Love & Other Natural Disasters

by Misa Sugiura

“No!” Lance jumps in. “The biggest mistake you can make is to keep trying to contact her right now.”

  “But I can’t give up! I want to apologize! I want to work things out!” How can that be bad?

  “What’s more important right now, honey? Her need for space and time to be angry and hurt? Or your need to explain yourself and win her back?” he says.

  “My needs, obviously.”

  “Zozo,” Stephen and Dad say simultaneously.

  “Fine, I get it, I get it,” I grumble. “I was just kidding.”

  Stephen gives me a half smile, his eyes gentle. “I know it’s hard. But this is the best way to show her that you care about her.”

  “I don’t get why she wouldn’t want to at least hear my side, though.” I can’t let this go, for some reason. “It would be much easier to leave her alone if I had a chance to say something first.”

  Dad raises his eyebrows at me as he takes a swig of beer. He puts the bottle down and says, “That’s what your mom said when you blocked her.”

  “That’s hardly the same thing. I didn’t cheat on my husband and lie to my kids about it. Mom made that choice. And except for me not talking to her, which I’d like to point out is a consequence of said choice, she’s happy with the way things turned out.”

  Dad says mildly, “I’m just saying.”

  “It’s different,” I explode.

  “She has regrets, though. A lot.”

  “She should.”

  Dad gives me that same sad half smile that Stephen did. “Loving someone the way they need to be loved is hard. People can be really bad at it,” he says. “All we can do is keep trying.”

  42

  DELA ISN’T THE ONLY ONE I NEED TO APOLOGIZE to. So a week later, I text Willow and ask if she and Arden will come to lunch with me.

  I take them to this cute little café that I pass every day on the way to the museum. I’ve always wondered what it was like, and now seems like as good a time as any to try it out. But the interior smells like dirty dishrags, the pastries are stale, and the “rich hot cocoa” that they advertise in the window is the kind that comes spitting out of one of those cafeteria machines. Quite the apt metaphor for my life right now, I must say.

  Still, it’s nice to be with Willow and Arden without having to put on a performance, or take care of Willow, or worry about whether this place is cool enough for them. And it’s nice to take a sip of this watery hot chocolate and not stress about my lipstick coming off. (I’ve gone back to a makeup-free lifestyle, and that extra half hour of sleep every morning is heaven.) It’s also nice—beyond nice; it’s a huge relief—that no one bites my head off once I lay everything out and apologize.

  “But why did you feel like you needed that whole elaborate game plan?” Willow says once I’ve finished. “You understand it’s not the fake dating part that makes those relationships work, right? It’s the spending time together part that’s important.”

  “I know. But to be fair, you didn’t really start to be interested in me until you did my makeup and lent me clothes, and I started looking more like . . . well, like you and Arden.”

  Willow and Arden glance at each other, clearly confused. “What’s that supposed to mean?” says Willow indignantly.

  “You’re both so gorgeous and put together. Your hair, your makeup, your clothes . . . you’re so, like, sure of yourselves. You stand out. People like me are just part of the background to people like you.”

  Willow shakes her head. “That’s so not true.”

  I think it is. But arguing won’t help, and I’m about to let it go when Arden surprises me by agreeing with me.

  “No, I get it,” she says to Willow. “Everyone judges based on appearances. Even if they don’t mean to. Plenty of people would ignore me or dismiss me or worse if I didn’t dress nice—not that dressing up always works. I’m not even sure you would have seen me as someone you wanted to date if I didn’t dress up.”

  Wait. Is she implying what I think she’s implying?

  Arden says with an ironically lifted eyebrow, as if she’s read my mind, “Because I’m Black.”

  Willow’s face is a portrait of distress. “Are you . . . but . . . do you really think if you didn’t dress up or wear makeup that I wouldn’t date you . . . because you’re Black?”

  “Oh, I think you would have fallen for my charms eventually.” Arden smiles coquettishly at Willow. “And trust me, if I thought you couldn’t handle me being Black, I wouldn’t be here. But . . .” She hesitates. “I also think the way I dress and act helped you get over, like, an initial hurdle. I’m not saying all this gorgeousness isn’t really me.” She spreads her fingers and gestures playfully at herself with another smile. “But it helps you see me as someone who’s more like you than not. I’m just saying that Nozomi has a point about appearance and first impressions.”

