How to Be an American Housewife

by Margaret Dilloway

He held on to the doorjamb. “No.”

  Charlie looked at Mike, then at me. “Fine. Get in the car, Shoko.”

  I did.

  Charlie turned the ignition on and drove away quickly.

  “What you doing?” I cried, looking back at my son. Mike’s mouth was open in a wail.

  “Teaching him a lesson for throwing a tantrum.”

  I turned, wondering if Mike would run to the neighbor’s, if he would run down the driveway after us. Mike was still holding on to the house.

  We drove to the end of the block, then turned around. Mike was still on the doorstep, his hands now in his lap, his face covered by new tears.

  “I thought you left me,” he said, hiccuping.

  “We never leave you.” I tried to put my arms around him. He pushed me off.

  He stared. I saw that he did not believe me.

  “You ready now?” Charlie asked him.

  He went silently to the car, his head hanging down. Mike was too easily broken. What other children shrugged off, Mike could not. I shook my head at Charlie and got in the backseat next to my son. Charlie drove us silently to the airport.

  Mike never complained about moving again. Instead he would sit in a corner, a blanket pulled over his head, shutting out us and the rest of the world, until I took him by the hand and led him to the car.

  I stared at him now, an adult leaning against his doorjamb, seeing the little boy. “The smoke hurt my heart.”

  “What’s the problem? I’ve got the window open.” He cleared his throat. I hoped he wouldn’t get lung cancer.

  A black cat ran into the hallway. “Shoot.” Mike had just gotten a notice to get out of his old place. Over the years, Mike had moved out and back more times than I could count. This time, he moved back in with four cats. They peed all over the living room. I put my foot down. Now he kept them in his room, taking out the window screen so they could come in and out as they liked. But we were near a mountain, and coyotes had eaten two in the last week.

  Mike slammed his door shut, chasing the cat. I leaned against the wall. He caught it in the living room and brought it back, cradled in his arms like a baby.

  I crossed my arms. “You pay Daddy first month rent?”

  Mike shrugged, pushing back his long hair with one hand. He went in his room and returned with a hundred-dollar bill, handing it to me without a word.

  “How work going?” Mike had begun a new job at a pet store.

  He shrugged again, and his eyes flicked back toward his closed door like he was missing his favorite show. “Fine.”

  “Maybe you go back school, be a vet? You like that. Never too late.” I would go back to school, if I could. Grossmont Community College was only a mile away.

  “Maybe. Yeah.”

  I knew he only said that to make me shut up. “No more smoke room. Outside only.”

  “Fine.” He was barely listening, his head cocked toward the television dialogue.

  I wanted to tell him more: that he needed to clean the filthy bathroom he used; that he should rinse out his dishes; that he should keep his room neat. It was no use. If he cleaned the bathroom, first I’d have to nag, and then he’d do a halfway bad job at it, so I would have to redo it anyway. It was easier for me or Charlie to do, even with our ailments.

  “You have dinner with us?” I asked him.

  He shrugged.

  “What mean? Say yes, say no. No shrug.”

  “No, then.” He shuffled his feet.

  “Got work?”

  “Yeah.” The cat in his arms purred. He put his nose to its nose.

  “You not watch so much TV. Make brain Jell-O. Read book.” I scratched the cat’s neck. It licked my hand, sandpapery wet.

  “Okay.” Mike opened his door and disappeared inside.

  I wondered if we should keep letting him move back in. After all, he was fifty. But he still hadn’t married. And who would ever marry him?

  I raised him like my mother had raised my brother. By doing everything for him. I knew no better. I had hoped he would still grow up to be a hard worker. Japanese boys turn out fine raised like this, but apparently not Americans. Or not my son.

  When Mike was a toddler and we lived in Virginia, I’d take him to the park and try to meet other children for playmates. For both of us.

  Children that young—Mike was a year and a half—didn’t care what a child looked like. Their mothers did. “He doesn’t look the least bit American,” one mother remarked to me as our sons dug sand near each other. “He really takes after you.”

