Elly finished brushing her teeth. “It’s a good idea, don’t you think?” she asked, raising her voice so Connor could hear her from the kitchen.
He didn’t answer.
“Standing proxy for your grandfather and grandmother, I mean.” She came back into the bedroom. “All my genealogy’s been done already. I’ve never had the chance to be the proxy for somebody I was related to.”
Connor sat in bed, thumbing through the Chilton’s manual. “I would have done it whether or not he gave us the car.”
“It wasn’t conditional. Like Mr. Thorton said, it was up to you.”
“I would have done it.”
“Of course you would have. But out of duty.”
“I don’t know that it still isn’t.”
“It doesn’t have to be. You loved him, didn’t you? You must have, in some way.” She slipped into bed next to him.
He set the book on the nightstand. “Not the way I liked Billy’s grandfather. He smoked, drank, swore, and when I was a kid he was the only adult besides my own parents I really gave a damn about. He was in Japan during the Occupation. I went to see him when I got my mission call. He was in a nursing home by then, Alzheimer’s. He didn’t remember who I was. But I said I was Billy’s friend and I was going to Japan. He broke into a big smile. ‘Great place, Japan, even all blown to bits.’ I wished he was my grandfather instead—” His voice trailed off.
Elly rested her head against his shoulder. “It’s strange realizing there are people who loved us more than we ever loved them.” She said, “Your grandfather—have you ever gone to see him?”
“You mean his grave site? No, not since the funeral.”
“Where is he buried?”
“Provo Cemetery, next to Grandma.”
She sat up. “That’s only at the end of Ninth! Not in six years?”
“Cemeteries have never made sense to me. Obon does. I mean, at Obon you expect the dead to visit the living, you make plans.”
“A cemetery is the place where everybody knows you’ll turn up if you wait long enough. That’s why ghosts hang out in graveyards. They’re saying: you have my address, so come and see me sometime.”
He laughed. “I love you, you know.”
“I love you too, and I think you should go see your grandfather.”
He replied with a nod of his head. “Then I will.”
“Because you want to, or because I want you to?”
“The latter, to be honest.”
Elly thought about it. “A good enough reason,” she said. “That’s what wives do. Perfection of the soul through constructive nagging.”
The sun was bright on the peaks of the Wasatch Mountains. The dew glimmered on the grass. Connor stopped beneath the canopy of an old Cottonwood. “Here,” he said.
The polished granite marker was set flush with the grass. “Connor & Margaret Mia McKenzie,” Elly read aloud.
“Her maiden name was Maguire. So her full name was Margaret Mia Maguire McKenzie. She led an alliterative life.”
Elly knelt and brushed away the leaves. She laid the flowers she’d brought on the gravestone. She stood, bowed, and clapped her hands together twice, the form of ritual prayer observed at Shinto shrines. Having thus alerted the kami to her presence, she pressed her hands together, the tips of her fingers at the level of her chin. “Oj san, Ob san,” she said, “I thank you for giving me such an honorable grandson.”
She bowed, clapped her hands once more, lifted her head and smiled. She walked off, leaving Connor alone at the side of the grave.
A haunting but familiar voice behind him said, “Long time.”
Connor turned. The old man glanced away. He’d never been one to hold a look too long. Connor sat down on the cold concrete bench. He buried his hands in the pockets of his jacket. Nothing surprised him these days, certainly not his dead ancestors. He said, “Thanks for the car.”
“I thought you’d like it.”
“I would have liked riding in it when you were alive.”
“We worry about all the wrong things when we’re alive. You discover that clean upholstery doesn’t count for much when you’re dead.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” For a moment their eyes met. The old man almost smiled.
“I don’t get it,” Connor said. “What did you expect of me?”
“I expected you to be different. Different from what your blood made you. Different from me. Got no use for a carbon copy of a grandkid. All the problems you’ve been living with your whole life right there in living color? No thanks.”
