I’m finally able to unlock the door and I can see the origami birds shining like gold points on black velvet. Before I can get to them, I notice something else. On the other side of the display is Gramps, hunched over in a chair, with sweat streaming down his face. “An-jay,” he murmurs, “help.”
Flat Soda
My hands are shaking and I’m at the phone, calling 911. “My grandfather thinks he’s having a heart attack,” I say. The operator asks me for our address, and I can barely remember it, but read it off some bills next to the phone. The operator then asks me if Gramps can move both sides of his body. I put the phone down and check and then go back. “Yes,” I tell her. “And he can see okay.”
I listen to what the operator says next and finally get off the phone. I run into the bathroom and open the medicine cabinet, which, like everything else, is completely filled—pill bottle stacked upon pill bottle. But I finally find what I’m looking for and run back to Gramps. “Take this.” I hand him an aspirin. I don’t know what it’s supposed to do, but I follow what the operator told me to a tee.
I try to call Mom’s cell, but just get her voice mail. “Come home,” I say. “It’s an emergency.”
I go back to the other room and kneel next to Gramps. “The ambulance’s coming,” I say.
I go into the kitchen, fill a plastic container with a built-in straw with water, and bring it to Gramps. He tries to take a sip but the water just ends up spilling over his face.
We hear the front door opening. “Angie…,” Mom calls out.
“Mom,” I call back.
Mom and Grandma are now in the doorway of the 1001-cranes room.
“What the—” Mom hurries to Gramps’s side. Grandma Michi steps back and I’m afraid she’s going to faint.
“It’s my heart, Grandma,” Gramps calls out.
Grandma Michi steps forward and takes a hold of Gramps’s hand—I’ve never seen them touch each other in this way—and he keeps telling her that he’s okay and the ambulance is on its way.
“Oh no, oh no,” my grandmother murmurs. Her voice isn’t shrill or loud. It’s as flat as old soda that’s been left out too long.
Dental Floss, Anyone?
Grandma Michi gets in the ambulance with Gramps while Mom and I go in Mom’s car to the hospital. My fingertips are as cold as ice. In the mirror on the passenger-side visor, I notice that my face looks greenish.
Mom, surprisingly, is super-calm, and she even manages to smile a little. “It’ll be okay, honey,” she says when she stops at an intersection. She doesn’t seem to say it for me as much as for herself.
We go into the emergency room and Mom waits in line for a few minutes. “We’ll have to go onto another floor; you might have to be in the waiting room for a while,” she says.
We take an elevator and Mom tells me to sit in a waiting room that has a television set mounted on the wall. A family is watching a program in a language I don’t understand. Two of them are boys, probably around six and seven, and they are carrying half-empty plastic containers of Gatorade, one neon yellow and the other blue. They are bored out of their minds and whine and pull at each other’s T-shirts.
There are some magazines in a corner and I leaf through them, but they are all super-old, with the best places to golf in Scotland and tips about how to make traditional Christmas decorations.
After a half hour, I see a familiar face peering into the waiting room. It’s Mrs. O, wearing white slacks and sandals that show off her painted toenails. Before I can ask her what she’s doing here, she slips into the plastic chair next to me. She squeezes my wrist. “I spoke to your aunt Janet,” she says.
Mrs. O doesn’t follow that up with anything else. She doesn’t say that it’s going to be all right, because we both really don’t know. She just looks around the waiting room—a box without any windows—at the loud television set, the brothers, and the old tattered magazines. “Not much to do in here.”
I nod.
Mrs. O rummages through her purse, which is as fat as an old-time doctor’s bag. “Look what I have.” She holds up a package of origami paper. “Kept extra ones just in case.”
Mrs. O takes the golf magazine and places it on her lap as a makeshift table. I sit cross-legged on the floor.
“This will be for your grandfather,” Mrs. O says as she begins to fold. “Our little origami prayers.”
I fold on top of the decorating magazine and I’m surprised by how easily I can make cranes now. Mrs. O’s a little slower than me, but she makes sure that her folds are razor sharp, just the way Grandma likes them.