  The mothers varied from polite to downright cold. I couldn’t blame them. Some had lost their fathers in the war with Japan. But I felt they could afford to be a little forgiving, seeing as how we lost in the end. Especially the manner in which we lost.

  Time did not make our way smoother. When Mike was twelve and playing Little League in Oakland, all the mothers had to make treats for their end-of-season party. Mike had told me about it as I sat on the bleachers watching the game, by myself, on the top row. “It’s tomorrow,” he said, throwing the ball into his mitt and not looking at me.

  The other mothers sat a few rows down or clumped in groups of two or three. They wore button-down shirts in pastel colors and capri pants, like a secret uniform. “Why they no tell me?” I asked.

  He shrugged and asked for snack money. I gave him a quarter and moved two benches down to Jackie, the team mother. Jackie had dark hair and a flip just like Jackie O, whom she resembled. She wore a giant floppy straw hat.

  Jackie smiled politely and I back at her. “Hi, Shoko, how are you?”

  “Very well, thank you.” I used my softest, most pleasant voice. “Jackie. I bring popacor-nu barus to party.”

  “What’s that?” Jackie said, not moving her lips from the smile.

  “Popacor-nu barus.”

  She blinked. “I’m sorry. One more time?”

  “Popacor-nu. Barus.” I made the shape with my hands.

  Jackie was silent, her head cocked to the side, the smile fading. The other mothers watched. Did they not understand, either?

  Mike had come back and was standing in the dirt by the bleachers, watching. “It’s popcorn balls!” he shouted. “What the hell is so hard to understand? You people are stupid. This team is stupid.” He threw his hat down.

  I never went to another game. But neither did I cry about it. Mike did not, either, or if he did, he did not let us know.

  I sorrowed for Mike. He had not changed much from the little boy on the front stoop. Less fussy, yes. But still easily broken. No one had ever been able to understand him. Always, he was moody, a loner, smart as a whip but lazy. Often he was in his own world, amusing himself. Today, Charlie said Mike might have been called “mildly autistic,” but not when he was growing up. Back then, he was just different, and we had done the best we could.

  I only hoped that Charlie would let Mike keep staying here after I was gone. He had nowhere else to go.

  CHARLIE CAME DOWN THE HALL, a mug of Sanka in his hands.“You want to have spaghetti tonight?”

  “No, no,” I murmured. “We out of noodle.” I considered telling Charlie about the letter right then. Perhaps he would have advice. Our dear Suki has passed on, I had written thus far. Perhaps it is time for us to make amends . . . Only last week, my sister’s husband had sent word that Suki had passed on months ago, from the same condition I had. Her heart. There was no explanation for why he had waited so long to tell me. I was out here in the West, as forgotten as a ghost.

  “I’ll fry us some steaks. Better take them out of the freezer.” Charlie hummed as he went into the bedroom and began putting away laundry.

  “I cook tonight. Your steak dry.”

  He laughed. “I’ll make yours bloody.” He folded and sang.

  Charlie had taken over most of the cooking. On days when I was tired, he pan-fried meat and made rice with microwaved frozen vegetables. Nothing like what I could make. I was just glad to have someone cook for me.
Otherwise, we’d be eating cold cereal.

  I hadn’t always been a good cook. I had made spaghetti for Charlie for the first time in 1955, in that Norfolk house.

  The spaghetti recipe was in the new American cookbook that Charlie gave me, How to Be an American Housewife. Written in Japanese and in English, it also taught the American way of housekeeping. I had never imagined that I would need such a book, since my mother and my high school had prepared me for being an excellent wife, but I had to admit, American ways were different. I took the book very seriously and made the spaghetti exactly as it said.

  The spaghetti recipe had worked. I cooked all day long, using tomatoes I grew in our little garden. The tomatoes were huge that year—our cat Miki used the garden as a litterbox, and I also composted bits and pieces of kitchen scraps.

  With Mike wrapped up on my back in a long bolt of material, I used all the strange ingredients we didn’t have in Japan—sugar, bay leaf, basil, oregano, sage. “Everything in Japan tastes fishy,” Charlie once told me, “even the spaghetti.”

  “Then why like sushi?” I asked.

