Wish You Happy Forever Read Free Page A

entire birthday had been wiped out by the International Date Line. Time to make amends and have a party.
    Our house was full to bursting with a happy combination of film types and China adoption types. Conversations of every sort in every room. The mood felt upbeat, and why not? Our movie was done and in the hands of its distributor. That same distributor had offered to finance and distribute another independent film that I would write and direct. It was such a rare offer, I didn’t let myself even think about whether I wanted to be consumed like that again so soon, or whether, in my heart of hearts, I really believed that the world needed another little movie by Jenny Bowen that would likely come and go, not adding up to much. I should be grateful for the opportunity. I started a new script.
    We knew how lucky we were. We’d worked hard for the life we had. And, although we were yet again dreaming of and scheming about moving away from Los Angeles and back to our San Francisco roots (Chinese daughter, San Francisco—no-brainer), we were reasonably content. We were not thinking of turning our lives upside down again.
    We were in the kitchen, refilling food platters. I could hear children laughing and playing a noisy game in the garden. I looked out at them through the kitchen window.
    Somehow, through that kitchen glass, the world was a movie frame. Whatever was going on in the rooms of my house, beyond the edges of the frame, faded away. I could hear only the laughter of children.
    And as I watched a gaggle of three- and four-year-old girls skipping up a path, trying to go fast, faster, yet keeping the line, giddy with the effort . . . I saw Maya.
    She was positively radiant. Her cheeks red, her eyes bright. She was giggling so hard she could barely keep her balance. She called out and grabbed a friend’s hand. A friend! The girls collapsed on the grass in laughter.
    In that frame of light, I saw a child— my child—and she was okay.
    Better than okay. She looked like someone who had known life only as it should be—a child who had been treasured from the moment she was born.
    â€œHoney, come see.”
    We watched her through the glass.
    â€œLook at our little girl,” Dick said.
    â€œWell, that was easy, wasn’t it?” I said.
    â€œNothing to it.” He smiled.
    It was a miracle, this suddenly blossoming child. But a miracle that made perfect sense. Our girl knew, without doubt, that she was adored. It was that simple.
    â€œWhy can’t we do that for the ones we can’t bring home?” I asked—and meant it.
    â€œUh-oh,” he said. We’d been together a long time.
    When we talk about that day, he tells me I said something else after that. I don’t remember saying it—
    I know what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.

Chapter 1
    Clumsy Birds Have Need of Early Flight

    Summer 1998
    From the moment I saw Maya at the heart of that happy tangle of little girls outside my kitchen window, I felt absolutely compelled to act. I saw a solution, plain and simple. I couldn’t ignore it. I would find a way to bring a family’s love to children who had lost theirs. I’d bring Maya’s miracle to China.
    It’s true that I didn’t know anything about early childhood development. Or about China. Or about starting and running a nonprofit organization. On the other side of the world. Without any knowledge of the Chinese language. What I did know something about was dreaming stories. I’d been doing it all my life.
    When I was tiny, I made up stories with buttons from my mother’s sewing box, whole worlds of little button people. Then it was snail kingdoms in coffee cans in our foggy San Francisco backyard. At seven, I became a latchkey kid and quickly found my comfort and my dreams in library books. I checked out the eight allowed every Saturday; when finished with the pile, I read them again. The best hours of my