Chapter Twenty-Four
The sunshine streams through my bedroom curtains and I see, to my shock, that I’ve slept until noon. When was the last time I did this? In college on a Saturday, perhaps. I turn onto my side to save Sazae from toppling off the mattress. I set her on the spare pillow and smooth out her kimono.
Resting against my pillow, I imagine a Japanese woman staggering through a smoky room to hear the voice of a little girl singing. I see her carrying that child, along with the child’s doll, outside to safety.
The mother is dead inside.
The father is out of town.
This woman’s hands are burned.
The girl is fine.
Except for her heart, which will always have a hole because the night she lost her mother, she lost her father, too.
Her father will never be the same. It will be stated, over the years, that he is now just a shell of the man he used to be. Like a shell abandoned on Wrightsville Beach.
After eating a bowl of grits drenched with butter, I call my father to wish him a happy birthday. It is May fifteenth, and he is sixty-four.
Bonnie claims he can’t come to the phone.
“Is he sick?”
“No.” Her voice is filled with hesitation. What is the woman hiding from me?
“Is he sleeping?”
Quickly, “No.”
“Is he there? Has he left?” I feel anger start in the pit of my stomach and rise like a wave in my chest.
“He’s just a little . . . under the weather.”
“On his birthday?!” I shout, as though one isn’t allowed to be sick on his birthday.
“Yes.” And that is all she’s going to tell me, the person of few words that she is.
“Tell him I hope he has a happy birthday.” I spit out the words.
“I will.” Silence. “Anything else?”
You mean like I love you? “Yes.”
She waits and when I say nothing, prods with, “Okay . . .”
I close my eyes and count to five. “Tell him . . .”
“Yes?”
“Tell him I’m going to Japan.” Then I hang up. Just like that.
———
I sit in Aunt Lucy’s chair for most of the day, thinking. It is amazing how our minds can think so much, loaded with a multitude of ideas and plans. I’d like to turn my mind off some days, but I haven’t figured out how to do that yet.
At four, I head out to a little shop I’ve seen on First Street that has a neon sign with “Passport Photos Taken Here” in the window. I circle the location three times before parking in front of it.
A red-and-black sign on the door invites me inside: Open. There is even a dusty green plastic wreath under the sign. I should feel most welcomed, since according to my grandmother, this is an inviting place, but my sweaty palm can barely turn the doorknob.
This is a camera shop and the walls are covered in glossy pictures of mountains and ski resorts. Cameras—Nikon, Sony, Olympus, and Panasonic—rest under a clear glass counter. I study a Nikon silver digital camera so tiny that it fits in a human’s palm. If I owned something this small, I’d be sure to drop it or lose it, I think, and carefully move away from the cameras.
In a drawl as sweet as honey poured over a hot biscuit, the young girl behind the counter asks, “May I help you?”
Taking my eyes off one of the posters—the jagged Swiss Alps—I look at her. Her nails are painted green. I wonder if Flora Jane at Lady Claws painted them. “How much are passport photos?”
“Let me see.”
She’s probably a high school student, or college, it’s hard to tell; kids are looking younger to me these days. She glances at a card taped to the cash register. “Two photos for eleven dollars.” She eyes me a minute and then says, “Our guy who takes photos is out right now.” Reacting to my frown she tells me, “If you want, I could try to take them for you.”
I swallow. “Sure. If you don’t mind.”
The girl is so nervous, I wonder if this is a good idea. Then I smile because we are the perfect match—I am nervous, too.
“I’m not very good,” she warns as she asks me to sit on a stool in front of a white cloth draped from a horizontal rope. “But I have done it before.” She picks up the Polaroid camera. “Once.”
How hard can it be? After I view the first set of photos where my head is cut off at my scar and the next set where my chin is sliced away, I see it must not be too easy. “Take your time,” I tell her. “I’m in no hurry.” I sit up, smile, and let her snap again.
The third time is a charm. Two glossy pictures of me with my full head and chin captured. I thank her, pay, and carry the pictures to my car.
I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m doing something. Bumper-sticker material.
Harrison would say I know what I should be doing: take a dose or two of Dramamine, get on the plane, and come see Japan for yourself. In a recent message he wrote, “It is your birth land. It’d be like coming home. Watanabe-san wants to see you. And, besides, I haven’t had anyone to eat pineapple chutney with in thirty years.”
I smiled at the last line and replied with, “You don’t even like chutney. And I don’t like eel.”
He responded, “You love eel. As a child in Kyoto, you ate it every Saturday. Your mother would take you to a restaurant in Karasuma and you licked your bowl clean. Watanabe-san told me this.”
Me and unagi? I gulp. Surely, she is mistaken.
Driving home, I wonder what I have done. Then I realize the Polaroid pictures of me don’t have to be for a passport. I could send them to a friend or keep them in a scrapbook.
I listen to the voices in my head.
Now, who would you send a Polaroid photo to?
And why would you want two identical poses of you in a scrapbook?
You don’t even have a scrapbook.
———
The phone is ringing when I enter the house from my passport photo outing, and the voice on the other end is soft.
“Hello?” I speak loudly, hopeful the person will do the same.
