Deena sighed. “You’re impossible.”
Grandma Emma shifted in her seat. “Look. It ain’t jus that he’s a Chinese. Listen. This what I know. You two go hot tailing up out of here and get married both your families gonna be upside down.”
She waited for Deena to deny this. When she didn’t, her lips curled into a satisfactory smile.
“I’m pretty sure his people want him to stay with his peoples like we want you to stay with yours. That’s the first thing. Second is this. I mean let’s just be for real here. Y’all two get together and you bound to have a funny looking child!”
Grandma Emma whooped with laughter, clapping her hands all the while. Deena knew she couldn’t wait to tell the ladies of the church how she came right out and told her what was what, right to her face.
“See, people like you don’t ever think about who you affecting, just yourself.” Her eyes narrowed with seriousness.
“Well,” Deena said carefully. “I could say the same thing about you.”
The women stared, a dark silence passing between them.
Emma’s face darkened. “Listen, I’m here cause I am a woman of God.”
“And I’m not?” Deena said.
“No, now, it ain’t that,” Emma held up her hands, gesturing for Deena to calm down.
Was she the aggressor now? Deena wondered.
“You were raised in the church now and even though you got some ways about you like you wasn’t, you still was.”
Deena began to massage her temples. “I don’t follow you, Grandma.”
“Those people don’t believe in Jesus Christ!” Emma shouted.
Deena nodded, tiredly.
“Uh huh. Deacon Moore says they Buddin. And that they pray to a fat Chinese man. Now who in they right mine ever heard of a fat Chinese man being the son of God?”
Deena closed her eyes, counted backwards from ten, and spoke. “Yes, lots of Japanese people are Buddhist, Grandma, Tak included. But I don’t see your point. In fact, I think you need to learn to tolerate other people’s differences.”
She regretted the words in an instant.
“Girl, Jesus Christ died for your sins! He laid down and died for you! For you, Deena!” Grandma banged her fist on the table for emphasis. “They nailed him to a cross and—”
“Grandma, calm down,” Deena hissed, eyes darting in humiliation. “Calm down right now!”
“You think Jesus laid down and died so you could marry a Buddin?” Emma cried. “No! I don’t think so!”
They’d drawn the attention of the go-getters, the early morning suits, who consumed both caffeine and the morning’s headlines as if they needed both to survive. Among them she spotted William Henderson, the wide-eyed, pudding-faced investor in the Skylife project with whom she’d traded barbs on more than one occasion. He, like the other onlookers, gawked at the unfolding debacle.
“Grandma, would you please keep it down? People know me here for Christ’ sake.”
“No! Jesus Christ—” Grandma Emma screamed.
Deena stood. The lively café had fallen sinfully silent, despite the multitudes present. Aside from her grandmother, all Deena could hear was whirring from the refrigerated display case.
“Grandma, if you don’t shut up right this second then I will consider this conversation over,” Deena hissed.
Grandma Emma struggled to her feet. With a single, hard glare she reeled back and smacked her.
Deena’s lips parted in disbelief. Tears filled her eyes as she brought a hand to the stinging cheek. Despite the threats, despite the harsh words, it had never been Grandma Emma who hit her. Never.
“I won’t.” Deena’s voice broke. With the eyes of the café on her, she decided to salvage her dignity by bringing their meeting to an end. “I won’t sit here and be hit, Grandma. I don’t care how much I disappoint you, I will not tolerate being hit.”
With a trembling hand, Deena dug into her purse and retrieved a sheet of gold embossed parchment. She held it out to her grandmother, who stared at it. Deena cleared her throat and set it on the table.
“My wedding is in six weeks. The details are on the invitation. Come if you like. But as of now, the matter is closed to further discussion.”
IT WAS A hot day even by Miami standards and nowhere was this more evident than in Daichi’s attire. It was the most relaxed Deena had ever seen him. He wore his standard oxford, sleeves rolled up, first button undone even, and paired it with crisp Armani slacks, cuffed to avoid the ocean current. Beads of sweat plastered his hair to his forehead while, next to him, Deena walked in silence. At their backs, on the coastline, was Deena’s architectural rendition of love—Skylife, completed and reaching for the heavens. She had no idea where her next project would take her; already she’d received the letter thanking her for her entry in the “City-Within-A-City” competition. Unlike Daichi, she was not a finalist.
