Memorial

by Bryan Washington

  Ximena and I clap, and clap, and clap.

  * * *

  I spot Omar when he picks up Ahmad. He basically pivots his whole body to avoid making eye contact, but he lingers to talk to Ximena.

  Later, once he’s left, she asks me what’s wrong.

  Why does something always have to be wrong, I say.

  It doesn’t, says Ximena. That’s why I’m asking.

  25.

  A few years after the divorce, my mother drove me to her new home. Everyone else was out that morning. She’d offered to show me the place. I’d said that was fine, but we’d made it to the driveway before I told her I couldn’t go inside. She looked at me for a long time, and then she opened the car door and sat on the hood. I watched her pull one cigarette after another from her purse, smoking them down. Eventually, I joined her. She offered me one, and I took it.

  We smoked through an entire pack before she stepped back inside the car. I followed her, and we drove back to my neighborhood. She dropped me off. I never went back to her new place, and we never brought it up again.

  26.

  Nearly three weeks in, it’s almost astounding how little Mitsuko and I have talked about her son. When I tell her this, she shakes her head.

  What is there to discuss? she says. What could you possibly tell me? I asked you once already and you gave me nothing.

  He came out of my body, says Mitsuko. He’s a homosexual. He left his mother with a stranger. I’ve already got everything I need to know.

  She’s sitting at the table, scrolling through her tablet. I’m in the kitchen, leaning over the stove.

  I don’t know, I say.

  Exactly, says Mitsuko. You don’t. So don’t worry about it.

  Maybe you could tell me a story, I say, and Mitsuko actually laughs.

  A story is an heirloom, she says. It’s a personal thing.

  Okay, I say.

  You don’t ask for heirlooms. They’re just given to you.

  Okay, okay.

  Check the rice, says Mitsuko.

  I figure she’s just cutting me off, but then I look at the stove and it’s bubbling.

  * * *

  • • •

  But here’s a story: Once, my father drove the entire family to Dallas. There was some sort of work convention. He figured we ought to come along. Our mother fought it—she was already on her way out by that point—but our father won her over, or he won the rest of us over, and then we bugged her incessantly.

  Even if this was only a last-minute thing, we never actually went anywhere, and of course our mother didn’t trust my father to drive us kids on his own. So the four of us ended up in his Corolla, driving hours on the 10, out of the city, in the middle of the week.

  I spent most of that week by the hotel pool. I made eyes with one whiteboy swimming laps in the mornings—some college kid, a few years older than me—and another one manning the lobby, and a third in the café, but by the time I’d decided they were feeling me, too, it was already time to go.

  Things hadn’t gone well for my father at the conference. He’d missed out on some accolade or another. And we were halfway back home, driving five over the limit, which was twenty less than the line cruising in the lane beside us, when a cop pulled us over by a gas station in Huntsville.

  The cop was young and blond. He explained to my father about speeding. He said he hadn’t wanted to stop us, but that was his job, and the law was the law—but my father was irate.

  He slapped the window. He yelled. It was the most upset I’d ever seen him, shaking like he had something to prove. My father called the cop a motherfucker and a narc and a pig, and before I could even think about it, the whiteboy put him in handcuffs.

  My father told the cop he didn’t know what he was doing. He’d sue him. His family. The whole fucking department. And this whiteboy held my father loose by the wrists, looking at the rest of us like why didn’t we jump out and help him.

  So it was my mother who opened her mouth.

  She told the cop our father didn’t mean it.

  He was just scared, she said, for his family. His insurance. You know how it is.

  The cop looked at her like she’d given him permission to let things go.

  He smiled. She smiled back.

  He let us off with a warning.

  * * *

  When my father got back in the car, he didn’t say a word. And we were already a few miles down the road before I realized I’d squeezed Lydia’s hand the entire time.

  But he didn’t speak to my mother for the rest of that ride, or the rest of that week, or the rest of that month.

  * * *

  • • •

  Mike is the only person I’ve ever passed that story off to. It took me two years.

  We were at an arcade bar on Lester. He was hunched over Tekken, tapping the same two buttons.

  He didn’t say anything when I finished. He just kept tapping.

  Then Mike said, I get it.

  You get what, I said.

  I just get it, said Mike, and he fed the machine another coin.

