Plum Rains

by Andromeda Romano-Lax

  When Sayoko stopped short of saying more, Angelica suggested, “You’ve been thinking about your youth more lately. Is it because of this birthday? A hundred years is a big achievement.”

  Sayoko had been lost in thought. Now she emerged irritably. “Why must everyone keep saying one hundred, one hundred?”

  “Because it is a notable milestone, isn’t it?”

  Sayoko screwed up her face. “But I’m not one hundred. I’m a hundred and ten. Why doesn’t anyone ask?”

  Sayoko’s wrist monitor triggered an alarming squawk from the phone in Angelica’s pocket. Angelica hurried to tap down the volume.

  “Let’s take a few breaths now, Sayoko-san. One more day, and everything will be back to normal.”

  Angelica placed a hand on Sayoko’s forearm, but Sayoko pulled away. “I want to take baths again, like I used to. I want to go back to the old way.”

  Angelica laughed with genuine relief. “Is that all?”

  It wasn’t all. Angelica could tell from Sayoko’s fretful expression. But it was the one thing she could bring herself to talk about, and for her, it was serious in its own way. Angelica had grown up in a house with no bathtub at all. It had not occurred to her that taking a traditional, deep bath meant so much to Sayoko.

  “Please tell my son,” Sayoko said. Itou had already taken his bath, per custom, and was in bed. “And please accept that Hiro will be in charge of my bath time now. He’s the only one I trust to lower me in and get me out.”

  Angelica asked, “There’s nothing else you’d like to talk about?”

  Sayoko looked troubled but said nothing. Angelica thought back to what Hiro had suggested: that Sayoko would not open her heart to Angelica because Angelica had never opened her own heart. She had never risked sharing anything personal with Sayoko. She had always defended her reasoning: it wasn’t professional to share deeply personal details.

  But of course, that wasn’t the only reason. Angelica couldn’t become a different person suddenly, just because Hiro advised it and because Sayoko might have needed it. It was easier to deal with pills, meals and bathing, to keep one’s secrets and sorrows, and to let others keep theirs.

  Angelica asked, “You’re sure you don’t want me to help with the bath the first time, just to be sure?”

  Sayoko mustered a determined look. She was sure.

  “All right, Sayoko,” Angelica said, bowing her head.

  Angelica couldn’t concentrate, listening for any sign of difficulty coming from the main bathroom, just off the hall. She heard the sound of the tub lid sliding to one side, and then nothing else for the moment: no problems.

  She stared at digital kanji flashcards without understanding them, willing the minutes to pass. She wondered if she should inform Itou, who had closed his bedroom door, that Sayoko seemed particularly restless and unhappy. But no, of course not. She tried to lose herself in her phone again.

  An audio message showed up. Datu. He had read her last plea for honesty. And he had chosen audio, instead of text: one step closer to being with him. Finally.

  She pulled earbuds from her nursing tunic pocket and pressed play.

  “Nena,” he said. “First, I’m sorry.”

  Then there was loud static, obscuring the next part of the message. They’d redacted it, those bastards. This was why Datu always preferred text, because a black strike-through box was easier on the eyes than piercing static was on the ears.

  She didn’t turn down the volume. She kept straining to listen, thinking a word or at least the cadence of his voice would break through. It was like listening for someone shouting through waves, or wind.

  The static carried its own message, just like the storm’s sounds had. If they’d redacted it, it was because Datu was admitting something about contamination, or about Masakit—something graphic enough to violate his non-disclosure agreement.

  She listened to the static, wincing at its undulating volume. She let it pierce her ears and sink down heavy into her heart. He was trying to tell her, because she’d begged for his honesty. The truth hurt.

  Then his voice was back. “But Nena, you gotta stop trying to rescue me. You’ve been trying for too long. It’s not a good thing.”

  A pause, and she expected the static again, but it was only Datu preparing to say something else she didn’t want to hear.

  “I’ve been talking with someone about this.”

  Talking with who?