“You were right,” Daichi said suddenly. “This view is quite enjoyable.”
Deena’s cell phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket and gave it a peek. It was her grandmother. Ever since she’d delivered news of her engagement, Emma had been ransacking her phone line.
“And how are the Hammonds taking this news?” Daichi asked, as if reading her thoughts.
Deena shrugged. “About as bad as expected.”
He laughed. “Worse even than my initial reception of this love affair?”
“Much worse.”
They continued in silence.
“It turns out that Cook was right,” Daichi said suddenly.
Deena blinked. “Michael Cook? About what?”
“About my being shortlisted for the Pritzker. Turns out he knows something after all.”
Deena’s eyes widened. “My God, Daichi, that’s such an honor. When will you know if you’ve won?”
He shrugged. “Yesterday. I got the call yesterday. The ceremony will be in May.”
“What!” Deena shrieked and embraced him before realizing what she was doing. She pulled back with a blush and got to see something as rare as a Nobel Prize winner in the flesh. Daichi embarrassed.
“I’d like for you to accompany me. The ceremony’s in Melbourne, Australia.”
“Me? You want me?”
“Is that so impossible to conceive?”
Deena shook her head. “I—I don’t know. I thought you’d want someone—important.”
Daichi shrugged. “I’d say a daughter is pretty important.”
He flashed a grin for her, the most generous she’d seen, and she couldn’t help but return it.
But he had no idea the effect his words had on her. She’d never entertained the notion of having a father again, and what it would mean, what it could mean. She never thought that she could be a daughter again. And yet she would be.
Soon.
EMMA STOOD AT the narrow stove and waited for the hotcakes’ edges to brown. In a nearby saucepan grits boiled and bacon sizzled. She glanced at the coffee pot and watched it gurgle. In another moment, her biscuits would need to come out of the oven.
Emma slipped the five by seven print from the pocket of her housecoat and peered at it. With a single crooked finger, she traced the outline of the man in the portrait. He was a fine looking young man with the gleam of youth in his eyes, bright like diamonds and just a trace of stubbornness. Emma held that gaze, lost to her forever, before reluctantly tucking it away again.
She’d come across that old picture in Eddie’s keepsake box. Face down, it was hidden just beneath a pair of cuff links given to him by his father, a Cuban cigar from the day their son Dean was born, and a Purple Heart he’d received from his tour of duty in Vietnam. Emma stood motionless, with that picture in hand, her mind weighted with buried memories. And when sleep failed to come for her that night, she stared at that picture and tried to remember the day when she’d become so old and hardhearted.
As Emma removed the hotcakes from the griddle, she thought about the invitation Deena gave her two wee
ks ago. She’d never laid hands on such fine paper. It was sturdy, sophisticated, beautiful. And those letters! Why, they were raised up on it as proud as anything she’d seen. And while she couldn’t do much more than guess as to what that invitation said, she couldn’t help but notice the similarities between it and her granddaughter.
Emma surveyed the spread she was preparing and glanced at her watch. Deena would be there at any moment. She was on her way over to pick up a copy of her birth certificate so that she could apply for her marriage license. Her wedding day was just three weeks away.
When Deena arrived, she refused the breakfast Emma had gone to the trouble of preparing. Orange juice from fresh squeezed oranges, flapjacks, bacon, eggs, biscuits, grits—she would let them all go to waste. She wanted the birth certificate and she wanted to leave.
“Grandma, you’d said that you would have it out for me by the time I got here,” Deena said, surveying the spread of food in disapproval. “I don’t have time to waste this morning.”
Emma shook her head. “Chile, a good breakfast ain’t time wasted. Now come on in here and make yourself a plate. And afterwards you can help me fine that paper you need.”
