty in the afternoon, but she was quiet, and that was unsettling. She was embarrassed of him, that had to be it. So weak, so pathetic, he didn't blame her one bit.

For her part, Lanh would break down in tears when she got home every night. The sight of his injuries, the memories of that beating, three thugs kicking and pounding on the man she loves and the sound of those blows hitting Don, his grunts in pain... but he didn't cry, he didn't yell, he didn't ask for mercy, he just said "Lanh, run! Go!" She realizes that he took that bloody pounding to protect her, and that's when her weeping starts. Every night when the nightmare of those hits and kicks and stomps come and disturb her sleep, she would begin crying and pleading for it to stop.

Her cries would wake her family. One evening her brother Bao went to see if he could help but all Lanh saw was a man coming at her and she panicked and shrieked at the top of her lungs. Kim-ly tried to comfort her but the fear and sorrow that consumed Lanh terrified Kim-ly. Only Mai could hold her and rock her and comfort her, but Mai was shocked when Lanh finally admitted that she wasn't afraid of being molested or raped, that's not what the nightmare was about. She was weeping for Don's pain, the thought she could have lost him. And finally, Tam came responding to her mother's call for help. Tam spent the night in Lanh's room and sure enough, Lanh's nightly terror woke Tam. After settling Lanh down, Lanh admitted to her that she was terrified that he would blame her for his injuries.

The only person that Lanh spoke to was her best girlfriend, Sydney McCloskey. Syd was a fellow debate team member and has been Lanh's friend since their first day together at Freshman Orientation. But Syd never had a boyfriend, all her advice came from teen dating websites and her only advice was to "get back on the horse and start dating other guys."

"I don't think that's going to help," said Lanh morosely.

"My oldest sister Clara says that's the best thing to do," advised Sydney sagely.

"Your sister Clara is pregnant with her second child and she's never been married." Lanh crossed her arms on the cafeteria table and rested her forehead on her arms sadly.

"See? There's guys out there for all of us!" For a smart girl, Sydney McCloskey could be pretty dumb.

Mai came to visit Don in those first pain filled days after the beating and asked him if he had any regrets, he answered slowly and painfully "No ma'am, if it saved Lanh, I would have died happy knowing I protected her." And that's when Mai's tears started.

A month and a half later and the injuries mostly healed and lost school time made up, the two found their relationship more confusing. They were suddenly afraid to talk to each other, Lanh was terrified that Don was going to hold the pain he received against her, and Don was terrified that Lanh would think he's a wimp for not being able to hold his own, to get beaten like a lame dog. And so, they avoided the topic, and most other topics also. They were starting to avoid each other.

It was a chilly November evening and Sandy Robertson was over for dinner, she and Ralph were in the kitchen preparing dinner and making plans for Thanksgiving which was just a week away. Lanh and Don were at the dining room table, their books and papers taking up too much room on the table, but their usual banter and teasing was gone. They were stoic, silent, obviously avoiding eye contact with each other and it was painful to watch so Sandy threw them out of the house.

"That's it, I've had it. Up! Out! Go! Hats, boots, coats, mittens, now!"

"What?" Don asked, confused at what their infraction was.

"You're too quiet, that's never good, and since you're not stealing kisses, it's bad. Now GO! Go walk back to the pond and back, and if you're still not talking, do it again!" Sandy's voice was strong and her will was absolute, Don and Lanh could no more refuse her order than could they hold their breath for a half hour. Sandy, a widow, raised four rambunctious, rowdy daughters and she knew what silence between a boy and girl meant, and she didn't want to see these two break up for any reason. Sandy firmly believed that a good long walk together is the best solution to any argument.

The sun was setting but they knew every step of the route to the pond, and as they stepped away from the big, rambling farmhouse, a gentle snow began to drift down from the sky. "It so pretty," whispered Lanh, her Vietnamese accent was cranked up to 10 and Don was beginning to realize that when her accent is pronounced, something is wrong. "My angel watch us..." Lanh started, and then with a little sniffle she silenced herself.

Don groaned inwardly; she's going to dump me! I was such a wimp and then she had to play nurse... I suck so bad...

"They look so sad!" whispered the blond angel whispered.

"Ssshhhh! Listen to what they're going to say," the angel with the purple tinted hair tips ordered.

The two teens, tearing themselves up with self-loathing and dread finally reached the camp site, little flakes of snow spiraled down from the sky failed to energize the kids at all, their hearts were both knotted in agony. They reached the picnic bench and snow was starting to accumulate, Don brushed the snow away from a spot and sat down, pulling Lanh down next to him. They sat silent for what seemed like eternity, then Don whirled and knelt in front of her.

He took her hands and pled "Please, please don't dump me. I'll take boxing lessons, I'll work out, I promise. I'll protect you and I'll never embarrass you again. Please... I'm sorry I was weak..."

Lanh couldn't believe what she was hearing, he wasn't dumping her? "I... I... think you were hating me," she gasped, her accent fueled by her emotional trauma made her nearly unintelligible. She slid down to her knees in front of the kneeling Don. "You not hate?"