  “Getting it off my chest. She says . . . She says I have to stop feeling guilty, and maybe stop letting you put pressure on me.”

  Angelica closed her eyes and tried to relax her shoulders, to listen and not judge.

  “She says that sometimes people mean well, but they try to help when what they really want is to . . . I don’t know.”

  This wasn’t Datu’s forte, this therapy-speak. It wasn’t hers, either.

  “It’s kind of controlling, maybe. I’m not saying you ever meant it to be.”

  Another pause, without static. The censors didn’t give a shit about this: the unburdening of a dying man, as long as he didn’t talk about what he was dying of.

  “So you don’t owe me anything. None of this utang na loob eternal gratitude bullshit.” He tried to laugh, but then his voice grew serious again. “I came back for you, I got you out, but you don’t owe me.”

  She couldn’t help it. She took offense.

  “So . . . that’s sort of over, isn’t it? We’re even. There’s no point in keeping count of who owes who anymore.”

  Except he wasn’t asking a question, he was delivering a practiced statement. It was over, for him, whether or not they’d ever discussed it openly, not face to face, or voice to voice. She might have a few questions or statements of her own.

  “I did what I could. I was a pretty fucked-up kid for a couple years there. And then coming back to the orphanage . . .”

  She had a feeling he’d gone off script.

  “I couldn’t do anything about that, you know? You seemed to think I could do something about that. They didn’t want two kids. Turns out—” he tried to laugh again, “they didn’t even want one. Point is: we’re grown-ups now, Nena. And you gotta stop thinking you owe me. Because I think what you really want is for me to owe you.”

  Want him to owe her? That wasn’t fair. Anyway, what about the land title and the chance to finally get their family plot back? What about his dream—not hers—his? She hadn’t invented any of that.

  “About the money . . .”

  Money was the simplest part of it, even if that part made her mad, too.

  “Given what I’m going through here, I think we have to call it even. Everything else: that’s definitely even.” She heard a soft voice, muffled in the background, someone coaching him. She could picture someone squeezing his hand when he got the words wrong.

  “Not even. Even is the problem. All this keeping track, all this owing and being owed has just piled up resentment. Every time I see a new text, I think—”

  But at this point he couldn’t go on. Yet she knew: he didn’t appreciate hearing from her as much as she’d always thought. He didn’t want a reminder of who he’d once been, or of the mistakes he’d made, even recently. The last thing he wanted was connection. He wanted to be cut loose.

  “I don’t mind being here. Really. I’ve got what I need here.”

  The phone in her hand was only a glowing blur now. She’d wiped her nose so many times her sleeve was soaked. It couldn’t absorb anything more. But she had to remind herself: he was being coached. And he was sick. And he was scared. He didn’t mean most of it. He couldn’t. They could still be okay, even after everything he’d said.

  Angelica scrolled down for a continuation of the audio message, but that was all. There had to be more.

  Upset as she was, she was about to start listening again when a lou
d thud made her set down her phone. Something or someone had fallen to the floor, followed by a scrabble of metal against tile.

  “Sayoko-san!” Angelica called out, rushing out into the hallway, hand reaching for the knob. “Let me in. Hiro, open the door.”

  “I have her,” came Hiro’s voice. “We are fine.” Though it was not possible—he was only a machine, he did not need oxygen—he sounded out of breath.

  “Don’t move her if she’s injured. Let me see, first.”

  “I’m not injured,” Sayoko responded crossly. “We’re all in a stupid heap but we’re fine.”

  Bathroom door open, the questions followed for five minutes, as Angelica made sure Sayoko was unharmed, without a scratch, wrapped in a robe and seated comfortably in her bed, drinking a glass of water. Angelica felt less like a nurse than a head nurse, grilling some new hire on mistakes made.

  Hiro admitted it. “She got dizzy. But I noticed. I caught her.”

  “And why was she dizzy?”

  “Most likely the hot water.”

  “What temperature did you set?”

  Sayoko interrupted. “The temperature I like. How I used to have my bath.”