  “That’s not fishy,” he said.

  That made no sense, so I threw my hands up.

  I made certain not to use any fish sauce or soy sauce in this dish, though either would have made it taste a lot better. Then I let it simmer all day, just like it said to, wondering when my new husband would get home. The Navy mostly kept him on a regular schedule when he was ashore, but you never knew for sure. A military wife knew her husband doesn’t truly belong to her.

  When I heard Charlie singing up the walkway, I put the plate on the table and waited. I hadn’t even eaten myself, though it was nearly seven o’clock. Mike was already asleep in the dresser drawer we had pulled out and padded as a temporary crib, swaddled in a receiving blanket I had knitted myself.

  “Tadaima!” Charlie sang out the traditional Japanese greeting. I’m home.

  “Okaeri!” I responded. Welcome back.

  “Boy, it’s too quiet in here.” He hung his sailor hat by the door, his curly red hair popping up, and left his shiny black shoes next to my pumps. Then he turned on the television. “I’m going to look at Mike for a minute.” Charlie headed for the bedroom. He loved that boy; he’d wake him up to hear his voice coo.

  “No. You crazy? Never go back sleep.” I blocked the doorway. “Eat.”

  He kissed me with a laugh, spinning me around so the collar on his dark sailor’s uniform flew out. “Yes, madame.” He scraped the metal chair out from the table and swung his leg over it, cowboy style. Then he tasted the spaghetti. I held my breath. He made a face. “Too sweet.”

  I sat down, trying to think of the English words. I shook my head and raised my hands. “What mean?”

  “It’s not like my mother’s.” He pushed the plate away. “I don’t like the onion chunks.”

  His mother’s sauce had most certainly been watered-down tomato paste and sugar, with no spices because they were poor. I stood up so quickly that the little wooden table slid away from me. “No eat, I throw!” I pointed at his head.

  “What?” His lips twitched, trying not to smile.

  “I throw.” I picked up the plate. I saw that on television once. That was how I spent most of my time in America, watching television and learning English. On one show, the wife threw the dinner at the husband’s face. “This from book.” I shook my head. “No throw out.” I would never really throw food at Charlie. I only wanted his attention. I never wasted food. In Japan, we never wasted a grain of rice or a speck of salt.

  Charlie’s eyes were big. I thought about our wedding day, when I wore a tall headdress. Some people said it was to cover up the woman’s horns that showed up after marriage. That’s what my father told Charlie, who had laughed. I wondered if Charlie was thinking about that, too, thinking that my horns were showing.

  “All right, already,” he said, putting a forkful into his mouth. He stared at the TV, like he always did. He used to watch it until two or three every night, even when there was nothing good on. And then he ate the entire plate, with seconds. As he should have. It was delicious, worth all my effort.

  I had spent most of the previous day searching for the spices in the Commissary, the discount grocery store on the base where we bought our food. It was a marvel unlike anything else I’d seen in America so far, including the Statue of Liberty. There were gleaming aisles of every type of food you could dream of. In Japan, especially during the war, the storekeepers only had a few bags of rice. Salt. Some roots. Here, I wanted to buy everything and nothing. I didn’t know how to cook the big juicy steaks Charlie loved; mine turned out leather dry. I had no idea how to make soup without miso or fish stock. I used water instead, and it tasted awful.

  Day after day, I experimented with American foods from the Commissary, learning how to cook all over again. Fry up a piece of meat, boil potatoes, carefully reading the recipes in my book over and over. It was hard learning recipes from a book, all alone, with new ingredients. Sometimes I misread them, mixing up “baking powder” and “baking soda” more than once.

  My own mother had taught me how to cook by observation. No formal measurements. Learning how to cook was like learning a language. You picked it up. All I had to do was be around her while she made rice or manju or fish stock, and just like that, I knew how to make these things, too.

  From the time I first had memories, my mother had been teaching me how to be a good housewife. I helped her do the chores every day, cooking and cleaning and sewing. As we worked, she would sing. Usually she sang isobushi, meaning “rocky-beach melody,” in her high, thin voice. It was one of the oldest folk songs, the same song fishermen and Noh actors had performed. It sounded like wailing, a lament.