The family takes a break from the noisy television set to see what we are doing. The whiny kids with runny noses slowly creep closer and closer to me, and Mrs. O nods to them and hands them each a crisp golden folding paper.
And soon I am teaching them, step by step, what to do. We go through Mrs. O’s origami paper, so I open my plastic bag of Post-it poems and use those squares to fold, too. You can’t see the full words anymore, just “Y-E” in “yellow” and “M-O-N” in “cinnamon,” but I like it better that way. When we are done with those, we begin tearing the pages of the old magazines to make more squares. I feel like I’m doing something wrong, but Mrs. O started it, so I suppose it’s okay.
We finish folding more than a hundred cranes; they aren’t A-or even B-grade, but good enough. Now what? I think, and Mrs. O can read my mind. She goes into her purse again and finds a needle-and-thread kit, but the leftover thread is only about three inches long. She dumps all the contents of her purse onto an empty chair: wallet, about ten pens (all capped), toothbrush with a plastic cover, checkbook, cell phone, a couple of green tea bags, and finally, dental floss, mint-flavored. “Aha,” she says, picking up the dental floss dispenser. “This will work.”
She tells the two boys to open up the cranes, and I’m supposed to poke the middle of each one with the needle. One of the brothers is a little rough and pulls the wings too hard, tearing one of the magazine cranes. He looks like he’s going to cry, but I tell him it’s okay. “There’s plenty more.”
Mrs. O then takes each crane and threads them together with the dental floss. You can tell that she’s organized, because she doesn’t assemble them in just any old way, but creates a pattern, as if she is making a beaded necklace. Three gold ones, one yellow Post-it, two magazine ones. It makes me laugh to see a little man golfing on one of the wings.
Mrs. O makes three strands of cranes: two short ones for the two boys and a long one, which she hands to me after she threads the last crane.
Mom and Aunt Janet finally come to get me in the waiting room. “Gramps wants to see you,” my aunt says, and Mom tells Mrs. O that Gramps will have bypass surgery tomorrow.
Mrs. O puts all her junk back into her purse and waves goodbye to me. “I’ll see you back home,” she says, and leaves. I forget to say thank you, but figure she understands.
As we leave the waiting room, I see my grandmother turning the corner in the hallway and coming toward us. She stops in midstep when she sees me. She starts to say something but then keeps walking. I hear her sturdy sandals slap the linoleum with each step. Mom remains quiet for once. It’s Aunt Janet who says softly, “She’s still in shock.”
I walk into Gramps’s room by myself. Mom waits outside and says I shouldn’t stay long. I carry in the threaded origami cranes. I don’t know where to put them, and first start to wrap them around the plastic guardrail on one side of Gramps’s bed, but he shakes his head. “Those doctors and nurses will crush them. Hang them from that board over there so I can see them.” He’s talking about a small whiteboard on the wall. Someone has written his name, Nick Inui, and a few numbers beside it.
“Beautiful,” says Gramps. “Just what I needed.”
“Are you going to be all right, Gramps?” I ask. The room smells yucky, vinegary and like medicine. I would never want to eat anything in that room.
“They are going to operate on me tomorrow. It’ll take some t
ime, but I’ll be like new.”
Grandma Michi walks in. “You better get some rest,” she tells Gramps.
“Yah, yah, don’t worry, don’t worry. Just need a little more time with An-jay.”
“You shouldn’t get worn out.” She keeps standing there. I know she means that I should leave, but I stay where I am. “Two more minutes,” she states before leaving.
“Do you know that you’re my hero?” Gramps says.
I wrinkle my forehead.
“That aspirin might have saved my life.”
I just did what the operator told me, I think. But I still feel warm and happy to be called Gramps’s hero.
“Grandma and I got into a fight,” I tell Gramps. “Back at the Buddhist church. I told her that she was a bad grandma.”
“Oh, I see.”
“I think she’s still mad at me.”