“Nicole.”
It’s amazing how we humans can distinguish voices even upon hearing only our names spoken. I’d know this voice anywhere. “Happy birthday,” I tell Father.
“Bonnie said you are going to Japan.”
“Well, yeah. I’ve been—”
He interrupts. “Don’t.”
“Why not?”
“It isn’t a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t go.”
Why can’t he expand on his reasoning behind his insistence? “I think it’s a good idea,” I tell him with mock enthusiasm because I am not fully convinced it is the right thing to do.
“Don’t go to Japan.”
Something starts to burn in my gut and expands through my veins. It feels like fire. “I am going!”
“Don’t.”
“Father.” I try to calm my voice, try to shove my emotions aside. “I would like to go.”
“Don’t.” Is that all he can say?
Perhaps if I explain that there will be people on the other side to assist me, maybe that will ease his fears. “Our former maid and Rita’s son want me to come.”
The silence on the other end scares me.
“Rita? You have been in contact with Rita?” His tone is muffled, as if he’s a million miles away, not just in the next state.
“I’ve been emailing Rita’s son, Harrison.”
“No.” It comes out as a moan.
“Father, I’ve been making my own decisions for some time now.”
In a tone that makes my skin and everything beneath it crawl, he tells me, “Nicole, you can’t go. Japan is a land of terrible remorse.”
All my life I have been avoiding this Asian country, one of the reasons being because my own father is so consumed by what happened there. We have been in bondage, chained, unable to move freely, due to our fear.
“I need to go th
ere, Father.” Sometimes I wish I could call him Daddy. “I hope you have a good birthday.” For the second time that day, I hang up the phone.
Instead of tears of frustration, I feel a new strength fill me. As I look at the passport pictures now on my kitchen counter, I wonder who that photographed woman is. Red hair, blue eyes, freckles. Her tentative smile makes me wonder if she will be able to carry through with this unbelievable plan.
I hear my father’s repeated plea for me not to go to Japan. He is fearful of something, I think. My solemn father has a closet of ghosts, and one of them is trying to make its way out.
Chapter Twenty-Five
On a typical muggy and wet June afternoon, Grable and Monet stop by to drop off linen napkins. Ducee has asked all of us North Carolina relatives to supply her with napkins for the reunion. We think paper is the way to go, but she informed us about southern etiquette.
Grable swung by Ducee’s, but my grandmother isn’t home. She and Iva are at the Piggly Wiggly buying pineapple for our next chutney-making event. Fresh pineapples are on sale this whole week.
Grable pulls up in the driveway and pops open the trunk as I slip on a pair of sandals and walk out to meet her.
As I stand by the car, Monet, strapped in a car seat, pounds on the back window, screaming, “Niccc! Niccc fissssz! Pleeeeez!”
“Can I let her out?” I ask Grable.
Grable, looking worn and sullen, shrugs.
Free from the constraints of the vehicle, Monet scampers up the brick steps, and just as Grable warns, “Be careful, Monet,” slips on the wet pavement.
I have never heard such a holler come from any one human.
Grable places her fingers against her temples. I think she just might cry. Which mystifies me—I have yet to see her tears on any occasion.
Sure, Monet’s wild, but Grable’s always known how to handle her daughter. I saw firsthand at the hospital how the maternal instinct to care for a child different from the rest kicked in. Only Grable knew the trick to soothe the fussy and hyper infant to sleep. I also remember the way she gained control when Monet was in my bedroom wanting Sazae.
Maybe Grable wants to cry about Dennis. I’m still wrestling with whether or not I should tell my cousin what Mr. McGuire saw at his store.
There is no time to ponder on Dennis’s extracurricular activities. I walk over to Monet still flung upon the top step. “Are you okay?” I check her knees, elbows, and legs as she continues her noise.
She’s not crying, for her face is clear of tears. She is all volume.
“Careful, okay, Monet?”
She lifts her head, bounces up like a jack-in-the-box. She tries to open the front door.
“Wait!” Grable commands. She is taking out a large box of linen napkins.
“Wow,” I say. I didn’t know a person could own so much cloth.
“Tell Ducee she can keep these. I don’t need them. We haven’t had dinner guests in ages.” Grable’s eyes glaze over.
“Are you . . . all right?”
Monet is yelling for her mother to help open the door so she can get inside my house and watch my fish.
“Monet, stop!” Grable’s voice makes me shudder. “Stop it now!”
Monet stops fighting with the door and throws herself onto the stoop, wailing.
Grable sighs, making no attempt to help Monet.
I walk over to the child and sit beside her. Placing a hand on her back, I say, “Monet, it’s all right. When you stop crying, we can see the fish. Okay?”
“Nicccc maadd?” she sobs, her face buried in her hands. This time there are tears glistening across her face.
“No.” I slowly rub her back. She is wearing a pink Dora the Explorer T-shirt and a pair of green-speckled cotton pants. Grable has told me Monet dresses herself.
“Maaaaam maadd?” Her tearstained face peers into mine.