  “But—but we’re past that, right? I was the one who wanted a deeper connection. You were the one who wouldn’t let me in.”

  Arden stirs her iced latte with a wilting paper straw, looking uncharacteristically off-balance. She takes a sip and stirs some more, peering into her glass, out the window, anywhere but at Willow. “You have this way of setting expectations,” she says finally. “I feel like you see me in this one context, through this one lens, and you’re always saying I’m your dream girl, and how perfect our relationship is. . . . Maybe I was afraid of how things might change if you saw anything that didn’t fit with your picture of me.”

  Willow looks stunned. “But I . . . did I really make it that hard for you to trust me?”

  Arden shrugs. “You didn’t mean to.”

  They look at each other, then away. I look at my fingers and wonder if I should excuse myself.

  “I don’t want perfect,” says Willow in a trembling voice. “I know I say that, but all I really want is you. The way you are. No illusions. No acting. Just you.”

  Her eyes are sparkling with tears. Arden nods and whispers, “Okay,” and blinks away her own tears. Heck, my eyes are welling up. Willow takes Arden’s hands, and the two of them smile and sniffle and gaze into each other’s eyes like I’m not even there.

  I guess it’s time for me to go. Quietly, I pay the bill and leave them to their blissful reconciliation.

  I’m so happy for them. Everyone deserves a beautiful romance with a happy ending, and I don’t even feel the slightest hint of envy or bitterness that things turned out so well for Willow and Arden, and so rotten for me. Not even one little tiny twinge.

  Okay, maybe one. Or two.

  43

  WE HAD DINNER AT BABA’S HOUSE TONIGHT, and she taught me and Max how to make gyōza. We ate a million of them, and Dad invited me and Max to stay and watch Love Actually after she had gone to bed. “For old times’ sake,” he said, but I know better.

  “Why didn’t you do something?” I ask when the movie is over. “Why did you just sit there and let Mom do whatever she wanted and not fight for her?”

  Dad sips his coffee and smiles at Max, who is snoring softly. Then he watches the credits roll for a while. Finally, he says, “This is going to be hard for you to hear, Zozo, because it’s the exact opposite of what Mom and I have always encouraged you to believe. But sometimes love isn’t enough. My love wasn’t, anyway. Not the way I was doing it or feeling it. Mom gave up on me, and I had to give up on us.”

  It reminds me of Dela (everything reminds me of Dela). “But that’s just lying down and letting things happen,” I protest. “What happened to ‘never give up on love’? What happened to ‘we have to keep trying’?”

  “Sometimes you have to give up,” says Dad, but before I can get too furious, he adds, “on a relationship. Just because one balloon gets away doesn’t mean you have to let go of the entire bunch. I gave up on staying married to Mom, on rebuilding what we had—if we had anything at all. But I haven’t given up on love.”

  “But I don’t want to give up on Dela. I know I can do better. I want to keep trying.”


  “So keep trying.”

  “But what if she gives up on me? I was so awful to her.”

  “Then you’ve lost one balloon,” he says. “You’ve learned something about how to keep the rest of your balloons. Watch your balloon until it disappears, and then when it does, enjoy all the balloons you have left. If you don’t have any left, go looking for more. The great thing is that you’ll never run out of them if you look carefully enough. They’re everywhere.”

  It is about the corniest, sappiest, Daddest thing I think I’ve ever heard.

  I check the clock on my laptop. I hate this. I don’t know why I’m doing it.

  No, that’s not true. I do know. Because I’m not sure if Dad is a zen superhero, or if he’s pretending to be one, or if he’s just a pushover, but there’s a chance that he’s right. Maybe Mom deserves a chance to explain herself. And if she’s had the patience to wait for me, maybe I can summon the patience to listen to her. Maybe a person can be angry and hurt and still be willing to listen to the person who hurt them. And okay, maybe there’s a little bit of magical thinking going on here: if I listen to Mom, then maybe Dela will listen to me. I know it’s not logical. But I can’t help hoping.