  27.

  Now, sitting on the sofa with my father, we’re watching one of the Fast and the Furious movies. I made him a bowl of instant noodles, blanketed by some sliced cheese. He’s picking at them with a spoon. I spent ten minutes looking for chopsticks in the kitchen, nearly calling it quits before I found some shitty takeout disposables.

  During a monologue from the Rock about defying gravity, my father says, He teach you that?

  I ask him what he means. My father pantomimes with the chopsticks.

  You never ate like that in my house, he says.

  I want to say that I had, and he was too drunk to see it.

  Or that it wasn’t just his house.

  I taste the words and swallow them.

  Who’s he, I say.

  You know, says my father.

  I really don’t.

  Your beau. The nigga you’re shacking up with.

  You don’t know what you’re talking about.

  Lydia told me, says my father, but we don’t have to talk about that.

  One dude on-screen drives his car off a bridge. It explodes in midair. A group below him gasps.

  You’ve been talking to Lydia?

  All of my children have found me in my time of need. You’ve all panned out.

  Then why am I here, I say.

  My father only shrugs, and then he nods at the television.

  There’s an ad for a weight that shakes you into some semblance of fitness. The man on the screen doesn’t do much; he holds it and sits. But he already looks healthier, happier, better.

  28.

  Omar drops off his brother and asks to speak to me. Ximena overhears, shooting me a look, but she doesn’t say anything about it.

  Before I can open my mouth, he says, I just wanted to apologize.

  You have nothing to be sorry for, I say.

  I didn’t know, he starts, and I cut him off.

  You’re right, I say. You didn’t. Water under the bridge.

  So it’s just sitting there, says Omar.

  Waiting for a current, I say.

  Truce? says Omar.

  We shake on it.

  29.

  I watch Mitsuko crack an egg with her palm in the kitchen. I think it’s a fluke, but then she does it again.

  Wait, I say. Wait!

  What, says Mitsuko.

  How did you do that?

  Do what?

  Mitsuko gives me this look like she’s entirely exasperated. But then she does it again, executing the cleanest of breaks.

  30.

  A few days before the reception, I get a call from Omar.

  He says, What the hell do people wear to these things?

  Suits, I
say, but this isn’t really a wedding.

  That’s what I keep hearing.

  It’s the truth.

  But if we don’t treat it like one, says Omar, are they still married?

  Of course, I say, although I don’t know how sure I sound.

  So I say it again.

  Awesome, says Omar. Thanks.

  I’m going now, he says.

  But he lingers on the phone. And I don’t hang up either.

  Hey, he says, listen. I’m sorry.

  We talked about this, I say.

  But I am, says Omar. I didn’t know.

  Or I only sort of knew, he says. Ximena sort of told me.

  But you didn’t know know, I say. Not from me.

  Right, says Omar. And now I do.

  Then it’s all right, I say.

  Isn’t that what they say? I add. That you’ve gotta try to find out for sure?

  That only works for white people, says Omar.

  We don’t have to tell any of them, I say.

  Right, says Omar. It’ll be our secret.

  31.

  I text Mike in the evening, thinking he’ll just be starting his day, after Mitsuko and I finish an elaborate collaboration: udon cooked in a hot pot, beside abura-age and kamaboko and spinach and two chicken legs.

  When Mitsuko cracks an egg into the pot, tasting a spoonful, she actually doesn’t grimace.

  It’s edible, she says.

  Really?

  Really.

  Once we’ve brought everything below a simmer, I take some photos. All of them are blurry. But when I send them to Mike, he responds immediately.

  Nice! he says.

  Mike has never, not once, used an exclamation point in our correspondence. Ever. He’s not one of those people.

  I ask if he’s all right.

  The next message he sends takes a little longer to arrive.

  I’ll call soon, he says.

  Everything will be OK, he says.

  I promise, he says, and that’s what I take to sleep with me.

  * * *

  • • •

  Mike’s never promised me anything. Only delivered or didn’t. He always said that promises were only words, and words only meant what you made them.

  * * *

  • • •

  It’s late when I hear the front lock jiggling.

  I slip on basketball shorts, some sandals, and dip into the living room. Mitsuko’s sliding into a jacket and her pair of graying sneakers. She gives me a look when I cough in the hallway.