Deena watched as her grandmother turned from her, retrieved a plate from an overhead cabinet and began to fill it with food. When it seemed that the dish could hold no more Emma turned to her granddaughter, and watched her reluctantly pull out a chair to sit.
The two ate in silence, with only the occasional scrape of fork and knife against plate, and Emma’s smacking lips to interrupt them. And when their plates were empty, Emma reached into her pocket and dug out her old picture. She watched Deena as she placed it on the table.
With a trembling hand, Deena reached for the picture. A long and lean man with rich chocolate skin, wide almond eyes and a good-natured grin stared back at her. Wrapped in his tight embrace was a smiling woman with a wide and pouty mouth, cornflower blue eyes, and hair like stalks of wheat.
Deena’s parents.
Deena gripped the picture until it shook, tears blinding the nearly forgotten faces. Her father, Dean Hammond, and her mother, Gloria Hammond, eligible for parole in the year 2032.
Emma watched as Deena’s mouth became a hard line, her jaw clenched, and her eyes grew cold. Deena sat the picture back on the table.
Emma stared at the portrait thoughtfully. “You think you could ever forgive her?”
“What?” Deena said. It was not the question she’d been expecting.
“Your mother,” Emma tapped a finger on the portrait. “I asked you if you ever gonna forgive her for what she done.”
Deena shook her head. “I don’t know, Grandma. I’ve never thought about it.”
Emma nodded. Twenty-five years had passed since she’d last heard her son’s voice, fifteen since she’d placed him in that pine box. Time, she discovered, marched on in cruel, unforgiving bursts.
“Maybe,” Emma said as she lifted the picture from the table, “you should think about forgiving her. It’s a hard, hard thing to want your child’s forgiveness and find that it’s beyond your reach.”
Deena met the old woman’s wet eyes. “What?” she whispered.
Emma lowered her gaze. “For a long time I looks at you and your brother and sister and I sees my boy. I see what I loss and I hate you for it—for making me see that every single day.”
Emma swallowed hard, her voice harsh, broken. “I take that hate out on you and I treat you wrong. But it’s not cause I don’t love you, it’s cause I can’t—I can’t stand to see him no more. I can’t stand to see my son looking back at me and asking why I threw him away.” She rubbed her face tiredly. “Listen, Deena. Gone and marry that boy. I ain’t gone stand in your way no more.”
Emma nodded towards the picture of her son.
“I reckon this the closest I’m gone get to a second chance, anyway. I suspect I better take it.” She stood, brushed away a tear, and collected the dishes.
THE LITTLE GIRL lifted her menu, peered at the upside-down script, and lowered it again. “Ojiichan, do you think they have French fries here?”
Her grandfather’s lips curled into an indulgent smile. “If they don’t we’ll go somewhere where they do.”
Deena lowered her menu with a sigh. “Don’t tell her that.” When she turned to Tak, it was with an accusatory glare. “I thought you said you were going to talk to him about this. About spoiling her.”
“I did. You see the good it did.”
Deena turned back to Daichi. “Well, I’ll tell you myself. Stop spoiling her or she’ll be unbearable in a few years.” She shook her head. “And anyway, there are other people here besides her. I for one have been waiting for weeks to come here.”
She looked up to see the waiter place a sushi and sashimi spread before them.
“Lord Jesus,” Grandma Emma murmured.
Daichi smiled at the old woman before turning to the tray, examining the spread with a critical eye.
“Looks good,” he said cheerfully.
Emma snorted. Tak and Deena exchanged knowing, smothered smiles.
“Now listen here, Emma. You’ll honor our agreement. I held up my end of the bargain, and now you’ll do the same,” Daichi warned.
Mia squealed. “When ojiichan ate chittlins his face was red!”
Daichi laughed. “You see? You owe me.”
Emma sighed. “But this hardly seem equal to me.”
“You’re right. I was forced to eat pig entrails, whereas you have a fresh selection of the highest quality seafood.”
“But you ain’t cooked none of it!” Emma cried.