“Nothing personal, but I never thought I was the same as you.”
“Family always makes for strange company. And it’s always personal.” This time Connor almost smiled.
“Tell me,” his grandfather said, “because this is the kind of thing you’d know, that expression, to thine own self be true, who said that?”
“Shakespeare. It’s from Hamlet.”
“Well, it’s garbage. Nobody’s self is true. We fall short, some of us more than others, but all of us at one time or another. Spend all your time trying to be true to yourself and you’re a dog chasing its own tail.”
“So why didn’t you change?”
“I did change. Not enough for your liking, seems. But you always were a hard kid to please.”
“I was a kid. What was I supposed to know that you didn’t?”
“What you were supposed to do was grow up. You were supposed to figure out that the way you saw the world then wasn’t the way the world is. That’s not the way I was every minute of the day. Can’t say I care for the way you decided to remember me.”
“So I was slow on the uptake. Maybe you died too soon.”
“Maybe. But the point is, people all over the place are convinced that whatever happened to them at the age of twelve becomes the unalterable truth for the rest of their blasted lives. Fact is, kids don’t know much. That’s what you’re supposed to learn when you grow up. But I’m beginning to wonder.”
“You know what, I still don’t like you.”
“I always loved you.”
Connor stared at him for a long minute. He’d never heard the word come out of the man’s mouth before, for any reason, in any context. “Hard to tell.”
“Love’s got nothing to do with like, boy. Love’s got to do with doing the right thing, like it or not. That wife of yours, that’s what doing the right thing is all about. You find somebody who can see clean through you.” He jabbed his forefinger at Connor’s chest. “Clean through you. Best thing you’ve ever done by a long shot.”
“I know that.”
“You’re halfway home then.” He stood and hitched up the khaki slacks he always wore. Connor had never seen a pair of jeans on the man.
“You want me to do your temple work?”
“Didn’t ask anybody else.”
“How about Grandma? How do I know she wants to be married to you forever?”
The old man laughed. “That’d be up to her, don’t you think? No need to start concerning yourself about decisions that aren’t yours to make.” He stepped to the walk, looked back a last time and said, “Think about this, Connor. Maybe I was exactly what you needed me to be.”
“And what’s that?”
He shrugged. “That’s your problem. You’re alive. I’m dead. It ain’t half bad where I’m at. But when you get to be my age, if you’re any bit an honest man, you’ll be thinking of a couple hundred ways you could have done it better—a hell of a weight to carry into eternity. Think about that for a change.”
Connor watched the lanky form disappear into the bright sunlight. He rested his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. “Shimatta,” he muttered to himself. “What must having normal relatives be like?” His behind was cold. He got up and looked for Elly.
“Hey,” she said brightly. “I think I found some of your relatives.” He read the marker she was examining. “Webster McKenzie. He was my grandfather’s
brother, I believe.”
“What about Aunt Zariah?”
“She’s buried in Salt Lake.”
“We should go see her sometime too.”
He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed the crown of her head. “So, wife, how long have you been a practicing Shinto?”
“I’m Shinto in cemeteries and on New Year’s. I’m Buddhist at Obon.” She glanced up at him. “Did you make your peace?”
“I don’t know. Like the blind man and the elephant, you think you’ve been holding on to the trunk of a tree when what you’ve got is a leg. And then it starts to walk away.”
“So you let go.”
“Easy to say. But it’s hard letting go of the way you think things were. Hard letting go, period. Still, leaving is preferable to being stuck. Once you’re stuck, the best thing you can do is start building walls. Moats and parapets are very much in the McKenzie architectural school of thought. To put it in pop-psych terms, it’s easy to confuse introversion with indifference.”
“Or antagonism.”
“We want the world to leave us alone and then we pout because the world doesn’t care.”
“I’ve always believed that being annoying was a positive attribute.”
