by Carrie Asai
She smiled again, and I stepped off the porch. That was all I needed: my name plastered in the paper. Doofus Heaven goes looking for her birth mom. Wouldn’t Mieko have gotten a kick out of that?
It was easy to get to the next woman’s house on foot. I wandered through the cute Gaslight district. Lots of restaurants and shops called out to me, but I realized I didn’t have much desire to get into anything. I was so far from being shopaholic Heaven of Tokyo that it was scary. I’m growing up, I thought. Those things don’t matter anymore.
I passed a dojo and felt a longing. I could see people on the second floor kicking and going through punching drills. I wanted to go inside. Maybe when all this is over, I thought.
Suddenly something caught my eye across the street. A guy in a leather jacket, talking on a cell phone.
Yoshitomo!
I ran haphazardly across the street and tailed him around the corner. He seemed to be walking with purpose. I tried to hear his conversation, but I was too far away. I crept a little closer. He went into a coffee shop and stood at the counter, still chattering on his phone.
I hung in the alley next to the coffee shop, trying to practice my shinobi-iri. The shadows were very deep and long, so it didn’t seem like he saw me. When he got his coffee and looked like he was going to be leaving soon, I flattened myself against the wall, waiting for him to pass.
And then a hand over my mouth.
“Don’t move,” said a voice. I felt something cool and metal press against my cheek. Where had this person come from? The alley must have been deeper than I’d thought.
“Give me your wallet,” the guy barked.
“I don’t have my wallet,” I said.
“What do you have?” he asked.
With shaking fingers I found my bag over my shoulder. The guy snatched it away. I heard him rustling through it with one hand.
I have to get out of here, I thought.
“Aha!” he said, his hands on something. He pulled out the snaky, sparkling links of Masato’s diamond necklace.
“No!” I said. I hadn’t pawned it yet. I hadn’t had the time. The guy closed his fist tightly around it, the gun still at my forehead. Quickly I pressed my elbow against his solar plexus. The gun clattered to the ground. Next I kneed him in the groin.
“Jesus!” he cried, stepping back in agony.
I grabbed his hand, but he wouldn’t let go of the necklace. “I need that!” I said through clenched teeth. We wrestled for a few moments. He wouldn’t loosen his grip. Finally I bit his hand. My teeth sank in hard.
That did the trick. He screamed. His hand instinctively opened. I snatched the jewels and punched him in the face. Then I ran into the light, smack into Yoshitomo.
“Oof!” I said, wheeling backward.
Yoshitomo took a look at me, completely bowled over. I had the jewels dangling in one hand, my bag in the other. The mugger groaned and spit in the darkness.
“Hey,” Yoshitomo said slowly. He was wearing the same leather jacket. He also had big, thick, black studded cuffs around his wrist. Painted on the cuffs were three angry-looking dragons. The detail was incredibly intricate and a little scary. I’d never seen anything like it. On his hand, between his thumb and his pointer finger, was a tattoo that said KAORI. I blinked, completely shocked, trying to regain my composure.
Then he straightened up, smiled, and took a step forward.
But I didn’t let him. I kicked him in the crotch as hard as I could. Then I turned on my heels and ran as far and fast as possible. And when I’d gone a ways, I turned back. He hadn’t followed me.
Idiot, I told myself. Why did you let him see you? But what should I have done? Stood there and let that mugger rob me of the only thing I have that might be worth some money?
It had gotten to the point where I was talking to myself. I was feeding myself both sides of the argument.
After running and running and running, I calmed down. I was far enough away. I had to summon my haragei awareness. I had to be very careful. I still planned on continuing my search, but I had to realize that the word might get out somehow. I didn’t know how connected Yoshitomo was. It sounded like he didn’t have any idea that Hiro had been killed until the other day. But then…how did he know Kaori? Were they planning some secret operation themselves? Was there a bounty out on Hiro’s and my heads through the yakuza? Was it every man for himself when it came to hunting down and killing us?
