It's Not Like It's a Secret

by Misa Sugiura

  “You could get a divorce. You could go to marriage counseling.”

  “That’s the American way. I am not American.” Here we go again. She continues, “Americans think that the divorce will solve all kind of problem. But divorce will not make me happier. I don’t think it will make you happier. It only disappoints everyone. Think of my parents—they will have two divorced daughters.”

  “Mom. Who cares who you disappoint?”

  “I care.”

  “Well, what about counseling?”

  But she won’t budge. “It’s a same thing. Americans think that talking about the problems will solve them, but it doesn’t. Not always. Some things cannot be changed with talking.”

  “Like what? What are you talking about?”

  She looks at me carefully. “You are still so young,” she says. “But maybe you can understand. Let me tell you a story of how your father and I got married.”

  “I know it,” I say. “Baba told me the whole thing once. And Dad’s told me, too.”

  “That is why I sent him away this morning. I’m going to tell it differently.” She puts her hand on my head and strokes my hair gently, like she used to do when I was a little girl. “Love marriages are normal in Japan now, but sometimes they are still difficult, especially in the countryside, where your father and I grew up,” she begins in Japanese. “Your father’s family is an old one, and proud. They have been samurai, farmers, scholars, and priests in the same area for many generations. My family, too, is old. My great-great-grandfather was a tea farmer, and he became very wealthy that way.”

  I nod. I’ve heard this part before. When we visited her in Japan, Dad’s mom, Baba, showed me the family’s collection of netsuke, button-like charms that samurai once used to fasten their purses to their sashes. There’s even an ancient sword resting in a place of honor in the two-hundred-year-old farmhouse where Dad grew up. And I’ve seen and smelled the boxes and jars that my mother’s family used to store and transport the tea they sold. Baba told me how Mom and Dad were good friends since toddlerhood because their families had known each other for generations. For generations, both families had only sons; the women were all daughters-in-law from other families. Mom was the first girl in four generations in both families, and everyone wanted her and Dad to get married one day. But neither of them wanted to. Both of them had relationships with people they met in college—in fact, Mom was even engaged. But then Dad’s girlfriend broke up with him and he got all depressed and sick, and Mom basically whipped him back into shape. Here, Baba chuckled and said, “You are her daughter. You can imagine how she was.” In the process, they fell in love, Mom broke off her engagement with the other guy, and now they’re living happily ever after.

  “But you had a love marriage, right? You and Dad were lucky because you loved each other.”

  “That’s the story that Baba and Dad have told you. Baba has told it so many times, she probably believes it’s true. But it’s only partly true. Your father and I were each in love with other people. My fiancé was a medical student from Tokyo. I met him at college. That much is the same as Baba’s story. The woman your father loved, though, was different.

  “Her name was Yūko-san, and she was a college student, too, at the same school as your father. She was from the city of Kobe. She was smart and pretty, a good girl. But her family was dōwa, the class of people who used to handle dead things in the old days of Japan, hundreds of years ago. Butchers and undertakers. Leatherworkers. They are the lowest class, the untouchables, and many of them hide their backgrounds out of shame. But there are practical reasons, too. It can be difficult to get hired or promoted if you are dōwa—many companies do background checks before they hire their workers. And it is difficult to get married, especially into old families like your father’s and mine. Yūko-san did not tell anyone about her family background, not even your father.

  “When your father and Yūko-san’s relationship became serious, his family hired a private investigator to research her family background—yes, people still do that. If you marry into the wrong kind of family, it can hurt everyone: you, your children, the rest of your own family. It’s important to protect your children, especially. If we lived in Japan, I would hire someone to investigate anyone who wanted to marry you—ah! Don’t interrupt. And don’t look so shocked. I know you think it’s old-fashioned and wrong, and maybe you’re right. But that is the way things are. Stop complaining, and listen.

