The Shape of Mercy

by Susan Meissner

  Thirty-Nine

  It was after ten that night when I pulled into Palo Alto. Raul wanted to meet me at the parking lot of the Holiday Inn where I’d hastily booked a room to make sure I made it okay, but I convinced him I’d be fine. He asked me to call him when I got there, and I did.

  He told me he’d file a flight plan for as early as he could, preferably so we could leave around seven in the morning, weather permitting. I got the impression that if it rained, he wouldn’t be able to take me. He figured it would take us a little under four hours to get to Portland. Then we’d need to rent a car and drive to the Kimura house on the western side of the city. I hoped to be at the house by one o’clock in the afternoon.

  I had difficulty falling asleep. The long drive from Santa Barbara, the stress of my dad’s surgery, the curious pain of my self-discoveries, the anxiety I felt over Abigail’s whereabouts, the safety of the diary, and the strange task that awaited me in the morning—the weight of these things hung on me. I lay awake for several hours before I fell asleep, my mind plagued by too many thoughts.

  In the morning, the wake-up call I’d requested split the quiet of my predawn room. I jumped out of bed, afraid I’d overslept even though I’d allowed myself plenty of time to get ready for Raul to come for me. I wore the outfit my mom bought for me, the one he said looked good on me. I hoped he’d notice.

  He came at 6:30 a.m., just like he said he would. A few minutes after he arrived, we were heading toward the municipal airport in the pearly gray dawn.

  “I don’t know how to thank you for doing this,” I said, unsure of what to say to him.

  “I don’t mind.” His voice was casual, relaxed.

  “I really am very grateful. More than I can say.”

  He looked at me and smiled. “I really don’t mind. I think it’s nice, what you want to do. I hope it works.”

  “Works?”

  “I hope it makes your friend Abigail want to come home.”

  I peered at him. Stared at him. I wanted so badly to apologize. But how do you apologize to someone who doesn’t know what you’ve done? Unless Cole told him …

  He peeked at me. “What is it?”

  I looked away.

  “What?” he asked, turning his attention back to the road.

  “I … I …,” I tried, but the words wouldn’t come.

  He stole another look at me. “You all right? You need me to stop?”

  His utter kindnesses to me, in so many ways, that day and many other days, tore at me.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked without thinking, not much louder than a whisper.

  Raul did a double take. “What was that?”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “You don’t want to go to Portland? I thought you wanted to go to Portland.”

  “Why are you nice to me?”

  He gave me a funny look. “You like it better when guys are mean to you?”

  I barely heard his question, lost in my own private world of self-loathing. “Why would you want to help me?”

  Raul shifted in his seat and looked out his window. “You got a problem with people who want to help you?”

  “I’ve got a problem with people like me.”

  He laughed. “People like you? There are more of you?”

  “We’re everywhere.”

  He laughed louder. “And what’s the deal with people like you?”

  I inhaled deeply. “We think we know everything. We think we can read people like they are books. We believe whatever we want about people, whatever others tell us to believe, and whatever we tell ourselves to believe.”

  I looked at Raul. He stole a glance at me.

  “You’ve lost me,” he said.

  “I hope not,” I whispered.

  “What?”

  “I’m as bad as the people I criticize all the time. Worse.”

  “Okay. Um. Who do you criticize all the time?”

  The truth seemed inescapable. “Just about everybody.”

  “That bad, huh?” he said. He wasn’t taking me seriously.

  “Yes. It’s that bad. We believe whatever we want! Do you know what I believed about you? I thought you were just another privileged guy, another rich kid flitting around in your own airplane, attending an exclusive school, rolling up the sleeves of expensive shirts like they were hand-me-downs, completely oblivious to real need.”

  Raul said nothing at first. “And that’s what you wanted to believe about me?”

  “No! It’s what I assumed. But I didn’t want it to be true.”

  His half smile surprised me. “You didn’t want me to attend an exclusive school and fly my own plane and wear nice shirts?”

  Why couldn’t he take me seriously? “I didn’t want you to be oblivious to real need. And the funny thing is, that’s the one thing that is least true of you, Raul.”

  We were silent for a moment.

  “Lauren, I don’t want you to say another word until I say you can, okay? I want to show you something. Look, we’re almost there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Shhh.”

  We pulled into the little airport and Raul parked the car. We got out and Raul pointed to the same plane I had seen two days before in Los Angeles. “I’ll meet you right over there.”

  “But I want to pay for the fuel,” I countered.

  “Hush. And you can’t. Cole and I already took care of it. I’ll be right back.”

  He returned from the clubhouse with a large bag. I watched him silently as he walked around the plane for the preflight check. When he was done, he placed a finger against his lips, letting me know I wasn’t free to say anything yet. Then he helped me into the plane. I had never flown in anything so small. Nervous anticipation gripped my stomach.

  Raul must have seen me pale.

  “You okay?” He handed me a pair of earphones from inside the bag.

  I nodded. I started to say something about being nervous, but he pressed a finger gently to my lips and said, “You’re not supposed to talk.”

