How to Be an American Housewife

by Margaret Dilloway

  I felt shy. He was exactly as my mother had described. Handsome, with kind eyes. “Hello. I thought you worked at Balboa.”

  “I do. I always come see my patients if they go elsewhere.” He smiled. “Nice to finally meet you. I’m Dr. Cunningham. You can call me Seth.” He shook my hand warmly, then felt Mom’s ankle for puffiness. “Dr. Su’s the best,” he said. “I want to make sure your recovery goes as well as your surgery.”

  “Much better now you here, Doctor,” Mom purred. I laughed.

  He glanced at me, one black eyebrow raised. “I would guess she’s on the mend.”

  “Another minute with you in here and she’ll be doing the samba.”

  He laughed, patting Mom’s leg, then checked all her vitals. “Looking good, Mrs. Morgan. I’ll see you at my office in a month for a follow-up.” He took a card out of his pocket and handed it to me. “Let me give you my card. Call me if you have any questions.”

  I watched him leave.

  Mom did, too. “Now you see what I talk ’bout?”

  I put my head down by hers. “Mom, when you get out of the hospital, can we write down how you cook your pizza? And spaghetti?”

  “Pinch of this, little bit of that, hard to write down. But I show.” She patted my head. “You strong girl. You can do whatever you want.” Her arm gestured around the room.

  I smiled, surprised. “You think so?”

  “I know it. All the time I am proud of you, Suiko-chan. All the time. You much more better mommy than me. Patient. No like me.” She paused. The machines whirred mechanically. “Maybe videotape my cooking? I always want be movie star, you know that?”

  “I know.” I smiled at her.

  She wiped away the mascara smudges from under my eyes. “If doctor like you like that, he like you no matter what. You better fix face before see him ’gain, huh?”

  I nodded. “I will, Mom.”

  The concept of shame (haji) is unheard of in America. This is why Americans often don’t understand Japanese. Americans feel guilt rather than shame.

  During samurai times, public shame was as good as death. Americans cannot comprehend this. There are very few things that bring about shame in America. Americans usually do what they want. This is both good—Americans marry Japanese women, providing them with better lives—and bad. Americans may not feel shame for committing crimes or failing their parents, among many other things.

  —from the chapter “Turning American,”

  How to Be an American Housewife

  Shoko

  A week and a half passed, or so Charlie said. I didn’t bother keeping track. As I dozed in my hospital bed, I dreamed about my brother and me, hiding in our darkened house. I was kneeling, my head on a blanket so my bottom was in the air like a stinkbug. My parents held Suki close by. Taro got next to me. “Little big sister,” he crooned, his cheek pressed to mine, “all will be well.”

  “How do you know?” I asked, opening an eye. All I could see was the shiny white of his eye, glowing in the near total blackness. A plane roared, deafening, overhead; the house rattled with a not-so-far-off explosion. Suki whimpered, and my mother nursed her to quiet her. I prayed.

  “We are together, princess.” Then he belched directly onto my nose, his breath fish-stinky, laughing, and I shoved him away.

  The room brightened. I opened my eyes and was not in Japan at all, but in my hospital room, an oxygen tank helping me breathe. My heart beat strong in my chest; I pictured the stitches healing magically.

  “Shoko-chan?” A male voice. It’s so familiar, but I can’t place it. Not Charlie or Mike or a doctor.

  Then a face wove into view. My baby brother, hair gray, face wrinkled, but the same broad nose and big-toothed grin. My Taro. “I am not dead?” I said in Japanese, surprising myself.

  “Too stubborn, like me.” Taro laughed. I took his arm and pinched it—not hard, because I was weak. He squealed all the same. He was real.

  WE SPOKE OF MANY THINGS. Sue had called after the surgery, and he had decided to come, just like that.

  My Japanese flowed through rusty old pipes at first, but then came strong and clear. We talked of our children and grandchildren, but not one word of what drove us apart. It no longer mattered. I took his hand in mine, stuck through with tubes. “Look at us, two old farts,” I said, patting his liver spots.