But that didn’t make sense. The guys the other day had killed only Hiro. They hadn’t really been interested in me.
So…what was Yoshitomo doing?
He’d mentioned Teddy in that phone conversation. They were friends. Was he just…spying?
If I kept up this line of thought, my head would be tied in knots. I had to press on. I looked at my list. The next woman’s house was, freakishly enough, in the neighborhood where our fight had been. Great. As soon as I saw some familiar streets, I froze. Was it safe to walk around here? I looked right and left. I looked for fire trucks or police cars or something. What had the scene been like when they’d found Hiro’s body? I shuddered.
Please don’t let Yoshitomo be in cahoots with Mieko….
Still, the house wasn’t too close to where the fight had been, so I walked on. I kept thinking I heard footsteps behind me. I’d stop, turn, but no one would be there. Or it would be a sprinkler, or a car, or a kid on a bike.
A man answered the door at the house. I launched into a more poised version of my monologue: “Hi, I’m looking for someone named…” I consulted my list. “Amelia Saki.” A Japanese name! Could this be her?
The man frowned. “Why?” he asked.
“I want to ask her some questions.” I smiled.
He clammed up and started to shut the door.
“Hey!” I said. “Wait! I might be her daughter! Did she give a child up for adoption about twenty years ago?”
“No. That’s impossible,” the guy barked. “And besides, she’s dead. You can’t ask her anything anyway.”
I went down the steps. What if she had been my mother? What if…what if someone had had her killed?
But there was something about the house and the man and just…everything that made me think I wasn’t related to these people at all. I didn’t know if I should trust my instincts, but something was telling me to move on.
I wandered back through the Gaslight district and found myself in front of the dojo again. I stared at it. The first-floor lobby area had artful tigers and dragons and other jungle scenes painted on the walls. The studios looked clean and new and white. A girl sat at the front desk, talking on the phone. Karen used to do the reception job sometimes.
Karen.
Ugh.
Why in the world had I reached out to her? Hadn’t I learned my lesson?
I looked at my list, weary. There were so many names, and so many of them were on the outskirts of town or places like Oceanside or Chula Vista. I didn’t have any idea how I’d get there unless I took the bus specifically for that purpose. I was running out of money. I was running out of time.
I realized I could probably call a lot of these out-of-town names back at the hotel and get an idea of what they were all about. There was only one more name on the list whose address was close by. A woman named Sara Armstrong.
I followed the directions on my map and came to a windswept, cozy street by the beach. The sun had sunk low in the sky, and I heard kids laughing not far away. I found the house—it was quaint, with a great garden in the front. Sara Armstrong had an Audi TT. Nice wheels, I thought.
Something about the house seemed to be inviting to me, in the same way the dojo had been. I’ve seen this house, I thought. But I didn’t know where. I’d never been on this street before. I’d only been to San Diego once, for no time at all. How could I have seen it?
I trudged up the stairs. No doubt this Sara person would be a cranky old woman or another lesbian or dead. This probably wasn’t even her house.
I rang t
he doorbell. I heard footsteps. A petite woman opened the door. She had pale skin, brownish hair, fine bones, and a pleasant-looking face. She wore simple white drawstring pants and an old, thrift-shop-style T-shirt that had a big number 23 on it. Too young, I thought. Still…
I studied her carefully. She studied me.
“Yes?” the woman asked. Her voice was familiar. Her face was familiar. I’ve seen this face, I thought. I’ve seen this house. Where? Where?
“I’m…,” I started. “I’m Heaven.”
The woman looked at me. Her lips parted. A wave of disbelief rolled over her face. “What did you say your name was?”
“Heaven,” I said. “Heaven Kogo.”
She seriously looked like she was going to lose it. “Don’t shut the door,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t turn me away.
“I wasn’t going to,” she said. She couldn’t stop looking at me. All of a sudden she pulled me inside. She stood back to look at me again.
“M-Mom?” I blurted.
Tears came to her eyes. “Is it really you?” she asked. “You are…you are Heaven?”