  Seconds later he was beside me in the cockpit, turning the ignition. The noise of the plane’s engine filled the tiny space that surrounded us. Raul spoke into his mouthpiece and a conversation between him and the municipal airport’s ground control began. They spoke English, but I understood little of what they said. I tuned them out and focused on settling my nerves while the plane shuddered to life.

  Raul asked for permission to take off. Moments later we were taxiing down the small runway, and I could feel the air wanting to own us, wanting to lift us up from the ground and hurl us heavenward. The plane released its grip on the Tarmac and the propellers sent us to the sky. Inside, the cockpit rumbled with power, noise, and intensity. I leaned back in my seat and concentrated on breathing.

  The flat world fell away and the rounded horizon took shape. A fat stretch of pinkish blue shimmered in the distance on my right, as the bay brightened in the morning light. Cars below us on the 101 inched along an asphalt necklace, and brown hills to the east looked caramel-topped in the breaking sun. We lifted higher, and I was never more aware of how tiny and insignificant I was, sitting in that tiny plane, a speck of metal in a shining sky.

  It wasn’t until we had passed Oakland that Raul finally turned to me.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” His voice sounded strange through the earphones.

  I nodded, my mouth slightly open, my eyes taking it all in.

  He must have felt I was sufficiently awed by our surroundings. “Now you can talk!”

  Words failed me for a moment, not because I hadn’t been in a plane before, but because I’d never bothered to truly consider what existed beyond me.

  “I’m so small!” I gaped at the vastness that lay below us.

  He laughed and shook his head like I had missed the point completely. “The world is so big!”

  I blinked at him.

  “It’s not always about you, Lars,” he said lightly, like he didn’t wa
nt me to take offense.

  I didn’t.

  “So what are you going to say?”

  Raul sat next to me in the Honda Civic he’d rented since he was over twenty-one. I held the directions Ken Kimura had given me over the phone.

  “I don’t know exactly. I know what I’d like him to say.”

  “What’s that?”

  I’d rehearsed the scene several times as we flew over northern California. I pictured myself going to Tom Kimura’s bedside and having him reach for me while he said over and over, “Does she remember me? Does she remember me?”

  I pictured myself taking Tom Kimura’s wrinkled hand and telling him Abigail did indeed remember him. Every day she remembered him. I even imagined telling him she was haunted by her memories of him. Of what she had turned away.

  “I want him to tell me he’s never forgotten her. That a day hasn’t gone by in the last sixty years when he hasn’t had at least one fleeting thought of her.”

  Raul was thoughtful for a moment. “Tom Kimura married someone else. Had a son.”

  “I know. I’m not saying I wish he’d never loved anyone else. I just want him to remember her. I want him to ask me if I can bring her to him before … before it’s too late.”

  We were quiet for a few minutes as we drove down a wide tree-lined boulevard.

  “What if you can’t find her in time?” Raul looked at me.

  I knew this was probably how things would turn out. I had no idea where Abigail had gone, and Ken Kimura made it sound like his dad wouldn’t last through the week.

  “I’ll ask him to tell me what he would say to her if he could see her again. And then I’ll tell her. When I find her.”

  “Okay. So what if he says he has nothing to say?”

  Tom Kimura’s street came into view. I was through with believing the worst about people I didn’t even know. “He has something to say to her. He loved her. Besides, he asked me to come.”

  We pulled up to the curb in front of a cedar-paneled house flanked by a row of pines. Several cars were parked in front, silently attesting to an event taking place inside. For a moment I just sat in the car and looked at the house, preparing myself to meet the man who lay inside it, inches from another world.

  God, do something nice for Abigail. For all of us.

  Raul looked at me and the corners of his mouth rose slightly. “Ready?”

  I started to get out of the car. Raul didn’t move.

  “Aren’t you coming?” Alarm whispered through me.

  “Do you want me to?”

  “Of course!”

  “Then I’ll come.”

  We walked up the imbedded-stone path. Carefully manicured shrubs and rows of purple flowers lined the walk. A wind chime fluttered in the breeze, announcing our coming. A row of shoes let us know how many people were inside the house, waiting. When we stepped onto the porch we could see that a man stood at the screen door, watching us. Ken Kimura. We had called from the car rental agency.

  “Miss Durough?” he said, opening the door.

  “Please call me Lauren.”

  “Ken Kimura.”

  “This is my friend, Raul,” I said.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Ken said, almost mechanically. “Won’t you come in?”

  We slipped off our shoes and stepped inside. The entry was cool and fragrant. The décor, decidedly Asian, exuded peace and simplicity. I drank it in.

  Tom Kimura’s son was probably in his early sixties. His salt-and-pepper hair was trimmed short, and he wore a pair of rimless glasses. He looked tired. He showed us to a living room where six people waited. Six sets of sad eyes looked up at us. No one said a word.

  “I’m really sorry to be coming at such … such a hard time,” I finally said. “If it wasn’t important, I wouldn’t have bothered you. Honestly, I wouldn’t have.”

  Ken shrugged his shoulders and closed his eyes, like it hurt to have me say anything at all about my mission. Like he didn’t want to know why I came. He was just honoring his father, who’d asked that I be allowed to come.

  “It’s no bother,” he said. “Why don’t you come on back? I told my father you were on your way. He’s expecting you.”

