After the Bloom

by Leslie Shimotakahara

  All along, she’d known what he wanted her for. Why did she feel so blindsided? Her bitterness subsided as she swallowed her humiliation, reality hitting with a dull thud. By lashing out, she’d simply outlive her usefulness. Even the doctor prized her as an object of utility, his last tenuous hold over his son.

  “What is it you want me to do, Kaz?”

  “Take a stroll with Frank. Take a romantic stroll. That’s all.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?” A devious grin.

  “You’re not going to tell me what’s going on here?”

  “You can make Frank fall for you.”

  The challenge worked its way into her head. And then something was coming undone inside her, stirring to life those crystalline peals of laughter, filling her with a current of desirability, rapture. I’ve got all the guys wrapped around my baby finger. Suddenly, she felt ready to bloom like that first explosion of silky, tattered petals in spring.

  Twelve

  Rita upended a box of shoes and stuffed animals. The mangy panda Kristen had had since her first birthday rolled onto the floor, face down. A jumble of pastel laces clung to her old silver platforms. The thought of matching up pairs seemed exhausting, as she sank to a crouch, knuckles in her eyes, a contact lens grinding across her retina.

  Where were those damn officers? Nursing their second double-double of the morning? Why was no one returning her calls?

  Last night on the phone, Gerald hadn’t been terribly coherent. Lily’s car had been found broken into, abandoned. That much he was clear on. But the police didn’t seem to think the break-in had anything to do with her disappearance.

  Gerald’s cheery insistence that they were lovey-dovey newlyweds, not a care in the world, had faded. Now he seemed to be seriously considering the possibility she’d left him.

  Rita pushed aside a bag of old winter coats.

  Beeping pierced the air.

  She grabbed at the cordless, palms spastic — it slipped from her grasp and banged to the floor. “Hello?”

  “Uh, Rita, Lee here.”

  “You got in touch with Gerald yesterday about a breakthrough in my mother’s case?”

  “I don’t know if you’d call it a breakthrough, exactly. A few days ago the guy who operates the parking lot near the bus station reported that the lock on Lily’s car had been popped, the radio ripped out. He was about to have it towed, anyway.”

  “This happened a few days ago, and you’re only telling us about it now?”

  “We needed to process the car: check it for fingerprints, evidence, forensics. Standard procedure.”

  She’d thought they were buddies, she’d thought Lee liked her. He was the one who’d reached out to her, tried to get all chummy and flirty. She expected he’d at least have the decency to give her a heads-up.

  “So my mom’s car.” Rita tried to keep her voice under control. “What did you find?”

  “Nothing. It came back totally clean.”

  “No fingerprints, no sign of a struggle?” Seats splattered in blood? Shattered glass? Too many horrible images were rushing through her mind.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, as I told Mr. Anderberg, we can release the car to him.”

  “What? You’re not keeping it as evidence?”

  “Evidence of …?”

  “The guy who broke into Mom’s car might have hurt or kidnapped her!”

  “Kidnapping’s not an option we’re exploring, Rita. The car showed no signs of foul play. The parking guy remembers Lily dropping it off. Then she went into the bus station, where a girl at the booth sold her a ticket. Her car wasn’t broken into ’til later.”

  “Where was she going?”

  “The girl can’t be one hundred percent sure, but she thinks the ticket was for New York.”

  “Aren’t there records?”

  “Not if you pay cash. She hasn’t used her credit card at all yet.”

  The six-hundred-dollar withdrawal. Christ.

  “Does your mom have any friends or family in New York?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Did Lily ever visit the Big Apple?”

  “Once or twice. Not recently, though.”

  “So maybe that’s it. The old girl got a craving for Macy’s, Liza Minnelli.”

  “Then why hasn’t anyone heard from her? She’d have at least told Gerald.”

  “You yourself said sometimes she needs a little alone time.” Lee’s voice softened a smidge, suddenly weary. “To tell you the truth, that’s what a lot of these missing person cases turn out to be. People want a break from their boring lives. They usually come back if you give them enough time.”