“Yes,” I said. I couldn’t believe it. This was her. This was my mother.
“I never thought I’d find you,” she said, and hugged me ever so tight.
12
We didn’t say anything for a bit but instead just hugged and cried. The whole situation was a little weird. It felt surreal. I’m not here, I thought. But yes, I am. This is happening.
Finally we both settled down. Sara stood back from me and smiled. “It’s just so unbelievable,” she said.
“I know,” I said.
“Come on inside,” she said. She led me into the front room of her house, which was bathed in light. The floors were pale wood. There were two luxurious leather chairs and a sleek coffee table. Somewhere I could hear the sound of water falling. The walls were pretty spare but painted a very calming shade of green.
“It’s so calm in here,” I said.
“It’s my little oasis,” she said. She turned to me again, still breathless. “You’re taller than me,” she said. She started laughing. I could see a lot of my facial characteristics—my nose, my cheekbones, my jawline—also in her face. She wasn’t Japanese but looked exotic in some way.
“This is so amazing,” I said. I realized how happy I was. I felt like I was really, truly coming home. I noticed a big fish tank in the corner full of black-and-white fish. I wondered if I should sit down.
“You really don’t understand,” Sara said, tearing up again. “I’ve wanted to contact you for so long now. But I wasn’t able to.”
“You knew where I was?” I said. “I thought I was just…I don’t know…given up for adoption, the way it’s normally done.”
Sara shook her head. “No,” she said. “There’s more to it than that.” She kept breathing in and taking sweeping looks at all of me, and then clapping her hand over her mouth, amazed.
“I wanted to find you for years,” she said. “But when I let you go, Konishi said that I must never see you again. He said that if I tried, he would have to take drastic measures.” She swallowed hard.
“Whoa, whoa, hold up!” I said. “You know Konishi?”
Sara sighed. “Yes.”
I stared at her. “How?”
Sara took a deep breath. “He really told you nothing, didn’t he? Maybe it’s just as well. Heaven, Konishi is your real father.”
“What?” I barely whispered it.
“You better sit down for this,” she said. “Do you want anything? Tea?”
“No, thanks,” I said, sinking into one of the leather chairs. I had a heavy feeling in my chest, like my universe was about to unravel again.
Sara sat down opposite me. “Okay. Where to start? So I was working as a stewardess on JAL. God, I’ve wanted to tell you this story ever since I can remember!” She paused, wiping her eyes, grabbing a Kleenex from the coffee table and blowing her nose.
“Sorry if it seems like I’m losing it here,” she said.
“Believe me, I understand,” I said, feeling a little teary myself.
“Anyway, I was a stewardess. Those were the golden days of working for the airlines…. I’d never do it nowadays. I met Konishi because he took a lot of international and transcontinental flights. He was married, of course, but I didn’t know that at the time. And he even had a little son that I didn’t know about until later.”
“Ohiko,” I whispered.
“I was his favorite stewardess, or so he said. He requested that I be on every one of his flights. And then slowly we got into a relationship,” Sara said. “He was a wonderful man. But I didn’t know anything about him, of course. I was young—only twenty. I didn’t know what I was doing. I just thought it was exciting. This handsome, rich Japanese businessman was interested in me.
“But then I got pregnant. With you. And Konishi…he lost it. ‘This can’t be happening,’ he said. ‘You must get an abortion.’ ”
“He did?” I said.
“I’m sorry if any of this gets too difficult. We can stop whenever.”
“Are you crazy?” I said. “I want to know this. I need to know this.”
She took another deep breath. “He wanted me to have an abortion because he didn’t want it to come out that he had an illegitimate child. I told him that I would keep it a secret with my life; I really wanted this baby. I wanted you. I didn’t want to give you up.” Tears sprang from her eyes again.
“Go on,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a big yellow cat walk slowly around the corner.