Gramps shakes his head. “She’s just worried about me. I’m all she has.”
“But there’s us,” I say, meaning me, my mom, and Aunt Janet. And even my dad.
“It’s just that she’s never had much of a family.”
I’m shocked that Gramps is saying this to me. Family is everything to Grandma Michi, Aunt Janet told me. It means crests and big parties, doesn’t it?
“Your grandma is afraid of being alone. She has a lot in common with you. She knows exactly how you feel, An-jay. She never had two parents living together.”
“What?”
“Her parents weren’t even married, ever. She grew up in an orphanage with other Japanese children.”
“In Japan?”
“No, here in Los Angeles. It was in a place called Silverlake. It was run by someone from Japan.”
I breathe in what Gramps has said. No wonder Grandma Michi knows so much about Japan; she probably learned it all in the orphanage. And no wonder she and Rachel Joseph have a special connection. “Do Mom and Aunt Janet know about this?”
Gramps shakes his head. “No. Just me and you know.” And Rachel Joseph, I think. “This can be our secret,” he adds.
“But why? Why does everything have to be a secret?” I’m sick of secrets and I’m sick of being the secret keeper. Grandma Michi is so old, anyway. What does it matter that my grandmother’s parents weren’t married and she lived in an orphanage?
“You don’t understand, An-jay. With some people, what other people think is almost more important than what they think of themselves.” Gramps takes a big breath and I wonder if his heart is starting to ache. “I’m not saying that it’s good or that it’s right. Some folks just like to keep quiet about their personal life.”
“It’s sure not the hakujin way.” Or the Christian way. I think back to the story of Jesus and the woman at the well.
“But it’s our way, your grandmother’s and mine. You need to find your own way, An-jay.”
“What am I going to do about Grandma? I don’t think she even wants to talk to me.”
“She loves you. You’re our only grandchild. Do you know how precious you are to us?”
My eyes get misty.
“She wants to know you, talk to you. But she doesn’t know how to do it with words.”
How can you talk to someone without words? I think.
“I’ll talk to her. But you’ll need to talk to her, too,” he says.
So much for silent ways, I think.
Silent Roosters
When Mom and I are driving home, she tries to stop by a sandwich shop near Tony’s uncle’s store, but I tell her that I’m not hungry. I don’t need any reminders about Tony right now.
After Mom parks the car in the empty driveway, we go into the house through the front door. It seems so lonely now. Yeah, the fireplace is still crowded with the kokeshi dolls and the roosters, but something seems to be missing. Even the masks by the front door seem wooden and lifeless.
Mom goes into her bedroom and closes the door. I hear her talking on her cell phone. I sit down on the couch and surf some television channels. Nothing seems to take my mind off Gramps and Grandma Michi.
After a while, Mom comes out and stands in front of me. In her right palm is the red cell phone. “I’ve decided to give this back to you,” she says. “I think somebody’s been trying to reach you.” She then goes into the kitchen, and I hear her opening cupboards and taking pans out. I look at the cell phone display. 5 MISSED CALLS, it reads. They all are from Tony’s phone number; two of them were made today. I don’t feel like listening to his messages. I might feel differently tomorrow or the next day or the next, but I still erase the messages one by one. I can figure out what he’s going to say, and it really doesn’t matter, especially now.
I turn the phone off, zip it into my backpack, and watch more TV. After an hour, I reach underneath the couch cushions. I find Mom’s diary stuffed between them, and tear out the page my mother wrote about seeing some guy at a store.
I go to the first page after the diary title page and start to write. I begin from the time Mom and I were on our way down from Mill Valley to Gardena on Interstate 5. I write about my first days at my grandparents’ house this summer, Mr. and Mrs. O, even the cats that Grandma is not supposed to know about. I write about all the secrets people have told me. And finally, I write about how I feel and what I’m scared of.
What is real love—you know, the kind that’s supposed to last forever? I want the kind that I can hold on to tight, that won’t disappear. I didn’t think Tony would disappear, but he did. And I never thought Dad and Mom would get a divorce, but it looks like they might. How did Kawaguchi know that guy wasn’t for her?