Daichi clapped his hands in delight. “You’re a real treat, Emma, a real treat. But a deal is a deal.” He leaned forward and with chopsticks began plucking the various pieces he wanted her to eat, setting them on the empty plate before her. “Let’s see…We’ll do a bit of sashimi here, salmon and tuna. Also, some eel and cucumber—”
“Come on Dad, give her a break,” Tak laughed.
“What?” Deena cried. “When we were dating you gave me eel and salmon roe!”
“Good point, Deena,” Daichi grinned. “Let’s add a bit of gukanmaki to this plate and you’re ready to go. That, of course, is sushi with three types of roe in it.”
“Now what the devil is roe?” Emma asked, jabbing at one of the hand-rolled pieces of sushi.
“Oh my God, don’t tell her. It’s better if you don’t tell her,” Deena warned.
Daichi offered wasabi and soy sauce to Emma as all eyes turned to her.
“Lord, I guess it’s now or never,” she murmured, raising the eel and cucumber to her mouth.
“Place it all in your mouth at once,” Daichi advised, his eyes dancing.
With two fingers, Emma jammed the sushi into her mouth. Mia shrieked.
“Lord have mercy!” Emma cried around the food.
“My God, I never thought she’d do it,” Deena whispered, turning to Tak.
“What, are you kidding? My dad would’ve rode her forever,” Tak murmured.
As Emma chewed, her eyes watered.
“Swallow it! You’ll only prolong it this way,” Daichi laughed.
Emma spat in a napkin before bursting into a coughing, laughing fit.
“You don’t expect that one to count, do you? I swallowed a record nine portions of your chitterlings! You’ll never get anywhere spewing pieces from your mouth like that,” Daichi said.
“I don’t know why he’s doing this,” Tak said. “When he gets back from Japan she told me that she’s going to make him eat possum.”
“What?” Deena laughed. “Where in the hell is she gonna find possum?”
Tak shrugged. “She says she knows a guy that goes back and forth to Mississippi all the time, and that he’s going to bring her some. She claims she hasn’t had any in forty years but she’s making some especially for Dad.”
Deena laughed. “This’ll go on forever, you know, them trying to one-up each other.”
T
ak touched her hand. “I can think of worse ways this could’ve turned out.” A tiny smile played across his lips. Deena matched it before dropping her gaze to his hand. Instinctively, it fell to the faint and jagged scar running crosswise from his index finger to wrist. It was an ever-present reminder of what cowardice and selfishness had nearly cost.
“Chee-chee pah-pah chee—”
Deena looked up, roused from a memory. “Baby, don’t sing at the table.”
Mia hesitated, mouth open mid “chee”. Wide, silver-plated saucers stared back at her mother.
Deena could see every part of herself in Mia, sifted through and made better. From the wild and silky jet black curls pinned diva-style in two oversized pigtails to the dollop of cinnamon on oatmeal skin and eyes like wide and polished sterling silver, heavy with the weight of her value. She had the look of a girl who could do or be anything, even at five.
She admired her already.
Mia Tanaka, who ate soul food and spoke Nihongo, who frequented festivals with her ojiichan and Sunday worship with her great-grandmother, had learned in five years of life something it took Deena twenty-five to figure out. That even with all of these seemingly contrary traits, she was what she was intended to be.
Tucked away in Deena’s wallet was a family portrait from the year before. In it, she and Tak sat side by side, her in a simple cream sweater and slacks for Christmastime, him in a white button-up and blue jeans. His hair, of course, was tousled just right. Before and between them was Mia, black hair braided in zigzags before flowing free into two bountiful pigtails. Her ojiichan kept her in runway best, so on this day she wore her favorite Burberry romper accented by a Tahitian pearl long since lost to a sandbox.
Deena wasn’t sure why she’d sent the picture to her mother, or why she’d gone to the trouble of restoring the one of her parents and including it as well. Two portraits, palm-sized, in a single white mailer to Gloria Hammond, care of Broward Corrections. No letter inside, no explanation.
When she received a letter back, with that telltale prison stamp, less than a week had passed. Deena took it, and placed it with the others, unopened.
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