“He said that wasn’t possible. Too many people would try to find out. ‘Why?’ I asked. At first I thought maybe he was a politician or something. You know how the media in this country are about politicians and famous people and their affairs. Maybe this happened in Japan, too. But then I found out what he did. That he was…that he was the boss…of…”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Finally we agreed that I could have the baby as long as I would give you up after you were born. Konishi would ‘adopt’ you as a charity case. He basically was afraid that I’d squawk some years down the line. Which I wouldn’t have.”
“But maybe you would’ve,” I said. “What if you’d needed money? That kind of benefactor is tempting.”
“He paid me,” Sara said, biting her lip. “He paid me to keep my mouth shut. I mean, it wasn’t that I wanted to be with him…. I just wanted you.”
I thought for a moment. I remembered Hiro saying that he’d seen documents in his father’s house that listed female, San Diego, and then a sum of money.
I thought of something else, too. “This means that Konishi cheated on Mieko,” I said, leaning back into the couch.
“That’s his wife, right? Yes, I have a feeling she’s always known. I don’t know how he really introduced you into the family. I mean, yes, there was the plane crash and he ‘rescued’ you, but he was going to do it differently. I’m sure Mieko was very confused about all that.”
“So what about the crash?” I asked.
“Okay, I’m getting to that. I was pregnant with you, and I figured, too bad, Konishi, I’ll have this baby and then I’ll go into hiding. I had some friends in backwoods Canada who agreed to hide me for a while so he wouldn’t know where to find me. So that was my plan. I certainly didn’t want you to be raised as the daughter of a yakuza kingpin. Konishi and I had horrible arguments about it all the time. He wanted nothing to do with me by the time I was about six months pregnant with you. But he coveted you. Come hell or high water, he was getting you and raising you on his own.”
“Wow,” I said.
“As I approached my ninth month of pregnancy, Konishi started hounding me about the ‘arrangements.’ I even had a couple of ‘visits’ from his thugs, muscling me, reminding me of my ‘task’ I was to perform once I’d delivered and nursed you. I was supposed to raise you to a certain point—wean you off breast milk, basically—and then someone would come to collec
t you. I was so scared of those thugs who kept banging on my door at the weirdest hours of the night that I was afraid I’d miscarry or you’d be born with a complex or something.” She laughed softly. “Remember, I was only twenty years old.”
“My age,” I said. “Or almost.”
“That’s right,” she said gently. “In a couple of weeks.”
We looked at each other. “So April 8 is my real birthday.”
“Yes,” she said, smiling. “I’m glad he kept it that day.”
The big yellow cat walked into the room and jumped onto Sara’s lap. I reached out to pet him and he immediately began to purr. “He likes you,” Sara said. “His name is Sam.”
We sat there for a moment, soaking all of this in. Sara had a couple of prisms hanging from the window; they made rainbow patterns on the floor.
“Anyway. Soon enough I went into labor, and I went to the hospital. My mom took me, I remember. My mom was actually very supportive of the pregnancy, even if she didn’t completely approve of it.”
“Your mom?” I said. “My grandmother?”
“Well, yes, that’s right. Of course.” She smiled.
“Does she still live around here?”
“She lives in Orange County,” Sara said.
“God, I have a grandmother,” I said. “Konishi’s parents were dead.” I paused. Konishi was my father. Oh. My. God.
“Anyway, as soon as I delivered you—I didn’t even have time to nurse you or anything—you were gone. One of his henchmen came and took you away. They must have paid off all the doctors and nurses, because they heavily sedated me, and the next thing I remember, I was lying at home in my bed with a private nurse by my side. Konishi must have paid for it all.”
“What did your mom think?” I asked.
“My mom doesn’t talk about it,” Sara said sadly. “It was a terrible day. For weeks after, I would scream. I hated Konishi. And then one day I thought, wait. I can go to the police about this. This is ridiculous. I can’t let this man ruin my life. This is my baby, too. But as soon as I had that thought—it was so eerie—my phone rang. It was Konishi himself. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, ‘that you might be considering going to the police. But that is a very bad move. Even if you would sacrifice your life, do you want to sacrifice your daughter’s?’