  “Your father did not want to break things off with Yūko-san. He loved her, no matter what. He had a terrible fight with Jiji and Baba, your grandparents. Eventually, though, it was Yūko-san who left, so that she wouldn’t cause any more pain. She knew that your father would cut himself off from his family for her, and she didn’t want to be the reason for such an old family to fall apart. She didn’t want your father’s children to suffer discrimination like she did—it would have been even worse for them, since he would have lost his family connections. Can you imagine having no family at all? It was the honorable thing to do, and I admired her for it.

  “The next part of the story, the one that Baba has told so many times that she thinks it’s true, really did happen. I helped your father get better from his sadness. I called him every day and bothered him until he got out of bed. I brought him his favorite foods. I made him study for his graduate school classes. But I didn’t leave my fiancé, like Baba says. He grew tired of waiting for me to give him my attention. He left me, which broke my heart. Your father helped me through that time, and eventually we decided to marry each other.”

  “So you fell in love with each other?”

  Mom frowns. “We were not in love. But we loved each other. We had suffered together, and survived together, and we knew that we could make a good marriage.”

  “But—”

  “Would you prefer that we had not married? Would you prefer not to have been born?” I don’t have an answer for that. “Yūko-san was an English major, and she eventually moved to America. We moved to Wisconsin, and after a few years, your father found her. She was here, in California. He visited her over and over.”

  “Did you know about her? Did you know what he was doing?”

  “He told me soon after he found her. At first, I was angry. Of course I was. I was sad. I didn’t want my husband to go with another woman, after I had worked so hard to make him happy, to make a good home for him in this country. But after a long time, after I thought and thought about it . . .” She shrugs. “I knew, when we moved to California, that he wanted to be closer to her.”

  “And you let him?!”

  “She suffered, and your father suffered. For years, Sana. He was in love with her. It was easier than having him gone on so many trips to California.”

  “But what about you?”

  For a moment, a ghost of something—grief? pain?—flits across her face. But I blink and her face is set back in its usual no-nonsense expression, her mouth pressed into a hard, straight line, and I wonder if I just imagined it.

  “I am not in love with your father,” she says firmly. “Yūko-san, who loves him, never complained. She suffered and endured heartbreak.”

  Gaman. “But so did you.”

  She twists her wedding ring, remembering. “Before I married your father, yes, I suffered. But the man I was engaged to did not have gaman. He had no patience for suffering. He had no patience for enduring. And I have no use for a man like that.” Mom looks at me. “Your father works hard, he makes money for us to be comfortable, and he is kind. He loves you. He cares for me. I care for him. That is a good family. That is all I need.”

  “But it’s not a good family! It’s not fair! You can’t just accept stuff like that. You don’t have to have gaman.”

  “And if I don’t have gaman, then what? Your father leaves Yūko-san and we are all sad together for the rest of our lives? Or I divorce your father and become a single mother, and make my family in Japan sad, as well? No matter what, we suffer. This arrangement
is the best way. This way, we all get what we need.”

  “No, we don’t. They get everything. You only get—”

  “I have what I need,” she says again. “And Yūko-san does not have everything. She does not have a family. She does not have a daughter.” Mom looks straight at me and takes my hand, and I feel my heart soften and my throat tighten. But I’m not done fighting yet.

  “But what about me? I get a dad who’s never home. I get a dad who cheats on my mom, and who knows how long he’ll stick around, and my mom just sits by and lets it happen.”

  She sighs, and strokes my hair. “It’s hard for you, I know. I’m sorry. Your father is very, very sorry. But he’s an honorable man—”

  “He’s a cheater.”

  “No. I told you already, he loves you. He will not abandon us. I’ve known him since we were children, and I know this about him.” It still doesn’t seem fair. She takes my face in her hands and looks me in the eye. “Don’t be angry at your father or Yūko-san. Don’t feel sorry for me. I’ve thought about it many times, and many times again, and no matter how I look at it, this is the best way. I am content. I could have left your father and gone back to Japan with you—some Japanese wives do. But I stayed here because I want to have a strong, independent daughter who can grow up to be whatever she wants, and who can love whoever she wants. You can live the life that your father and Yūko-san could not.