“I think what he wanted was a Dennis-the-Menace type that would give him something real to get ticked off about. Somebody who’d fight back. What he got was another turtle.”
“He certainly came up with an interesting way of cracking your shell. And our great-great-grands were rascals enough to carry it off. Not that I’m ungrateful.” She kissed him for a long time. “After all,” she added, her hot breath clouding in the cool air, “you probably weren’t the kind of guy who ever made out in cemeteries before.”
Chapter 48
Arrivals
A unt Wanda wasn’t through playing the go-between. “I sense an opportunity to address some other oversights,” she mused. “Connor’s parents are going to be here for Thanksgiving. With a good six weeks to provide fair warning—”
Elly jumped up, clapping her hands with realization. “That’s right! My mom and dad—well, Mom, for sure—could see me married—sort of.”
Her mother was enthusiastic about the plan. She would fly in the Monday before Thanksgiving. “True,” Wanda admitted, “it won’t be the same as the first time around, but sometimes close enough counts.”
They asked Elder Packard to do the sealing at the Provo Temple the Friday after Thanksgiving. Connor’s parents sent word that they’d be in Seattle the third week of November to see Sara Beth and the grandkids, and then come down to Utah the following Wednesday.
Sayaka Oh Packard was one of those few people who, after a fourteenhour flight, could walk off the plane in full possession of her dignity. She saw Elly and smiled a luminous smile.
Elly ran to her mother’s warm embrace. “Mom—” she said, and found she could say no more.
“I forget how tall you are,” her mother said, resting her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. “I fear the grandchildren will prove unmanageable.”
Elly laughed. “You’ll have to wait a while to find out.” She grabbed Connor’s hand and pulled him over next to her. “Here’s Connor.”
“Son-in-law,” Sayaka Packard said with a nod of her head.
He answered with similar concision.
The late morning arrival meant a short wait at the luggage carousels. They took the escalator to the second level of the parking garage. Sayaka Packard regarded the metallic blue Mustang with an expression that said, I hope you’re qualified to drive this thing, son-in-law.
“So this is the car your grandfather left you. Sam demands details.”
“I’ll email him some photos.” Connor put the luggage into the trunk and got the door for his mother-in-law.
Elly leaned over the front seat. “Did Izumi Sensei get into Stanford?”
“He did.”
“And Sister Amiya? I’d swear Izumi was making up excuses to come to the office just to see her.”
“He is indeed smitten. You barging in that one time might have struck the right spark. You do remember that unfortunate episode?”
Elly grinned. “This one time,” she explained to Connor, “Izumi Sensei and I caught Mom in the office sitting in Dad’s lap.”
“Really, Elly,” her mother said. “I didn’t ask for details.”
“You thought it was just as funny as I did.” She said to Connor, “Izumi Sensei practically died of embarrassment. He was so cute.”
“Now, if Sister Amiya would only kindle the flame as I’ve instructed her—”
She stopped when her daughter laughed. “Connor is amused by our penchant for matchmaking. You do know, Connor, that it was Mom who set up Aunt June with Uncle Oh.” She said, “Do you remember Melanie and Chalmers Ch r , Mom?”
“The one who looks like a fashion model? I don’t recall the ch r .”
“I’m betting they get married by the end of Winter semester.”
Connor interjected, “You said they were getting married at the end of Fall semester.”
“I hadn’t adjusted for the peculiarities of my own experience. It threw off my timing.”
“I’m not sure how you would adjust for that,” Connor said.
“Yes,” Sayaka added with wry smile, “the go-between’s responsibility, after all, is to prevent this sort of thing.”
“Yeah, I bet Grandpa and Grandma wished they’d employed a go-between when you and Dad got married.”
A too-long silence followed. Her mother said, “I suppose they would.”
Elly thought about what she’d said and winced.
They met Elder and Sister Packard at the Church Office Building and then walked over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for lunch at the Garden Restaurant.
