There are many things we don’t understand about others.  The face and body are there, but we can’t see the invisible footsteps left behind, the old heartbeats that have made them alive, soft and warm, troubled and happy, and we seldom have the time to spend solving the mystery of who they are.     

I’d taken a temporary job in the US to help settle Vietnamese boat people.  Normally I didn’t work in the US, but I’d made an exception.  My case load was about forty people.  Some were couples, frail and slow moving; there were families with young children; and then there were a handful of single people. 

My job was to get them placed in housing, set up bank accounts, enroll them in English classes, find them work, etc.  They’d all received small sums of money from the US government and private charities to make a start.  The…