  Angelica interrogated Hiro. “Forty-two degrees? Forty-four?”

  “Forty-two,” Hiro said. He had been standing in front of them both, but at a shy distance. Now he took a step closer to the futon, bent slightly forward in a posture of contrition, gesturing with his hands. “I checked before she entered the water. The thermostat was steady.”

  “Steady but too high. The recommended bath temperature is thirty-seven degrees. Above thirty-nine, you should be prepared for physiological effects, which include what, Hiro . . . ?”

  “I’d freeze in such a cold bath!” Sayoko protested. “That’s a foreigner’s way of bathing!”

  “Anji-san, she requested a traditionally hot bath. She was alert. In such a matter, I feel compelled to obey Sayoko-san.”

  “Is there nothing else you could have done?” Angelica was more relieved than angry. Her pulse was slowly returning to normal. Things could’ve turned out much, much worse.

  Hiro replied, “Be better prepared for her dizziness, just in case.”

  “Because when do falls most often happen? In changing situations. A new room. Unfamiliar surroundings. A hot bath when a person has not had a hot bath in many months.”

  “I regret my errors, Anji-sensei.”

  “What else? Think, Hiro.” He stood up and his eyes dimmed, concentrating or at least making a show of concentrating, waiting for Angelica’s rage to cool. As a gesture of respect, he had called her “sensei” again, something that she had missed, strangely enough. Was it only a few days ago that he had stopped? Even so, she could feel the anger rising, less at him than at everything else. She was mad because Sayoko could’ve been seriously injured, but that wasn’t the only reason. She had nowhere to direct her sense of outrage against the unfairness of life. Why had she even bothered coming to Japan?

  Sayoko complained, “You shouldn’t keep badgering him, Anji-chan.”

  “I am teaching him, Sayoko-san.” And in that moment, she realized she truly was.

  You did not teach something that could not learn. You did not teach someone you didn’t respect. You did not teach someone who would be gone in a few weeks’ time. It was undeniable and perhaps it was even destined: Hiro would stay. She would go. No matter Bagasao’s threats.

  “What else might have prevented her dizziness?” Angelica asked, drilling Hiro again, but she was beginning to feel calmer.

  A decision had been made, and it hadn’t required a flawless performance on Hiro’s part for her to finally see the truth, that Hiro was better for Sayoko, and fully capable. The capacity for error was essential to the capacity for true competence, just as Kenta Suzuki had claimed. And the capacity to accept defeat made Angelica feel human for the first time in days.

  Hiro said, “I should have made the air temperature in the room warmer.”

  “Better. How warm?”

  “Up to twenty-six degrees, to offset a water temperature of forty-two.” Hiro bowed his head.

  “Yes. Real nurses make mistakes, Hiro. All of us do. What matters is that you are humble enough to learn from them. I have full confidence in you.”

  Angelica pulled her phone from her blouse pocket. She swiped her thumb across the screen, pressed the icon for Sayoko’s vitals. But the app had malfunctioned. The pulse rate read zero. She closed and reopened it, and then realized. She reached for Sayoko’s hand, pushed the loose robe sleeve up her forearm. Her narrow wrist—pale, blue-veined—was bare.

  “Where is your wrist monitor?”

  Sayoko didn’t answer.

  “Hiro, how did she remove the band?”

  They’d gone through three models to find the one Sayoko couldn’t take off easily. It was imperative that she wear it in the shower, in her sleep, everywhere. Sayoko always claimed the monitor, no matter how narrow and smooth, bothered her. She had complained to Angelica in their first weeks together that it chafed her skin, that it made her feel anxious, that she kept wanting to tear it off—a lot of drama for a simple band around one’s wrist. At one point, Sayoko had even broken down and cried. But Angelica had never given in. Sayoko’s health records were scant already and her risk factors were high. An old-model vitals wearable was nothing compared to the internal monitors most elderly patients used or the color-changing vitals tattoos that younger patients were getting.

