Alison looked forward to dinner out with Alexei all week. They hadn't gone out to dinner together in a long time, and she was thrilled that Alexei had suggested it. However, when they got to the restaurant, she was puzzled when Alexei requested a table for five.

"Another couple and their guest are joining us," he explained when he saw the puzzled expression on his wife's face.

They'd been seated less than five minutes when, to Alison's consternation, Denny, Darya, and Fawn entered the restaurant and approached their table. She did her best to swallow her feelings as she pasted on a smile and greeted them.

"This was a great idea, Mom," said Denny. "We see so little of each other these days."

"I agree," said Fawn. "I am here for all this time and see hardly anything at all of your lovely mother, Denny. A bit more of Dasha's father but still not very much."

"I think it is wonderful all five of us have dinner together like loving family we are," Darya added.

"And like I tell you before, Fawn, I am more than happy to help you with immigration process, green card, finding job, anything at all. I just go through it myself so know all about it," Alexei told Fawn.

"Thank you very much! I am so happy I know you, Mr. Kolchin," Fawn replied.

Denny and Darya chattered throughout the meal about their classes, their jobs, and their friends. Fawn talked about her family and friends in Vietnam and her life there. Alexei interjected a few words when appropriate. Alison was silent for practically the entire time, an occasional tear dropping to her plate. Alexei tried to draw her into the conversation several times but finally gave up.

As they were leaving the restaurant, a young couple walked in. The woman carried a beautiful baby girl who looked to be several months old. She wore a pink dress with ruffles and a matching hat and socks with tiny patent leather shoes.

"Oh, she's adorable!" Alison exclaimed. "Can I hold her?"

The woman smiled and handed the baby to Alison. The infant opened her blue eyes to see who was holding her but didn't cry.

"How old is she?" asked Alison.

"Three months on Sunday," the baby's mother told her proudly.

"What's her name?"

"Caitlin Rose."

"Hi Caitlin!" Alison cooed. Caitlin opened her mouth in a toothless grin. "Oh, you are so precious!" Alison crowed. "Thank you so much," she added, handing Caitlin back to her smiling mother.

Alexei was silent for most of the journey home, so much so that Alison feared that he was angry at her, but when he finally spoke, he sounded not angry, but sad.

"She have very hard life in Vietnam, you know," he told his wife.

"How do you know?" asked Alison.

"She tell me before, when you were not there," Alexei replied. "Her family was very poor, often not enough to eat. Her mother have to sell her body sometimes just to have enough food. Other children make fun of Fawn for being half American. She is very lonely. Fawn want to become scientist, but her mother cannot afford to send her to school. She have to work as waitress like her mother."

Then where did she get the money to come to America? Alison wanted to ask but didn't. "You feel sorry for her."

"I know what it is like to be stranger in strange land," said Alexei. "That is why I want to help her as much as I can."

"That baby sure was cute, wasn't she?" asked Alison.

Alexei sighed. "That was only time you look happy tonight, when you hold baby."

The following afternoon, Alison drove to the cemetery where Dennis was buried and walked to his grave, where she stood staring at the American flag atop it and the carved inscription. 'Loving son and husband.' "Ha!" she said bitterly, scooping up a handful of dirt and tossing it at the headstone.

"Why'd you have to do it, Dennis? Why?" she asked. "Just look at how badly things are messed up now, and it's all your fault!"

She sat at the base of the grave and sobbed until she could cry no more. Then she drove back home.

She walked into an empty house to find a note on the table.

Alison,

Gone to help Fawn with paperwork. Back by dinnertime.

Love,

Alexei