  “Your father didn’t want you to know. I tried to tell him that you were ready when we moved here, but he wasn’t ready to tell you. And then you figured it out on your own—it was only a matter of time for a smart girl like you. You are stronger and more independent than I was prepared for. I suppose that’s what happens when you grow up in America. Perhaps I need to give you more room to grow.” She smiles ruefully. “Sometimes the parents have to run to catch up with their children, instead of the other way around.”

  37

  MOM STROKES MY HAIR ONE MORE TIME, LETS her hand linger on my shoulder for a moment, and then withdraws it and resettles herself next to me on the bed.

  My head is spinning. Nothing is what I thought it was. It’s like my life was a sinking ship, and Mom has just plunked me into a lifeboat, but I can’t figure out how to work the oars. The villains are the long-suffering and lovelorn victims; the long-suffering victim is the gallant heroine. I still want to be angry with Dad and That Woman—I mean, Yūko—but how can I be when they’re just two people in love? It’s the story of Yama-sachi and Toyo-tama-himé. No wonder Dad loved it so much. I want to feel sorry for Mom, and mad at her for letting all of this happen to her, because no matter what she says about being content, she got a raw deal. But how can I when she helped make it happen? She and Dad stayed married for me—so that I could grow up here. Would she have been happier with a divorce? Would I?

  Then there’s all that stuff she said about me. She wants to let me be stronger and more independent. She’s going to give me more space. She wants me to be able to love whoever I want. Is she dropping a hint here? Does she know more than I gave her credit for?

  I realize that Mom is waiting for me to say something. And I realize that now, after she’s let me in on the Secret of Dad and Yūko, this would be a good time to tell her the Secret of Sana and Jamie. Though I guess it’s just the Secret of Sana now.

  “So you know how you said that you wanted me to grow up and love whoever I want to love?” She eyes me warily. Not good. “Well, um.” I clear my throat. There’s still time. I can still back out. I could just ask her something innocuous, like if she’d be okay with it if one day I married a white American. But I feel the weight of my secret again, dragging me down, like the secret of the phone number and the earrings. Like Mom and Dad’s secret. And I remember that hiding the truth doesn’t stop things from being true. Not talking about things doesn’t stop them from happening. Pretending that a thing is something else doesn’t change its true nature.

  And I don’t need to pretend to be something else. I don’t want to be anything but what I am. And I don’t want to hide my true self anymore, like Toyo-tama-himé did. So I close my eyes, brace myself, and plunge ahead. “I’m gay.”

  She blinks. “Gay?”

  “Lesbian. I like girls. Like, romantically. Instead of boys.”

  Her mouth makes a little “o,” but no sound comes out. Then she closes her mouth and nods her head once. I wait. And wait. Finally, I can’t wait anymore. I have no gaman left. “Are you okay?”

  “Hn.” She nods again. “Sōka.” So that’s the way it is.

  More waiting. “What? What are you saying? You’re okay with it?”

  “Hnnn.” Then silence. Then, “You are so young. Are you sure? How do you know?”

  “I’m sure. I just know, that’s all.”

  “For how long?”

  “Since it started mattering, I guess. But it’s not like I woke up one day and I was gay. I sort of . . . figured it out. It’s just the way I am.”

  She stares at her fingers as she twists them in her lap. I can’t tell how she feels, but she seems to be taking it well. She looks up at me. “I read in the magazine that the gay can’t change to normal.”

  “I am normal, Mom.”

  Mom shakes her head. “No. Gay is not normal. If gay is normal, then everybody is gay.”

  “It’s normal for me.”

  She scoffs, as if she’s never heard anything more ridiculous. My heart contracts as my hopes for this conversation, which had been rising, begin to sink.

  Then she asks, “Do you have . . . girlfriend?”

  And now my hopes are in free fall. “I did. Jamie.” She takes a quick breath and looks away as this sinks in.

  “She is not your girlfriend anymore?”

  “No.”

  I expect to see her nod her head, satisfied, but instead she says, “Nandé?”

  “Um. She broke up with me because I—I lied to her.”

  “Sana,” she says reproachfully.