  “Only the shell is old.” Taro’s eyes twinkled as I remembered. My baby sister flashed before me, her lilting laugh, her pigtails flying with her jump rope. Oh, if only I could have seen Suki, too! “If Shoko can’t come to Japan, Japan comes to Shoko,” Taro said, showing me photos of Sumiko and Taro-chan.

  I smiled. “I will come. You’ll see.”

  We have heard Housewives complain of boredom, especially after their children are older.

  If you find yourself bored or discontented, try this: Give your house a thorough cleaning. Get rid of everything you have no need for. Make your American house as uncluttered as a Japanese house. There is no better cure for the doldrums.

  —from the chapter “American Housekeeping,”

  How to Be an American Housewife

  Sue

  At last, when I had exhausted excuses to stay away, I was forced back to work the following week. Helena returned to school. Everything was back to normal, yet nothing for me was normal any longer.

  Mom was getting stronger, still in the hospital. Taro’s visit had jolted life back into her. In a few weeks, she would be moved to another floor. Once she could do a slow lap around the floor, she would be able to go home.

  Weeks passed. Taro returned to Japan. Mom got out of the hospital. I talked to Dr. Cunningham—Seth—on the phone a few times, even going out for coffee once, a dinner next. And still I whiled my time away at the office, doing as much work as necessary to keep me employed, running home to attend to Helena, daydreaming about Japan.

  How could I miss Japan already? I carried the stone from my family’s land in my pocket, turning it over and over in my fingers, its presence a comfort during traffic jams and long meetings. My little house felt odd to me now. I ran into corners, I put spoons in the wrong drawers. I had to think about which freeway to take to work. San Diego had become a foreign nation. Perhaps I needed more time to readjust.

  Or perhaps I needed a change. Nothing held me back. My mother had said I could do whatever I wanted. She was right. I could be doing so much more. Look at what my Japanese cousins had achieved. I applied for jobs in other departments, even at a few other companies. A new challenge to keep me occupied. Anything.

  One night, while Helena worked on homework at the dining table, I looked up teaching programs on the computer. I made notes of a few programs, what they required to get in. And then, on a whim, I typed in “Teaching in Japan.”

  It was absolutely ridiculous. To think of me, a woman with responsibilities, going to a teaching-abroad program like a college kid with a backpack. But I took out Toshiro’s card anyway, the man we had met on the plane, and looked up his company.

  A list of opportunities popped open. One was near Sumiko and Taro on Shikoku. I glanced stealthily at my daughter, sure she could hear my heart rate change, moving my shoulders so she would not be able to see the screen and ask what I was doing. I wasn’t ready to answer yet.

  I read the salary. Housing was included. It wouldn’t be so bad. I allowed myself to imagine this new life, packing up this house, flying back to Japan, training, working.

  I took the stone out of my pocket and tossed it on the desk. It clattered and turned like a top, black with purple undertones I had not seen before. I spun it again. I couldn’t uproot Helena to Japan. I put my hand over the stone, stopping its momentum.

  “Mom?” Helena’s voice near my head came low. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.” I made to close the computer window, but she put her hand over mine.

  “Japan? Are you serious?”

  “Of course not. It’s silly. I was only curious.”

  “ �
��Teaching in Japan.’ ” Helena was silent, staring at me.

  “I know.” I shook my head. “I’m just restless.” I smiled at her, touched her chin. “I’ll get over it. Don’t worry, honey.”

  “No, Mom.” Helena wedged a chair in beside me. “It’s not silly at all. I think”—she took the mouse—“it’s one of the greatest ideas you’ve ever had.”

  “But finding you a school—you don’t know Japanese—there are so many variables. No. It’s too hard.” I watched her face.

  There was no hesitation on it. “I would be learning a new language and culture. Think of the college essay I could write!” Helena grinned. “Besides, you could talk to Yasuo. Do some fact-finding about schools. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

  “I guess not.” I could rent out this house for more than the mortgage payment. It would be two years, tops. I would see if I really liked teaching. My hands got cold, my cheeks hot.

  Helena pointed to the screen. “Let’s see what the housing is like.”