  I keep telling myself that Mom’s transgression was exponentially bigger and more hurtful than mine. Of course, Mom didn’t also tell me that I was pathetic because I wasn’t over my mother’s death—though I guess she could only say that to me if she were speaking from beyond the grave. But the point remains. She didn’t screw up and then say something cruel, ignorant, and completely unnecessary on top of it.

  A notification flashes: Mom wants to hang out.

  All right. I will be patient. I will be openhearted. I will treat her the way I want to be treated.

  I open the chat window and—oh dear god. Mom was always a little on the artsy, boho side of the fashion spectrum, but over the past few weeks, her look has evolved from Kind of Artsy-Boho to Aggressively Artsy-Boho. It is not good.

  She’s wearing a white top that looks like it’s been made out of a couple of napkins and some string, accessorized with a chunky turquoise necklace around her neck and a paisley scarf around her head. It’s a miracle that I don’t burn to ashes from embarrassment right here and now.

  “Hey, baby!” Mom says, and I can tell she’s trying to make her voice sunny and cheerful.

  “What are you wearing?” is my response, which is not an ideal way to open a dialogue with your estranged mother (or is it me who’s estranged?). But someone needs to tell her the truth about her choices, both fashion-related and otherwise.

  The smile on her face wavers just a bit, but she rescues it and it stiffens and stabilizes. “It’s a new top I bought on Etsy,” she says. “Do you like it?”

  “No. It’s totally inappropriate.”

  She immediately gets defensive. “I can wear whatever I want, Nozomi. I refuse to be defined by oppressive social norms around what’s considered to be appropriate attire for women my age.”

  “You look like you’re having a midlife crisis. Is that what Mr. Jensen is? Or are you his midlife crisis? Oh no, wait—he’s too young for one of those.”

  She flinches as if I’ve slapped her, and looks away, pressing her lips together like she might cry. I wait, furious, horrified, and ashamed. I’ve been despicable to her sometimes—I remember when I was twelve or thirteen, I used to scream, “I hate you! You’re the worst mom ever!” at her with shocking regularity—but I’ve never done anything that made her cry. Only I shouldn’t have to feel bad about being rude. She’s the monster. She’s the cheater and the liar.

  When Mom turns back to me, her cheery mask has dropped, and she just looks exhausted. Though she’s not crying, which is a relief, because I really would have felt monstrous if I’d made her cry.

  “I love him, Nozomi. And he loves me.”

  Ugh. I roll my eyes, hard. I know Dad wanted me to listen, but I don’t think I can handle a sappy love story starring Mom and Mr. Jensen.

  Mom takes the hint and tries a different tack. “You need to understand, baby, your father and me, our marriage—it was on its last legs. It was dying. I was dying.”

  “Dying,” I repeat. The word echoes painfully in the back of my mind as I think about Dela’s mom, who actually died.

  “Nozomi, staying together was making both Dad and me into terrible, unhappy people, and he refused to acknowledge it. And I’m sorry if this offends you, but what Roy and I have is real. I’m trying to set an example for you and Max—for you, especially, as a woman—not to settle for anything less than the love you deserve.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I can’t believe that she thinks she’s being some kind of feminist role model for me. “I would have been fine if you’d gotten divorced and that was it. And I would’ve hated it, but I would have understood if you fell in love with Mr. Jensen and waited till after you left Dad. But you didn’t. You. Had. An. Affair. You keep talking about it like it was okay, and it’s not. I don’t care how much you love Mr. Jensen, or how doomed your marriage was. Dad loved you. Maybe not the way you needed him to, but he loved you. And you betrayed him. You must know it was wrong, or you wouldn’t have kept it hidden from me.”

  Three times, Mom opens her mouth as if she’s going to argue, and then closes it. All I know is if she tries to feed me another excuse, I’m shutting the laptop. But finally, she sighs and says, “You’re right, Zozo. It was wrong. I shouldn’t have cheated on your father.”

  “No,” I say, “You shouldn’t have.”

  She plays with the fringe on her outrageous paisley scarf for a while and I let her. I hope she feels really uncomfortable. Eventually she says to the fringe, “I think I was so caught up in the story—my love story—that I minimized, in my mind, how much it might hurt you. I guess I thought you’d understand, since you’re such a romantic. Love conquers all, right?” She looks up and smiles hopefully at me.