  She’d assumed that the break-in would escalate her mother’s case, but just the opposite seemed true. Who didn’t dream about a little New York getaway?

  “Don’t get me wrong. We’re continuing to monitor things. We’ve passed on her photo to the NYPD. But I suspect Lily’ll come back soon enough on her own. Didn’t you say she always does?”

  “No. I mean, yeah, I did, but this time something’s different.” What was different? It was just a gut feeling, combined with a good shot of guilt. “Isn’t there anything more you guys can do?”

  “Like what? We could reach out to the community for help searching the ’hood, but that won’t do much good if your mom’s left Toronto.”

  “What about the media?”

  “They’ve got our press release. Look, Rita, I don’t know how to put this. Most missing person cases don’t attract much attention unless the missing are doe-eyed toddlers. It’s harder with adults, because people assume they chose to disappear. Which happens a lot, for a variety of reasons. Deadbeat dads, runaway teens, the list goes on.”

  Crazy mothers. She blinked back tears.

  “We need more evidence to surface before we can continue the investigation.”

  A gust rose in Rita’s chest. So this was how it felt to get the brush-off. “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “I know it’s frustrating, but the best thing you can do is make sure you’re taking care of yourself. I could put you in touch with someone to talk to.”

  “Oh, great.” The last thing she needed was another shrink.

  “We’ll keep you and Mr. Anderberg posted.” The guy’s mind had moved on to other things, like the important matter of whether it would be a burger or falafel for lunch.

  “Well, maybe he’d enjoy some company?” Rita balanced the phone in the crook of her neck, while wiping her hands on her thighs.

  “Thanks for your concern, but Dad’s not up to having visitors so soon. He was just released yesterday.”

  It turned out that Mr. Fujita had taken a nasty fall at the cottage and been rushed in for knee surgery.

  The bearer of this news was Alice Fujita. Rita remembered her as a stout, mirthless woman, who wore sensible, round-toed shoes, and had the air of Mother Superior. She was an elementary-school principal, the least successful of the Fujita kids, which said more about her superstar siblings. Ever since childhood, Rita had been hearing about their exemplary lives. The eldest son, Doug, was a VP at CIBC; one of the younger boys was a cardiac surgeon. They were held up as models of how the community had made it despite all the setbacks.

  All that model minority crap made Rita want to vomit.

  Upon being told about Lily’s disappearance, Alice’s resolve didn’t weaken for a second. “I’m sorry to hear about your mother’s problems, but I have to think about my father’s health right now.”

  Alice had never liked Lily. She was probably the one who’d organized the family coup.

  Well, the only thing to do was show up anyway. If Alice didn’t like it, tough bananas. Stopping by Loblaws, Rita bought a pound cake that could pass as homemade, just barely. During the long drive out to Etobicoke, she mul
led over what to say, but there really wasn’t any way to gloss over the fact that she was showing up completely uninvited. Mr. Fujita — drugged up on painkillers, in agony — was the only person who might have any useful information about Lily. No doubt, Lee and Davis would consider this a wild goose chase, though they’d probably encourage Rita, just to keep her out of their hair. She wondered how much police work consisted of managing difficult family members. Was that what she’d become? She sighed, idling in traffic.

  At last, the congestion loosened and she sped onto the Kingsway. An ash-blond lady honked her BMW as Rita cut her off. Such granny driving in this picture-perfect neighbourhood, with its village-like shops selling overpriced cheese. A lot of things about the place got under her skin — just because it looked like a faux-pastoral dream didn’t mean people weren’t drunk and beating their wives — but Lily had always yearned to escape to exactly this kind of setting.