  Mother was tough; she came from farming peasant stock. She had a long torso, short powerful legs, and wide feet. The type of person who could squat in a field like a salaryman sat at a desk. Her hair had been half gray since I could remember. Her kimonos were darker colors, solid blues and reds flecked with white.

  “Shoko-chan,” she would say, “take this for me.” I would take over stirring the pot of vegetables while she shifted my little sister Suki from her back to her front to nurse. In those days, children got nursed for a long time, until age two or three or even older. Sometimes that was all of the nourishment they got. It certainly was for my sister.

  I watched my mother, her weariness etched on her face though her voice soared, her breasts two sad sacks of rice, and her song seemed more like a warning to me.

  WHEN I HAD MY OWN DAUGHTER, I had tried to teach her how to cook, but Sue was a clumsy child. Nervous.

  Once, at age seven or so, she made cookies with me. “Measure flour. Make flat with knife,” I said to her. She spilled the flour all over immediately, then the sugar on the floor, then stuck a finger up her nose as she stood there, almost crying. I couldn’t believe it. When I was seven, I was cooking and going to the shops alone, and my child couldn’t even measure flour or tie a shoe.

  “You watch, okay? Sit watch.”

  She had sat with a sad face on the chair.

  “When old, no spill, you can help, okay?” I felt bad for her, but I did not have the time or energy to redo what she had done.

  Now I realized I was too impatient. I should have taught her how to clean up. I should have shown her what to do as my mother had for me. Maybe that was why Sue could not learn my own isobushi, hear my own warning.

  Getting used to American negativity can be difficult. Americans do not politely defer or help you save face; they simply say, “No,” loudly and emphatically. Being aware of this phenomenon will help prevent shock.

  Japanese say “No” when they mean “Perhaps.” Therefore, if you are talking in English to an American and you mean to say “Perhaps,” you might accidentally say “No.” This is confusing to the American.

  Reserve “No” for situations where you absolutely must respond in the negative; use “Perhaps” for all other situati
ons where you mean to give a gentle deferment.

  —from the chapter “Turning American,”

  How to Be an American Housewife

  Four

  I returned to the bedroom to kneel before my shrine, which I kept in a glass-shelved curio cabinet. When I left Japan, Father gave it to me, knowing there would be no Japanese churches where I was going. It was about the right size for a Barbie doll, maybe a little smaller. It looked exactly like a little wooden temple, with a glass door, writing, a tiny altar, everything. There were three small bowls for freshwater, uncooked rice, and salt.

  The shrine had an envelope with special blessed tissue paper in it. I used the paper on anything that hurt. I wet it and put it on any sore spot, like a cut, and by morning, the sore spot had disappeared. The kids even used it on their zits.

  Charlie dismissed it as toilet paper. Charlie was a Mormon. I did not believe in his God, he did not believe in mine.

  Here I also kept my other small treasures: a few Japanese dolls with real hair and silk kimonos; clay pots the children made; photos.

  I clapped my hands twice for the kamisama’s attention, praying for my heart. I prayed for Mike and Sue to be happy. I asked that my granddaughter, Helena, do well in school. I wanted Charlie’s knee to be healed. Most of all, for a good ten minutes, I prayed for my brother.

  Charlie came in with more laundry. “Why do you already have your good clothes on? Your appointment’s not until after lunch.”

  “I like get ready early.” I sat on my dressing stool. I want to go to Japan, I wanted to say. I want you to come.

  But Charlie was looking grumpy. He rooted around in his sock drawer. “Where are my thick white socks?”

  “How I know? You do laundry,” I reminded him. “Why you no go walk?” It would improve his mood. Besides, the doctor had told him to lose weight or get diabetes. His potbelly was so big it pitched him forward and rounded his posture. Nothing like the skinny corpsman I had met.

  He put on some other socks and cheap tennis shoes from the drugstore. “My knee hurts.” Charlie hated sweating. In Vietnam, his skin got tan—really his freckles growing together. He said that was enough outdoor time for him forever.