  I shake my head and her face falls.

  “I know I hurt him, Nozomi. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for hurting you and Max as well. I hope you can forgive me one day.”

  “I’m still too mad to say,” I tell her, and she nods.

  “I understand.”

  And that’s that.

  It could have been worse, I guess. I’m still boiling with anger, but I’m surprised by how much has drained away—by how much of it wasn’t about the affair itself, but about Mom pretending it was okay because L♥VE. At least she finally admitted that what she did was wrong. That feels like a step forward for both of us.

  Because what Mom just said about love conquering all? It’s what I’ve always believed. Like Dad said, it’s what he and Mom have always taught me. It’s so strange. I never thought I’d say that true love isn’t the most important thing, that sometimes you have to wait and sort out the rest of your life. And yet, here we are.

  44

  DAD AND STEPHEN HAVE AN APPOINTMENT with a dementia care specialist to help them figure out how to handle the Baba situation, and I’ve been assigned to keep Baba company. Stephen said that the specialist had already warned him that we’d have to prepare for some big changes, which makes me sad, especially for Baba. It feels like giving up hope, like admitting defeat, and she hates losing. But maybe being able to see what’s coming, even if it’s not pretty, is better than holding hands and stumbling around in the dark, which feels like its own kind of hopelessness. And anyway, we can still hold hands.

  Remembering how much she loves to tell stories about herself, I ask to look at her old photo albums again, and it’s not long before we’re sitting at her kitchen table with a pile of them in front of us. But it turns out I don’t even need them. She tells me the story of how she and Jiji ditched her classmates on the field trip to Kyōto, followed by the story of Nana-chan’s bus ride, the jump rope champion story, and the near-drowning story, all nearly identical, word for word, to the versions she’s told me before.

  I try for a new story. I pick out her wedding album and ope
n it. The first two photos are on facing pages: in one, she’s wearing a vermilion kimono decorated with golden cranes, bright green pine needles, and white and gold chrysanthemums, with sleeves that reach almost to the ground. Silver fringes and tiny silk flowers dangle from lacquer combs tucked into a traditional shimada-style wig. Her face is powdered white and her mouth has been reshaped by precisely applied scarlet beni, but you can still see those mischievous eyebrows and the stubborn lines of her mouth. Jiji stands next to her in a black kimono and pinstriped hakama, over which he’s wearing a black haori embellished with his family crest. On the opposite page, they’re dressed in Western wedding clothes; a tuxedo for Jiji, and a short-sleeved white gown with a narrow skirt and an empire waist, and dainty white gloves for Baba.

  “Tell me about your wedding, Baba. It looks like it was pretty fancy.”

  “Ha! Pictures are fancy but the wedding was not,” she says. “I borrowed the kimono and wig and we paid extra for the pictures, but we couldn’t afford the fancy wedding. We were married in the hotel, with only twenty guests.”

  Baba returns her attention to the album, turning the pages slowly, past more studio photos of her and Jiji to photos of the hotel, of her sister and her friends all clad in bright, formal furisode, of her and Jiji cutting the wedding cake, and of her dancing with her father, Yoshi-Jiichan. “Your mother and father took the dancing lessons before their wedding,” she tells me. I’ve heard this one before, too, and I almost say the next line along with her: “What waste of money.”

  “Did they do a good job, at least?” I ask.

  She snorts. “How should I know? They did all the steps, though.” She gazes out the window absently, remembering Dad and Mom’s first dance, I suppose. Then she says without looking at me, “I didn’t go to Stephen’s wedding.”

  Now, this one is new. I sit up straighter and prompt her. “Why not?”

  “I was angry at him. I had the small wedding, your parents had more informal outdoor wedding, and I wanted Stephen to have a big church wedding with the beautiful bride, like my friends’ children had. But it’s so strange, to see groom and groom. It’s a show-off to other people. I couldn’t invite my friends from Japan. It was too embarrassing. So I was angry and sad because I had lost a hope and a dream. I thought, if he loves me, he can do a right thing.” She pauses here for a breath, which she holds for a moment before releasing it. “It was a mistake. Perhaps my biggest mistake.”