  On Queen Anne Road, Mr. Fujita lived in a Georgian house that his kids had bought for him. Its large paned windows stared out like mathematical grids. A white door, capped with decorative crown and framed by pilasters on either side. A testament to the perfect symmetry of the universe. It was as though the house aspired to restore the affluent life that had once been nipped in the bud. Mr. Fujita acted the part of the successful, retired businessman so well, but in truth his accounting practice had never recovered after the internment. So Mr. Fujita had started a business called Oriental Gardener, which sent Asian boys dressed like coolies to prune the rose bushes of rich white folks. And now, several decades later, the gardener had left the garden to assume his rightful position at the master’s table.

  Everything is exactly as it should be, the house seemed to whisper.

  Rita rang the doorbell and stood on the doorstep, sweating.

  Alice looked astonished.

  “So sorry about your father’s accident. I just happened to be in the neighbourhood, so I thought I’d drop this off.” She handed over the cake, feeling utterly pathetic.

  Alice gave a stony nod, her arms crossed, her lips a stark horizon. She’d be terrifying if you were ever called to the principal’s office. Rita had never managed to master anything resembling that expression with her students.

  “So you’re enjoying the summer break?”

  “Hardly. Dad’s accident’s thrown a wrench in things. But thank you for this.” She patted the cake, with a knowing roll of the eyes. “I’ll be sure to give my father your regards.”

  “Who’s there?” a voice called out from inside.

  “It’s Rita Takemitsu!”

  “Rita! Come in.”

  Casting a timid smile at Alice, she slithered past.

  Wood panelling, crown mouldings galore, heavy mahogany furniture, knock-off Thomas Cole paintings. Mr. Fujita’s late wife must have been a fan of Masterpiece Theatre. That said, signs of frugality dotted the house. A stain on the carpet had been covered up with a mat. Mr. Fujita was stretched out like a sultan on the sofa, dressed in an old green jogging suit.

  “Sit down, sit down!” He propped himself up, his right leg swinging out from under the afghan, a log, clad in plaster. “I can’t handle the stairs, so they have me sleeping down here. Heavens, if we’d known you were coming, we’d have tidied up, isn’t that right, Alice?”

  Alice receded into the kitchen to rustle up some tea. Not before flashing Rita a venomous glare.

  “My kids are so protective.” The old man shook his head. “I hurt my knee and you’d think I’d had a heart attack and gone in for a triple bypass. But enough about me. How are you, Rita? And how is your sweet mother, Lily?” A wistful look came over him as he said Lily’s name. Just as quickly, the softness vanished.

  “That’s just it, Mr. Fujita. I don’t quite know how to put this. Lily’s gone missing.”

  “Missing?”

  Keeping things as succinct as possible, Rita told him what had happened.

  His jaw jutted forward and trembled in a frozen half-smile. “That’s impossible. I just spoke with her last week. We were supposed to see each other on Friday, but after my accident, I called to reschedule.”

  “How did she sound?”

  “Pretty normal, I guess. We didn’t talk long. I was very tired.”

  “Mark Edo happened to mention that you’re working on a book about the internment.”

  “That’s what Lily and I were meeting about.”

  “My mother was helping you with the book?” So redress had been on her mind, there was no denying it now. The realization hit Rita like a sharp rebuke. While Lily had come around to support the cause, Rita was the one still burying her head in the sand.

  “Nothing had been decided yet. Lily wasn’t sure how involved she wanted to be. You know how it is. People want to help, but they’re nervous. Oh, God. I can’t believe she’s missing!”

  “You were trying to convince her to come on board?”

  “I suppose you could say that. Lily implied she had some photographs that might be useful.”

  “Photos … of?”

  “Camp. Where she was interned, I assume. A friend of hers took the pictures and asked her to safeguard them.”

  “Safeguard them? But … why?”

  “She didn’t say. Didn’t have to, I guess. Easy enough to read between the lines. None of us were allowed to keep our cameras in the camps — that was the first thing the government took away.” Mr. Fujita explained that most of the pictures people had given him for the book reflected the decades before and after the war. Japantown, the good old days. And then the slums they all lived in after they’d been forced to migrate east. “So these pictures Lily’s friend took — of camp — are very rare. The photographer must’ve somehow managed to take them on the sly.”