Elly observed that her mother and grandmother got on very well. Her mother’s ancient loathing for the mother-in-law relationship had long ago been ameliorated by the help and support her grandmother had provided when Emily was born.
As for her mother and grandfather—they played their parts very well. Ordinarily Elly wouldn’t have noticed anything amiss. But now she saw things she hadn’t before—the moment of hesitation, the extra degree of unnecessary politeness, the way her grandfather’s natural gregariousness dimmed in his daughter-in-law’s presence.
Her mother was more taciturn on the drive to Orem. Maybe she was thinking the same thing. Maybe it was jet lag catching up with her. Elly asked, “How are you doing, Mom?”
“Frankly, I don’t know how your father ever put up with all the travel. We may stay in Japan after our mission ends, at least until Emily graduates. Nobuo says that he could still use Connor’s help. Oh, and Elly, I ran into an old classmate the other day, Kazue Tanaka. She’s provost at Koya Joshidai, a little junior college south of Osaka in Kudoyama. She could use someone just like you for their summer English program.”
Elly and Connor exchanged similar expressions. Elly said, suppressing the excitement in her voice, “Tell Tanaka Sensei I’d love to.”
“Good.” She rested her head against the headrest, closed her eyes. “Wake me when we get to my brother’s house.”
They exited the interstate at Eighth North and drove east toward the mountains. Five minutes later they arrived at the Oh residence. Elly rang the doorbell and opened the front door. “Tadaima!” she called out. She and her mother stepped into the foyer. Connor brought up the rear, lugging the suitcases.
“ O-kaeri—” came June’s voice. She stopped at the sight of her sisterin-law in the foyer.
“Well—” Sayaka said.
“Well—” said June. A long pause followed. “Well, Sayaka, I told you so.”
“And so you did.”
They both laughed. “Where is my little brother?” Sayaka raised her voice, “Makotochan!” Oh Sensei entered the foyer. Sayaka said in Japanese, “Hey, little brother.”
“Hey, big sister.”
They didn’t hug. Hugging was the one
custom Elly had to restrain herself from when she was in Japan, and she wasn’t that outgoing a person.
Sayaka said, “I should take a nap. Will you and Connor be coming for dinner?”
“And Aunt Wanda,” Elly added.
June said, “Remind Atsuko that she’s expected too.”
That evening they picked up Atsuko at Helaman Halls and drove back to Orem. Wanda’s husband, Walter Brooks, had taught accounting around the same time Elly’s father was an adjunct professor in the MBA program. So Sayaka and Wanda weren’t strangers.
Sayaka said to Wanda, “From what my daughter has told me, you did your best to save them from themselves.”
“More like I found myself in the middle of an accident and got out to direct traffic.”
Elly said, “I’m not sure I like this metaphor.”
“And that’s why no one is getting married in Japan anymore,” her mother said. “No one directing the traffic.”
“We got married.”
“Yes,” her mother answered with a smile, “and it was a perfect wreck.”
After dinner Sayaka ejected June from the kitchen and collared Elly for cleaning duties. She said as they worked, “Your uncle and husband get on very well.”
“They are of one mind when it comes to things academic.”
“And you and your grandfather?”
“Grandpa and Grandma were great. Once they got over the shock. But they got over it pretty quick. Grandpa approves of Connor. That helped.”
“Yes,” her mother said.
“What about you, Mom? When you and Dad got married, what was it like?”
Her mother didn’t answer for a while. Then she said, “Elly, has your grandfather said anything about the—circumstances—under which your father and I got married?”
Elly thought about the difference between what she knew and what her grandfather had said. She remembered June’s admonition. “Only that he wishes he’d handled it differently. He admires you, Mom. She looks on tempests and is never shaken—that’s how he describes you.”
Elly could tell she hadn’t expected this response. “I wish I’d handled it differently too. And how does Connor feel about being listed on our family register? Really?”
The Path Of Dreams Page 27