I look at Grable, standing there holding a box filled with cloth napkins she will never use to entertain guests at her home because her husband never comes home for dinner anymore. “No,” I gently reassure the child, “Mommy is not mad.” Tired, frustrated, weary, overburdened, but she loves you, Monet. Oh yes, she clearly sees there is beauty within.
Monet moves toward me, wiggles into my lap, and wipes her eyes with the palms of her hands.
Oh, Monet, I am so sorry. I wish our daddies had time for us. I wish we could all go to the park together and swing and slide.
Grable gives me a look of appreciation. There is a faint flicker of light in her eyes.
The doorknob opens with ease once I show Monet how to maneuver it, and we all go inside. Under cautious supervision, Monet feeds the fish. She opens her mouth like they do, her lips forming a tiny circle. After she hops on one foot and then switches to the other, I tell her to sit in Aunt Lucy’s chair because I have a surprise for her.
Monet races to the chair, squealing as she goes.
From my bedroom, I carry out a cardboard box wrapped in brown paper, stuck with postage stamps of cherry blossoms, bamboo, and carp. I hand the box to the child.
She embraces it, smiles, claps her hands, and almost falls off the chair. She lets her mother lift out a cotton kimono doll, just like Sazae, only without fading lips and with both sleeves the same length.
As Monet hugs the doll, she asks if it is hers.
“Yes,” I say. “All yours. You can take it home.”
“My, my, my!” the child squeals.
Grable wants to know how I got a doll for Monet almost identical to mine.
“One day I’ll explain,” I say. We’ll eat M&Ms after Monet is asleep, and I’ll tell you everything. When I’m ready.
“My, my, my!” Monet shouts.
I wish Harrison could see how happy he has made this child.
We watch Monet plant kisses all over the doll’s face.
“What will you name it?” asks Grable.
Monet gives us a large smile. “Nicccc!”
Wait until I tell Harrison that the doll he sent for Monet is named Nicccc!
———
That evening after Iva calls to tell me that we are scheduled to look for new picnic tables next Saturday, the phone rings again.
“Nicole.”
“Hello.”
My father’s voice sounds strained. “Did she tell you about the baby?”
Baby? What baby?
“Did she?”
I have no idea what he’s talking about. “What baby?”
He’s crying, I think.
“Will you tell me about the baby?”
“It died.” He barely has enough strength to get the words out.
“It died?”
“Your mama was pregnant, so the baby died, too.” Now he is sobbing. My father is crying on the phone.
“Father?”
The sobs are out of control, heavy, and gasping in my ear. I can’t stand it; I want to put the phone down.
Suddenly the sounds are gone, disappeared. He must have stepped away from the phone. No one stops crying that quickly.
“Father?”
I hear some noise on the other end.
I wait a few seconds before asking, “Father? Where’s Bonnie?”
He’s blowing his nose. “At the club for dinner.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
He tells me he’s going to hang up.
When he does, I am like a robotic being, an alien even, out of space, out of time, just standing alone in my kitchen. Uncertain what to do next. What is the southern etiquette for learning that a baby died? My sibling-to-be?
I stand and listen to my own rapid breaths, like bullets being fired. Rain starts to splash against the kitchen window, the pellets hitting the pane as fast as the questions that shoot into my mind. Soon I am a heap in Aunt Lucy’s chair. This is too much, this finding out about my past. What other surprises are around the corner?
Minutes later, I email Harrison. “Did Watanabe-san say anything about my mother being pregnant?” I don
’t use spell check or hesitate for one second before letting this message speed over to Harrison’s computer.
Did Ducee know Mama was pregnant? Had Mama told her in a letter? How far along was she in her pregnancy?
It’s a pathetic feeling knowing that a child, forming in a womb, a human with eyes and hair and a personality, was snuffed out just like that. And not just any child. My brother or sister. Had Mama lived, I would have had a mother, a father, and a brother or sister. I know we would have been happy. People would see the love and happiness oozing over us like barbecue sauce on chicken. “Do you know the Michelins?” people would say. “Oh yes, such a happy family.”
The story changes.
The mother is dead inside.
The father is out of town.
The maid’s hands are burned.
The girl is fine.
And now, the baby inside the mother is dead.
I sit in the wingback chair, trying to imagine what a sister or brother of mine would look like. Would he or she have red hair, too, and freckles? A brother might be the opposite of me—laidback, one of those easygoing types, able to help me out with my fears. Fun-loving and surrounded by friends, able to get me dates with the most interesting men.
I’ll never know. It is one of those chapters in the book that ends without satisfying the reader at all.
My father’s sobs fill my ears. I can’t remember ever having heard or seen his tears before.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Night surrounds me. The fish tank’s fluorescent beam is the only light on.
I sit close to my fish in the darkened dining room and watch the clownfish glide through the water. They are so safe in their contained paradise where all of their needs are met. They never harm each other. Never speak words that can be misunderstood. There are no secrets between them.
If only humans were this simple.
Heaviness sets in my heart, making walking to the computer painful. The computer’s screen lights my face and the keyboard, but the rest of the living room is shrouded in darkness. The clock on the bottom right-hand side of the screen says it’s midnight. One in the afternoon of the next day in Japan. Harrison is teaching an English class right about now.
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