  “Hiro?” Angelica demanded.

  “I monitored her pulse manually, before and halfway through the bath. It had only increased by ten percent.”

  “There is no need to monitor manually. The wrist monitor remains in place, even during bathing. No matter what Sayoko tells you.”

  “She told me only the truth.”

  “Which is . . . ?”

  “That she missed the old way of bathing.”

  “So?”

  “And that love requires freedom.”

  “Love requires freedom,” Angelica repeated back, flatly. “And what about duty?”

  “Duty is complicated, Anji-sensei,” Hiro said. “It requires us to ask: who is the master?”

  “It’s just a wrist monitor, Hiro. Don’t make things difficult.”

  Hiro held his ground. “But you don’t understand why she detests that wrist monitor, Anji-sensei. I owe you consideration, but you owe me trust as well. There is a good reason. Risk is not the only factor to consider.”

  Itou appeared in the doorway, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “I heard noises. Are you arguing?”

  Sayoko looked to Angelica, who looked to Hiro, who looked to Sayoko.

  Itou studied them, waiting. “Somebody answer me. Is everything all right?”

  Angelica had imagined how to create this moment, exactly the moment Junichi had pressured her to stage and yet, staging wasn’t even necessary. Mistakes had been made. Sayoko had come close to a serious injury. Hiro was entirely to blame.

  Angelica had never been able to imagine the exact conversation with Itou that would follow, and that had been the problem: her ambivalence, her guilt, her unwillingness to be unequivocal. And yet, she thought one last time: how easy it would have been. Told one way, it could sound like Hiro was dismantling the minimal technology they’d managed to enforce until now, the only remaining gadget that had kept Sayoko safe. Told one way, it could sound like Hiro was carelessly—for all they knew, purposefully—hastening Sayoko’s death.

  This would’ve been her opportunity to sow maximum doubt and she hadn’t even had to use Junichi’s tricks or half-truths. She hadn’t had to hurt Sayoko with her own hands or risk her well-being in any way. Hiro had done it all on his own.

  The moment was here. And then the moment was gone. Angelica felt confused, but she also felt lighter.

  “Mother?”
Itou asked.

  But Sayoko only regarded him with a blank expression, a resolute obstinacy perfected over years.

  “Well?”

  Hiro started to speak. “There was—”

  Angelica interrupted, “—a minor disagreement about bath temperatures. Nothing important.”

  “Bath temperatures?”

  Itou turned his wrist out of habit but there was no watch there. He was barefoot, hair ruffled, eyes mere slits under heavy brows.

  Hiro turned to face Sayoko-san, head bowed. “This is your chance to tell him.”

  Even Angelica was confused now: Tell Itou about the bath? About the fall?

  Or was it: Tell Itou about why she detested the wrist monitor? About her sudden insistence that she was ten years older than anyone had ever guessed?

  “Later,” Sayoko said.

  “Later,” Hiro suggested, “when he is traveling again, never home? Or later, after some reporter has done his own research, and the world knows before your own son?”

  “Not now,” Sayoko said, right hand over her left wrist, hiding the absence of the medical wearable.

  “Is this important, Mother?” Itou asked.

  “No,” Sayoko said, deflated.

  “Isn’t it late for all of you to be up, then?” Itou demanded. “My mother has a very big day tomorrow. She can’t be falling asleep at her own party.”

  Sayoko sat up higher. “Why must there be such a big fuss? Can’t we cancel it all?”

  Itou opened his eyes wide at last. “Cancel it?”

  “Yes,” Sayoko said. “Cancel it. For me.”

  “It isn’t done.” He crossed his arms over his chest, feet spread far apart.

  “We didn’t use to have birthday parties,” Sayoko said. “Everyone celebrated the same time: New Year’s Day. My entire life, I haven’t cared for birthday parties. I haven’t cared for any event where I am put on display. Am I something for sale?”

  Itou frowned, unmoved.

  “I am afraid,” Sayoko said, voice trembling.