"Oh, Hana, it's you. I was dying to hear from you, but I wasn't going to break my promise to you
and call you. How is Sam? How are you?"
"Oh, I'm fine. Sam is changed. Sometimes I feel I can't recognize him anymore."
"We all do change but Military changes people even more. That is a different game, a different life. There, they are taught to take orders, obey, respect regulation, and have discipline."
Hana knows what Mario says is true. She has read many brochures about military life since her her son has joined.
"I know, they all sound wonderful, but somehow I want my old Sam back. Do you know up to two years ago every evening he used to put his head on my lap in front of television until he fell asleep? I miss that."
"I understand how you feel. When my daughter, Antonio, moved away with her husband, specially only after a year of my wife's death, I thought I would die without her, but I didn't. It was hard, very hard on me, but you know I am used to it now. By the way, she has a little boy now. They named her after me, Mario John. I am very pleased."
"Oh, Mario, that 's great; but I thought she is going to have a girl!"
"That is what they told me. But I guess her doctor made a mistake. He claims every time he did a sonogram, the baby's back was to the film."
"When did she have the baby?"
"Yesterday! I'm going there to see my grandson the day after tomorrow."
Hana sighs and yearns if she had a grand child, she would probably spoil her or him and love him so much.
"How long will you stay?"
"A week, but I was wondering if I can see you before I go. Have you told Sam about us?"
"No, Mario, I just can't, I don't know why! I guess we see each other after you come back. Sam has three more days left of his vacation. My vacation is over, too. I must go back to work tomorrow. I wish I could stay home and be with Sam."
"Don't worry sweetheart. He comes back again. Maybe even you get to go there and see him."
"I don't know Mario, I have these terrible feelings that I'm not going to see him again. I even have morbid vision..."
Mario Interrupts her:
"Are you day dreaming again? Why can't you have pleasant visions?"
Hana thinks to herself: "Why can't I?"
"I don't know." Then she hears a beep. "Mario, someone is calling me. I must go now. We talk when you come back from your trip."
As she hastily goes to the other line, she can not hear Mario's last words: "I love you, hang in there."
Wednesday comes much sooner than Hana can imagine, but something very strange happens before Sam leave. Monday after work, when Sam and Hana go to the mall to buy some necessary things for Sam to take with him, they see Karen, Farhad's old girlfriend, who stole from them. She is roaming along in the isles of the clothes in the store that they also are in the mall. Hana can not believe her eyes.
"Look Sam, that is Karen. I am going to go and talk to her!"
Sam looks at the direction his mother pointed.
"Yes, mom, it is her. Leave it alone. she will deny and upset you."
"No, Sam, I must confront her."
Hana runs to where Karen is and Sam follows his mother. Karen's back is to them. Hana put her hand on her shoulder. Karen turns back and mother and son both see the sudden twitching in her face.
"Karen, why did you steal our things? why did you do that after all good things we did for you?"
Karen takes control of her nervousness and changes quickly to a cold, unfeeling person, that she truly is.
"I don't know what you're talking about! Who are you? You are mistaking me with someone else."
Sam, who has predicated this when he told his mother not to confront her, is caught in a situation that leaves him no choice but to come to his mother's help.
"Listen b..., I'm going to call the police now. You betrayed our trust."
Karen looks at them with her cold, icy eyes.
"Go ahead, you have nothing against me. In fact, I'll call the police myself. You're harassing me."
"Listen karen, forget about everything, just give me my rings back. They were the only things I have left from my mother."
"Listen, lady, my name is not Karen. You're mistaking me with someone else. I can show you my driver license. I'm not who you're looking for."
Hana and Sam realize how this shameless girl maliciously lied to them from the beginning even about her identity. Both mother and son, individual from each other, come to conclusion that Karen preys on foreign people that have made America their home. Sam pulls her mother.
"Let's go mom."
Driving home, as Hana cries uncontrollably for being betrayed by a woman, her son's age, Sam calmly says:
"Mom, let's not say a word to Farhad about it. What is the sense?"
She understands her son's concern for his brother.
As the cold Wednesday in mid November comes, Hana's distressful feeling almost paralyses her. To Farhad's offer to take Sam to the bus Station, she says:
"No, Farhad, I take him myself."
Farhad is not sure if his mother capable of driving. He can see her breakage. She looks bent with red eyes and seems to him that she is smaller than ever. However he understands that he can not take this last minute being with Sam from his mother. On the other hand, Sam, who discerns his mother's state of breaking down, wonders if it has been a good idea for him to join the Army and put his adorable mom through this much pain. As the feeling of these three people in the small apartment float vigorously, Sam loads the car and offers to drive to the bus station. This is the least he can do to ease his mom's pain.
Going back to work from the bus station, she stops for a cup of coffee in drive through of a fast food place. Holding the coffee in her hand, she parks the car in the parking lot of an unknown place to her, starts a cigarette, and finally breaks into sobbing. In the mist of her hysterical breakdown, a sudden light strikes her. She recalls her three months hiding at the time of Revolution which put her mother in hospital. She realizes that all children, in order to find their identity, do things that drives their parents uneasy, as she did, and now Sam is doing it. She must let it be. The sudden light she sees, it is not a light from nature, but it is an awakening to accept the course of life, to acknowledge good and bad in life, and to accept what it is , it must be a solution to all whys.
To Be Continued
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