  “I thought she liked someone else, and I wanted to be with someone who only liked me, so I—I kissed someone else. I know it doesn’t make sense. And I didn’t tell her. And she found out and broke up with me.” My voice shakes a little and tears threaten to well up. I fight them back.

  “You shouldn’t kiss so many people! And you shouldn’t lie. Of course she broke up with you. Kissing the person who isn’t your—your girlfriend—is bad. You will get a bad reputation.”

  And then I give up fighting and let the tears come, because I hate who I’ve been and what I’ve done lately, and Mom clearly does, too. And yet it seems unfair for her to criticize, because who else has been kissing people they shouldn’t, and then lying about it to me? And worst of all, what if she’s disappointed not only in what I’ve done lately but who I’ve always been? The person I’ll always be? What will I do then?

  “Sana.” Her voice is gentle.

  “What?” I croak.

  “Gomen-nasia. Warui koto iū-temōta ne.” Huh? “You suffered, too. And your father and I were the cause. Our lies to you. It was wrong of me to scold you, when we did wrong, too. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh.” Well, this is a first. “Okay.” I sniffle, and she hands me a tissue. “Though I think Dad owes me an apology, too.”

  She nods.

  But there’s still that other thing. “Aren’t you upset about me . . . having a girlfriend?”

  “You are too young for girlfriend or boyfriend. And you don’t have girlfriend anymore.”

  Okay, not what I meant, but whatever. I try again. “What about me being gay?”

  Her shoulders rise, then fall. “I am surprised. I am sad. Your life will be more difficult. People will discriminate.” She looks at me, and I wait for her to go on, to tell me that I should work hard to act like everyone else. But she doesn’t.

  “That’s it? Nothing else?”

  Her forehead wrinkles, then she shakes her head. “No.”

  “But . . . you just said that gay people aren’t normal. You even
said once that we were freaks. You said we shouldn’t be out because it makes people uncomfortable.”

  “Hn.” She nods her head in assent.

  “But that’s . . . awful. You can’t call people freaks if you’re okay with them.”

  “Freak is bad?”

  “Freak is bad.”

  She frowns, then waves her hand dismissively. “I meant that the gay are different—they are! You are!” I open my mouth to protest, but she cuts me off. “Chotto! Be quiet and listen to me. In Japan, be gay is not a sin like in America. Just different—you cannot deny that gay is different from most people. But in Japan, too different is uncomfortable for the other people. It’s disrespectful to make the other people uncomfortable. Even if you can’t help being different, it’s your duty to become like others. It’s your duty to fit in. So in Japan, the gay can’t be out of the cabinet. They can’t get married. They can’t have children.” She puts her hand on my back, gently. “But different is okay in America, even though I forget sometimes. You are okay, even though you are different.”

  I’m floored. In the movie version of my life, I would now say softly, “I love you, Mom,” and she’d reply, “I love you, too, Sana.” And we’d hug each other and smile and weep and she’d kiss my hair and wipe away my tears and the scene would fade out.

  In my real life, I can’t help thinking that there are still plenty of people in America who need reminding that different is okay: Glen Lake Country Club, and the cop outside the 7-Eleven, and Mrs. Lowell, for starters. But I decide to let it go for now and just be happy that my mother doesn’t think I’m bad—just different. And she’s okay with that. And that’s okay with me. She puts her arm around me and gives me an awkward squeeze. “It was good to talk,” she says. “I feel free.” Me, too. I close my eyes and soak it in.

  Then I can’t help it. I say gently, “Mom, it’s out of the closet. Not the cabinet.”

  “Erasō.” But she smiles, so I know she doesn’t really think I’m being a disrespectful smart aleck. “Futari de gamba-rō ne.” Let’s work hard and do our best together. In America, in English, “work hard” just means hard work. In Japan, it also means, “I’m rooting for you. I want you to succeed.” Maybe there’s no guarantee, like when American moms say, “It’s going to be great.” Because the reality is that life can be hard, and awful, and sometimes all you can do is keep working at it. But there’s hope. There’s a future together. I can work hard for that.