  She scrolled down until an ad caught my eye. “Stop here!” I said. The rent was fifteen hundred a month, exactly the housing allowance’s limit. For Rent, it read. One solitary house of yearning, in hills of Uwajima. Three bedrooms, one bathroom.

  The hairs on my neck stood up. I rubbed my hands together and kept my voice calm. “It’ll be gone by the time we’re ready to rent it.”

  “It won’t be. We can make it work.” Helena turned to me, grinning hugely. She put her face right next to mine. “Promise me you’ll do this. Promise me you’ll try.”

  I nodded, then smiled back. “I will.” I would. For the first time in forever, I spun around in my office chair, laughing like a little kid at a carnival ride. Then Helena sat on my lap and we spun together.

  EPILOGUE

  The Solitary House of Yearning

  If you must return home to live in Japan, expect to find re-assimilation very difficult. Children are resilient, but you have become accustomed to the soft American lifestyle.

  Remember in Japan not to act too “American” to avoid offense to other Japanese. Your children should behave as Japanese children and not American, as well.

  If this book teaches you one thing, let it teach you this. Do not protest against life’s strains, but let them unfold and carry you through wherever they may.

  —from the chapter “Turning American,”

  How to Be an American Housewife

  Sue

  I stuck my head out the back door, a light mist of rain hitting my face. “Time to come in.”

  Taro-chan looked up from his mud pie. His face and body were completely covered in the stuff. I groaned. “Hai.” Taro-chan ran full throttle at me.

  Sumiko blocked him. “Clean up first.” She held him in front of her like a wet puppy. We marched him into the bathroom, plopped him under the shower to rinse off the muck, then carried him into the ofuro for a good scrubbing.

  It had only been a couple of months since I arrived, but my “solitary house of yearning” already felt more like home than my old house. Of course, by the time I had gotten here the original “solitary house” had been rented, but the name had stuck. This home, only a few roads over from Sumiko’s, was cozy and small, set in a copse of trees, as picturesque as a woodblock print. It had a sloping roof and shoji-screen dividers, so even though it was as small as the house back in the States, it felt larger.

  Sumiko smiled coyly as we rubbed soap across Taro-chan’s back. “You hear from nice doctor man?”

  I smiled. “Sometimes.” Seth and I had been e-mailing each other, and he had promised to visit as soon as he got time off.

  Teaching was enough, for now. “Sensei,” the students called out all day. It took me a while to get used to the title. I taught teens in the daytime, and adult classes two evenings a week. They asked about everything, from American celebrities to how to salute the flag.

  I wondered why I hadn’t changed careers before. I knew why—too complacent at my old job—I chastised myself for the lost years, until I realized that chastisement and what-ifs got me nowhere.

  I left Sumiko attending to Taro-chan and went into the main room. Helena sprawled on the floor, chatting on the phone with one of her new Japanese friends. I grinned. Some things knew no cultural boundaries. “Hey”—I patted her leg—“you better be talking to the Emperor if you haven’t done your homework.”

  “In a minute.” She rolled over. As the sole American at her school, classmates congregated around her, wanting to know if she knew any celebrities, touching her hair, asking her to help them with their English. She loved being the center of attention. Diving headfirst into Japanese wasn’t easy, but her teachers were understanding.

  Yasuo invited Helena to an art class he taught on Saturdays, and she’d gotten into anime. We had already been to Tokyo a couple of times, where she made it her mission to try to outdress the funkiest Japanese teenagers, which meant she looked like an anime character herself. Her hair was now dyed purple at the tips. At least she’d return to the States with plenty of pink vinyl jackets.

  I had worried that the relatives would be upset at our leaving, but Helena’s grandparents on both sides had been unexpectedly supportive of our move. Mom especially. “Big adventure,” Mom had said at the airport as she saw us off. “Good luck.”

  Helena hung up the phone with her friend. “When’s dinner, Mama-chan?”

  “Soon.” I picked some blocks off the floor and threw them into the toy box.