"No," said Don, "I was afraid you were hating me for being so weak."

"No, I was afraid you hating me because of pain that my fault." Her tears were flowing but a nervous smile graced her face for the first time in weeks.

"No, I have to protect you, you're my em yêu and if that is what it takes to protect you, I will do it every time, every day... and why are you talking so weird?"

"Hug me, tell me we ok... please."

He held her tight and through tears of relief from both Don said, "We are very ok."

"Don à, chi yêu em."

"Lanh à, em yêu chi."

Then, suddenly, they began laughing and crying at the same time and as they held each other tight relief washed over them. Little kisses and big hugs and so much love. The night took on a luminescence, although there was no moon or stars, there was enough illumination to see where they were going. They stood at the edge of the clearing and looked down on the pond, holding hands and staying close. The falling snow was starting to accumulate in the middle of the pond meaning that it was starting to freeze. They should be able to skate and ice fish soon. "Right here is where I was when I saw you swimming with your sisters. You were swimming right there," he pointed to the floating dock pulled up on shore.

"What?" she shrieked. "You watched?" she wound up and hit him in the stomach. Then she leaned against him, and he put his arm around her. "What did you think?"

"I couldn't really see, I wished I had binoculars," he said, and she hit him again. "It's true! I really couldn't see anything, but I could tell which one was you because your swimming was so good, and when you went underwater and pulled that one girl under, that was funny!"

"That was Tam, she's still mad at me."

"I wanted to come join you."

"I don't think Tam and Kim-ly would have liked it."

"What about you? Would you have liked it?"

Lanh didn't answer, she just gave him that sweet evasive smile that he loves, yet which drives him crazy. The term inscrutable came to mind, but she leaned her head back for a kiss. Their kiss was sweet, still short but it lingered for a magical moment which promised more in the future. "Ok," said Don as he regained his breath, "why were you talking funny?"

"I learned to speak Vietnamese first as a baby, everybody spoke Vietnamese around me, and I guess I picked it up. I didn't start to speak English until just before I went to kindergarten." She shrugged, "When I get upset, I get confused on which language I have to use, and it comes out all muddled."

It was just another thing that endeared Lanh to Don, they paused to catch snowflakes on their tongues. Don found that even Lanh's tongue was cute and sexy, and he nearly wept with joy realizing she was back. They walked back to the house, holding each other close, and singing "Walking In A Winter Wonderland" and now enjoying each other's closeness. They had over a month to make up for!

"This year we do it right," said Lanh, as they entered the farmyard, the snow beginning to get heavy. "I will start the inside decorations tomorrow after school, you get the outside lights, ok?"

"Yes ma'am," grinned Don.

"I have a wreath form; can you get nice pine boughs? And some blue spruce? And some cedar boughs too?"

"Yes, em yêu," Don was so happy that his Lanh was back he thought his heart would burst.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Winter

Don and Lanh considered Christmas Day their day, their anniversary, even though their first dance was weeks before Christmas, and their first skate date was before Christmas, and their first kiss was also before Christmas, all three events had a Christmas theme. It was Christmas when they were snowed in together and it was the first time they slept together. Ok, they napped on the living room couch together, but it was still Christmas first. It was what they whispered to each other as they cuddled on the couch and kept in their hearts as their favorite Christmas gifts. It is what makes it their anniversary:

"Lanh à, em yêu chi." (Lanh, I love you)

"Donovan à, chi yêu em." (Donovan, I love you)

The decorations in the Campbell home were beautiful. This year Lanh had time to plan and dig up more decorations. Her family being Roman Catholic had a multitude of decorations that they weren't going to use because even though it was Mai, Duong, Bao, Kim-ly and Lanh in the house, they were all so busy that they were rarely there. Most nights they ate in the restaurant.

Lanh brought yards of tinsel, garland, and fake evergreen boughs, and beautiful glass ornaments for the tree that Don and Huy would cut down. As far as she was concerned, she was still the lady of the house at the Campbell farm, she was assigned that task to bring Christmas back to a couple of grinches and she was going to do just that, and if turning their house into Santa's workshop every year is what it would take, it's what she would do.

It was not unusual to see Lanh wearing her elf ears, the tips of her faux ears peeking out of her long, silky hair, and her elf hat with a small bell that jingled merrily as she walked about the house arranging the decorations, which were lush and plentiful. Don and Ralph could always figure out where Lanh was in the house by the sound of the bell.

A week before Christmas Huy came out to the farm and went with Don to get a tree. Instead of chopping down a seventy-foot spruce for the top seven feet (and the sixty-three feet of firewood), Don led Huy to an area with young trees that he discovered which were full of branches. "That's it?" asked Huy as Don pointed out a nice eight foot tall tree. This tree was nice and full of branches, a good straight central trunk, and it wasn't covered in pinecones.

"What's wrong with this one?" asked Don as Huy walked around it, inspecting it from all sides.

"I was hoping to cut down a TREE," said Huy.

"You want to do the whole Paul Bunyon thing," said Don.

"Yeah, that."

"You know it took us well over two hours to buck that tree to stove length, and we spent most of Christmas day splitting and stacking that thing."