I chew on the back of the pen for a while, and then keep going.
Nothing really seems to be the way it is supposed to be. But some things are actually a little better than they seem. Like how Gramps really, really cares about Grandma more than I ever realized. And how Grandma really, really cares about Gramps. They’re not all kissy-kissy, but I guess that’s only one part of it.
I write a few paragraphs more and then Mom calls me for dinner. She says that she doesn’t care if I’m not that hungry; I still need to eat. Before I go to the bathroom to wash my hands, I leave the diary in front of Grandma Michi’s door. I find a yellow Post-it and write on it To Grandma. From Angela. I then add P.S. I’m sorry.
One City
Somebody’s knocking at the front door, and the clock next to the kokeshi dolls says it’s ten. Aunt Janet woke me up earlier this morning, but I obviously went back to sleep on the couch. I’m not sure who else is home, so I finally pull myself up and go to the front door in my bare feet. I open it, and there’s Dad.
He’s wearing jeans, a crumpled T-shirt, and sunglasses. I wish I had a pair of sunglasses, because the sun is bright.
“How is he?” he asks. I find out that Dad has been driving all morning.
“I think he’s in surgery now. I’ll get Mom,” I say, and turn, but he grabs me by the arm. “I want to talk to you first.”
We decide to take a walk and I don’t even bother to brush my teeth or comb my hair. I’m even still wearing my pajama bottoms, but Dad doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about what people look like on the outside.
“I heard that you practically saved Gramps’s life,” he says.
I’m surprised that the news has reached him. “I just did what the 911 operator told me to do,” I say.
“But you followed through. Following through is so important.” We walk underneath some smog trees and I can’t believe that I ever thought they were ugly. I love everything about Gardena right now—the floating hedges, the smell of salt water. “I guess I’ve really let you down,” Dad says.
I don’t try to make him feel better by saying No, you haven’t. I can’t let him get off that easily.
“How long has Mom known about Mrs. Papadakis?”
“A while,” he says, and I start feeling bad for my mother. Tony ripped my heart out, and he wasn’t even a boyfriend. I can’t imagine what it would have felt like if he had been so
meone really important, like my husband. “But I didn’t want to talk about me and your mother. This is about you and me.”
Dad says that he’s been doing some soul-searching and that he’s not going to be spending as much time with Mrs. Papadakis, but he explains that he’s not going to be moving back in with us, either. “I think I have to be on my own for a little while. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be seeing you. We’ll get together all the time.”
I nod, but I think, That is, if I stay in Mill Valley. I’m still not quite sure where home will be for me. Even if I go back to Mill Valley, it’s not going to feel the same. I have barely spoken to Emilie, and besides, I feel that I’ve changed so much this summer I’m not the same person anymore. I’m not sure who I am or if I like who I am. The parts of my brain and my heart that remember kissing Tony or folding the 1001 cranes will never disappear. And although some of it hurts, I wouldn’t give any of it back.
The Last Crane
It’s funny: when I first came to Gardena, I knew no one besides Grandma Michi, Gramps, and Aunt Janet, but now a small crowd of new friends gathers in the waiting room while Gramps has his surgery. Rachel, Rachel’s parents, Keila, Nathan, and, of course, Mr. and Mrs. O.
Something is wrong with the air-conditioning in the waiting room, so everybody’s face is a bit red and jackets are off. My dad and mom are there, too, even sitting next to each other in those uncomfortable plastic chairs. They really aren’t talking much, but it’s good to see them together. I wonder if maybe my prayer at church has come true, but not exactly in the way I pictured it.
Aunt Janet isn’t around, because she had to go to the flower market in Gramps’s place. But before she left, she squatted down alongside the couch, next to my head on the pillow. “Let me know when Gramps gets out of surgery,” she said. She spoke to me like I was an adult, not a kid. Although I wasn’t totally awake, I nodded. I’d remember.
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