  “You should make Taro-chan do that,” a deep voice boomed from the door. Taro held a black umbrella over his head. He snapped it closed. “Never too early to teach responsibility.”

  Taro, telling a boy to clean up? He must be softening in his old age.

  “Hi, Uncle Taro.” Helena bounded over to give Taro a peck on the cheek.

  He smiled. “Helena-chan, did Taro-chan dress you today?” He pointed to her hot-pink pleated skirt and her swirled black-and-white tights, worn with red Converse hightops.

  “Very funny.” She ran off.

  “They still wear uniforms, right?” Taro said worriedly.

  “No, they require pink hair at her middle school.” I grinned. “I’m just kidding. Come in and sit down.”

  He knelt near the dining table. “Ah, you are going to make me fat and butter-kusai.” He sniffed the air. “Is that beef I smell?”

  “Sukiyaki.”

  Sumiko returned from her bathtub foray, wiping her hands on a towel. The front of her shirt was completely soaked. “Suiko, have you clean shirt?”

  “In my closet.” I went into the kitchen to get the bowls and chopsticks.

  “What day is your mother coming?” Taro took the rice bowls and filled each with steaming white sticky rice.

  “Next month, the third. They’re flying into Kyushu.”

  “I will pick them up,” Taro said. “You still might get lost, you know?”

  “We’ll go together.” I put the sukiyaki pot on the burner in the middle of the table, then turned it on.

  Taro-chan clambered up and reached for the pot. “No, no! Hot!” Sumiko said, grabbing his hand.

  Helena picked up some vegetables with her chopsticks. Taro had already dug in. Sumiko wiped a stain off Taro-chan’s lemon-yellow Pokémon shirt.

  I put my chin on my hand and stared, still not quite believing where I was. My American life seemed like it had happened to someone else. Only Helena was proof of its existence.

  “Mom?” Helena said, her face abruptly in front of mine. Her mascaraed lashes blinked rapidly. “You all right? You’re doing that thing Ojīchan does: staring at us.”

  “Sorry.” I shook my head. “Just lost in thought.” I put a hand on Helena’s cheek. “I’m going to have to confiscate that makeup bag.”

  My daughter smiled guiltily. “I thought you wouldn’t be able to tell.” She held her white porcelain rice bowl up and scooped a wad toward her Cupid’s-bow mouth.

  “I can always tell,
my dear,” I said. “When you’re a mother, you’ll understand.”

  It is true that the Marriage is a difficult path for some people to stay on. As years pass, however, the proposition becomes easier. The husband grows accustomed to the company of his Wife, and vice versa. This is how families attain the permanence to which we all aspire.

  —from the chapter “A Map to Husbands,”

  How to Be an American Housewife

  Shoko

  I need sunblock,” I said. Charlie handed me the pink bottle. I took off my Cubs cap to slather some onto my face, then poured it into my hand. “Did you get top of your head?”

  Charlie took off his Padres cap. I patted it onto his nose and scalp. He wrinkled his face. “This stuff feels greasy.”

  A cheer went up from the crowd. I stood up from the plastic seat. “What happen?”

  “Home run.” Charlie pointed to the Padres player running the bases and grinned. “Looks like the Cubs are going to lose, Shoko.”

  “Only third inning. Plenty of time.” I sat back down. We were sitting in the middle section of Petco Park, near the redbrick Western Metal Supply Company building, which served as the left-field foul pole, watching the Cubs and Padres play. I thought I’d never been in such a beautiful place. I could see the entire field better than on television. Beyond, I caught glimpses of the harbor, shining like a nickel in the sun. A breeze from the water hit my face. Charlie didn’t really care for baseball, but he took me anyway, even though he hated driving downtown. Those one-way streets confused him.

  This being outdoors, doing things, was new to me. Charlie and I had also been walking from time to time. I wanted to get in good shape for my Japan trip, to visit Sue as well as Taro and the rest of my family. My mended heart, with the wedge cut out of it to make it smaller, was doing well. The doctors thought it would add five or more years to my life. I hoped for longer. I told Charlie, “I’m not gonna sit around waiting no more. We got to do stuff.”