  “Did she mention the photographer’s name?”

  He shook his head. “She cautioned me not to get my hopes up either. Maybe the pictures had gotten lost somewhere along the way. She didn’t seem quite sure what she’d done with them.”

  With something as unique as these photographs — if they actually existed, if Lily hadn’t fantasized them just to get Mr. Fujita’s attention — you’d think she’d at least keep track of where she’d put them.

  “Will you please let me know as soon as you hear from her?” he asked.

  “Of course. And if she reaches out to you first, you’ll contact me immediately?”

  “Lily and I don’t talk very often…. We hadn’t been in touch for years before the book came up. Things were never the same after — well, you know. I’ve often wondered what would’ve happened if …” Mr. Fujita looked doubly grief-stricken. “It doesn’t matter now. She’s a happily married woman.”

  “Yes, she is.”

  Was she? What did Rita really know about her mother’s marriage?

  At Yoneda Home, a surprising number of residents weren’t Japanese. Maybe they’d gotten a foot in the door by being married to Japanese folks. The old white men made little effort to hide their stares at the cheery Filipina girls bustling around in pink scrubs. Rita could feel their eyes on her own ass as she made her way past the wheelchairs huddled around the TV.

  French toast, unwashed hair, and sandalwood incense filled the air. Shoji screens partitioned off a meditation area to the side, but it didn’t seem to be getting much use these days; this set was more interested in The Young and the Restless.

  After signing in at the front desk, she was directed to a room in the new part of the facility, a long L-shaped addition that snaked off the end of the stone mansion.

  The door was ajar. By the window sat a small figure swaddled in a pink-and-brown quilt. Rita barely recognized her. The last time they’d seen each other must have been at Rita’s wedding. Even then Aunt Haruko had looked frail and dozy, but at least her hair had still been gunmetal grey. Now it had turned so white it appeared blond, fine and staticky. He
r skin had loosened in crumpled, discoloured folds. A hint of lipstick, applied in a smear. Or maybe it was grape-juice stains.

  She seemed so alone, withdrawn. The poor woman had to be well into her eighties. At some point, it stood to reason, she’d go from being a top employee at Yoneda Home to one of the inhabitants.

  As Rita leaned over to offer a hug, the shoulders flinched, pulled away.

  “Is that you, Mary?”

  “No, Aunt Haruko. It’s me, Rita.”

  Her eyes had turned an opalescent blue-grey, milky with cataracts.

  “Rita.” The lips compressed in a hesitant smile.

  A small, sparsely furnished room. At least the violet bedspread matched the curtains. Her view looked onto a Japanese garden: all the miniature trees and bushes were beautifully pruned, black stones jutting up like tiny mountains along the well-swept pathways.

  Framed pictures hung crookedly on the walls. Jesus in a meadow, surrounded by a flock of sheep. An ink painting of a wisteria tree. It must have been done years ago, when Aunt Haruko’s hands were still agile, capable of turning the brush in so many curves and turns to capture the gnarled solidity of the main vine and the delicate, springy, new shoots.

  “You’re at art school, ne?”

  “That was a long time ago. It didn’t work out. Now I’m a high-school teacher.”

  Failure prickled Rita’s skin. She hadn’t done much with her artistic talent, but maybe she’d never been that talented to begin with. When had Aunt Haruko last painted? Those arthritic hands would be lucky to hold a toothbrush these days. It was terrible how she’d slipped off everyone’s radar. The fragility of their family — all their interwoven, wrecked lives. Surely this wasn’t how things were in all families? Kristen had once remarked that her friends had lots of aunts and uncles and cousins and second cousins, everyone running around, singing Christmas carols. Why had Rita let things get like this? When things had been good, why hadn’t she signed Aunt Haruko out on a day pass and brought her to their old house for turkey and eggnog?