  Ken turned toward a hallway and walked away from us. The six silent witnesses kept their eyes on me. I started to follow Ken, and when Raul didn’t come with us, I turned and begged him with my eyes to stay with me. He took a step toward me, and I resumed following Ken down the hall.

  Tom Kimura lay in a rented hospital bed. His weathered, wrinkled face was ashen, his body thin and wasted away under the blankets that embraced him. The room was furnished with a mix of medical machinery and serene Japanese artwork. A row of bonsai trees stood on a mahogany cabinet by the window. Inky black Japanese characters painted on creamy rice paper hung on the walls. A small desktop fountain bubbled over stones, its motor the only sound in the room besides the shallow breathing of the dying man.

  The gardener’s son.

  Ken stood over his father. “The woman from Santa Barbara is here,” he said.

  I cringed. Perhaps I had made a terrible mistake. I looked at Raul and his eyes spoke confidence. I stepped forward. Tom turned his head and his narrow eyes met mine.

  “You can leave us,” Tom said softly to his son. Gently. But it was a command nonetheless.

  Ken looked at me, flashed me a wordless plea to be brief, and left the room.

  “Come,” Tom Kimura said. I stepped closer to his bed.

  “My name is Lauren Durough,” I said. “This is my friend Raul. He brought me here. I’m Abigail Boyles’s assistant.”

  “Abigail,” Tom said.

  “Yes.”

  “Did she send you?”

  “She …” I didn’t know how to answer. The weight of not wanting to screw things up for Abigail tugged at me. “Actually, I don’t know where she is.”

  Tom blinked slowly. “Is she all right?”

  “Not really.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “She left the house without telling anyone where she was going. She has only called once and it was to give instructions about … I think she has gone somewhere to … to die.”

  Again the slow blink. “To die.”

  I couldn’t help the choice of words. Abigail had gone somewhere to die.

  “She is sick?”

  I chose my next words and actions carefully, praying they’d be the right ones. I had no idea what Tom Kimura expected or wanted to hear.

  “Not physically.” I touched the left side of my chest. “This is where she hurts.”

  His eyes widened.

  “She still loves you, Mr. Kimura. She has always loved you. Regret is what is killing her.” Two tears slipped out of my eyes as two tears slipped out of his.

  “How did you find me?”

  “I looked for you. And I found you.”

  Tom said nothing for a moment. “Why didn’t she look for me?”

  “She was afraid,” I said. It was as accurate an answer as any.

  “Afraid of what?”

  “Afraid you had moved on. Forgotten about her.”

  Tom turned his head to look at the row of bonsai trees. “I had to move on. I had no choice. But I did not forget her.” Two more tears slipped away from me and I rubbed them away. Tom slowly turned his head to look at me again. “Is that what you came to hear?”

  I nodded. “And it’s what I came to tell you. She has always regretted what she did. You should know that. She would want you to know that.”

  He turned his head again to look at the bonsai trees. “Will you tell her something for me?”

  “Of course.”

  Tom drew in a long breath and continued to stare at the trees. “Tell her the evening primroses will always come back. Every year. The winter chill will try to kill them, but they always come back. She liked those.”

  I told him I would tell her.

  “Open that cabinet for me,” he whispered. His eyes never left the bons
ai trees, and I realized he was staring at the cabinet on which they sat, not the trees themselves.

  I went to the cabinet and opened one of its polished doors. Inside was a collection of books and papers and a cedar box about the size of a turkey roaster.

  “Take out the box.”

  I obeyed.

  “The key is in the drawer above it, taped to the top.”

  I opened the drawer, which was full of pens, paper clips, and packages of mints, and felt inside for the key. I peeled away the tape and the key fell into my hand.

  “Open,” Tom breathed. His voice was weakening.

  I set the box down on the floor, inserted the key, and turned it. Inside the box were more papers and several bound journals. “The red one,” Tom whispered.

  I moved the contents around until I found a burgundy-hued, leather-bound journal. I lifted it out and showed it to him. “This one?”

  “Yes. Hand it to me. And a pen.”

  I stood, reached for one of the pens in the drawer, and handed it to him along with the journal.

  His weak arms reached for them but fell back against the blanket. He sighed.

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked, anxiety coursing through me.

  “Open the book. Hold it steady. Hand me the pen.”

  I did as he asked. Tom held the pen over the open front page and rested it there for a moment. Then he slowly began to write.

  Abby,

  All is remembered, all is forgiven.

  Live.

  Tom

  The pen fell away from his fingers and I took it. Raul moved toward me and I handed it to him.

  “These are poems I wrote. They’re not very good, but she might like the one on page twenty-six. Take the book to her. Don’t let Ken see you have it. When you are gone, if he asks, I will tell him I gave it to you. He will think I did not love his mother. I did. I loved them both. In different ways.”

  I hesitated.

  With a shaking hand, he thrust the book toward me. “Take it. Give it to her when you find her.”

  I closed my hands around the book.

  “She liked the primroses,” Tom whispered.

  “Yes,” I said, aware of Raul closing the box behind me, returning it to the shelf in the cabinet, and replacing the key under the tape.