Huy thought long and hard and in the end, they brought back a tree that was nearly as full as a store-bought tree. "Wise choice counselor," said Don.

Soft light, falling snow, Christmas music on the radio, it was a perfect late afternoon, early evening to trim the tree. Bao, Kim-ly, and Mai showed up to help, and Kim-ly had the all-important task of building the mountain with a sheet and empty boxes for the train to go through and setting up the train was now a ritual that signified that the decorating was complete.

After dinner, everyone retired to the living room to relax and enjoy the ambiance. "You did a wonderful job, little one," said Mai looking at all the wonderful decorations in the old farmhouse. But Mai didn't get a response from Lanh. She looked over and saw that her daughter was curled up on Don's lap in the wingback chair, fast asleep.

Kim-ly sighed, "I'll stay the night so she can sleep upstairs."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A week later Lanh had just finished rearranging decorations on the mantel piece and was now standing on a stool hanging up a gay sprig of mistle toe encased in a lacy bell in the doorway between the dining room and the living room when her parents and Don walked in the front door. Don had been tasked with picking them up for a Christmas Eve dinner at the Campbell farm and Lanh finished touching up the decorations in the house while they were out.

Suddenly the stool Lanh was standing on began to wobble. "Let me help you," said Don as he hurried over to Lanh, as the stool was starting to wobble even more. But when he got near her, as practiced, the stool slipped, and she fell backwards... right into Don's arms.

"My hero!" she sighed with a grin wrapping her arms around his neck, ignoring the cackling admonishments in rapid fire Vietnamese from her shocked parents.

He didn't know why he said it, it was the corniest thing that any male has ever said especially when he and his absolute best friend had been practicing their faux-fall for hours to shock their complacent parents. "I'll always be here for you."

It wasn't the line they practiced; it wasn't close, but it was what came from his heart. In return Lanh whispered, "I'll always be here for you too." He slowly lowered her feet to the ground, their eyes remained locked, their arms remained around each other, and then unconsciously their lips met. It was a little peck like they've done dozens of times before, but then their lips met again and opened. The little closed lip pecks and smooches of the past were gone. Their tongues gently explored each other and suddenly, like a silent explosion, their friendship blossomed into a passionate, all-consuming love. They broke for a breath, and she gasped "Tighter, hold me tighter. I won't break."

Again, another kiss, more hungry and more loving than the first, their tongues dancing together, and Don did indeed hold his tiny love as tight to him as he could. Their kiss seemed to go on forever, heads spinning, hearts beating in unison, they heard their parents loudly clearing their throats but that didn't matter.

Then Bao and Kim-ly entered the front door and saw the kiss and Kim-ly shouted "Whoo hoo! That's what I'm talking about! Yeah, baby!"

Reluctantly they broke the kiss and Don whispered "Em yêu," as their eyes searched each other's for that glowing spark of love.

"Em yêu," responded Lanh. The term simply means "my love."

Unseen, a blond and a blond with her hair in a mullet and the tips tinted purple watched the scene unfold, as Mai, Duong, and Ralph watched, each wearing an "I told you so" smile. "Took 'em long enough to figure that out," muttered Ralph with a smile.

"You've never raised daughters," scowled Mai, "now it gets dangerous."

"Yes, it does," agreed Sandy whose four daughters each taught her the meaning of danger.

"Tam! You missed it!" shouted Kim-ly, "It was sooooo awesome."

"What?" asked an utterly confused Tam as she stepped through the front door and kicked the snow off her boots.

"Your little sister just got a tonsil massage!" grinned Kim-ly.

"We go," insisted Lanh as she huffily dragged Don out of the room by the hand, into the kitchen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The ice on the surface of the pond wasn't as smooth as glass, but it was as smooth as it will get in nature. The wind had come up the other night and it blew the loose snow off the surface of the pond leaving the ice bare and smooth-ish. All the Nguyen siblings joined Don at the pond for ice skating on Christmas day and it was like the pond was prepared for their skates. On the shore closest to Don's campsite a roaring fire burned merrily, and wooden benches were set up around it offering a place for the skaters to rest and warm up. Don and Lanh even plowed the path back to the pond and pulled the family back to the pond in the hay wagon, a hayride in which to keep warm. The skaters found an old-fashioned silver artificial Christmas tree set up in the warming area, and a boom box played Christmas carols. They wandered down to the pond as a group and the family pulled on the skates,

As Don and Lanh skated hand in hand out on the ice, the cold didn't bother them because the white-hot passion that burst into flame yesterday burns just as hot now. They skated far out on the pond and kept going, as far as they wanted. The sound of the family and the music was far away. When their brothers and sisters were specs in the distance, Don stopped and pulled Lanh close. "Happy anniversary love," and when their lips met, and their tongues sought each other's out, and again something inside burned warm and loving. Finally, when their lips parted, Lanh whimpered from the passion she felt. Don searched her beautiful dark brown almond eyes and asked, "Where do we go from here, chi yêu?"

"Wherever it is, I will be with you em yêu," and Lanh pulled his head down for another blazing kiss.