  You can come, she says, but keep your mouth shut.

  * * *

  We walk from the apartment to the next street over, and then a few blocks more. The air is mild for Houston. A little too crisp for February. Plodding behind Mitsuko on the sidewalk, I wonder what we look like to anyone peeking from their windows.

  Eventually, we stop in front of what looks like a church. Something something Methodist. I look at Mitsuko, and then at the signage, and she waves me over to the building’s entrance, which is unlocked.

  There’s a light on by the pulpit, but otherwise the altar’s empty. The aisles are cleared. The seats are clean. The church’s windows are stained with various highlights from the Old Testament.

  Once we’ve reached the head of the pulpit, Mitsuko takes to her knees.

  I feel ridiculous standing behind her, so I settle into the space on her right.

  We stay like that for a while. Mitsuko mutters gently, quietly, in Japanese. Her hands are clasped. Her head is bowed. At one point, I hear Mike’s name, and then once again, but that’s all I get.

  It’s been at least a decade since I’ve stepped in a church. I’d been baptized, as a teenager, because my mother had insisted. The pastor dunked me in the water and everything. Afterward, I came out soaking, feeling brand-new, like money, and I ate a wafer and drank some wine and never went back again.

  I wonder how long Mitsuko’s been doing this.

  I wonder if it’s even legal. If we’re trespassing somehow.

  But once Mitsuko’s finished, she nods toward the choir bleachers at no one at all. Then she stands beside me, steadying herself on my shoulder.

  Hurry up, she says. We’re leaving.

  * * *

  Back in the apartment, I pour us both a glass of water. Mitsuko doesn’t thank me, but she takes it anyway.

  In case you’re wondering, she says, that’s what it’s come to. It’s absurd.

  I don’t think it’s absurd, I say.

  It’s absurd, says Mitsuko.

  I watch her drink her water. That’s all she has to say. So I take my glass back to the bedroom, draining the rest on the way.

  32.

  And then there’s the morning of the reception.

  I wake up to two texts.

  The first one’s a photo from Ximena, smiling with Juan in tow. She’s written It’s the big day!!!!!!! with about nineteen different emojis.

  The next one’s from Lydia, asking if I’ve heard from our father.

  I’m already typing when my sister sends another one, clear out of the blue.

  False alarm, she says. I’m handling it.

  Have fun at prom, she says.

  * * *

  When Mitsuko sees me in my tie, she gasps, jumping from the couch.

  Oh, she says. It’s you.

  Just me, I laugh.

  * * *

  Even after my protests, I end up leaving Mike’s car at Ximena’s place. I tell her it’s imposing to ride along with the newlyweds, but she says denying her invitation on the wedding day would be gravely rude.

  But you’re already married, I say.

  Exactly, says Ximena. You’re fucking with a real-life wife.

  Her mother’s standing by the door, on the phone. She raises a finger when I wave. And in the living room, Ximena’s husband sits on the sofa, legs crossed, bouncing her son on his lap. The kid looks enraptured, and the man does, too, and they’re both already dressed for the evening.

  They look up at the sight of me.

  Noah raises the kid’s arms.

  Ben, says Noah.

  Noah, I say. Hey.

  And congrats, I add.

  Thanks, says Noah.

  That means a lot, he says, especially from you. You know how much Xim thinks of you.

  Only on paydays.

  At least you’re a good sport about it.

  Noah rocks the kid on his lap, making ridiculous faces at him. Ximena told me that he’s from Amsterdam, that he’d lived there most of his life. They met a few months after Noah arrived in Houston, after he’d rear-ended her at a gas station. He hadn’t gotten insurance yet, and of course Ximena was pissed, but she gave him her number anyway. It only took a few weeks.

  She’s still getting dressed though, says Noah. The makeup thing. I tell her it all looks good, but she has to get it right, you know?

  And she’s supposed to be the one who doesn’t care, I say.

  Everyone cares, says Noah.

  You think so?

  Trust me, says Noah. My family? They’re the least sentimental people on this planet. They all work in the woods, making babies with whoever’s closest.

  But I just got off the phone with my brother, says Noah. They’ll be here today. The ones that are left. And I’m grateful.

  Juan lets out a burp, shaking his hips, and Noah opens his mouth to catch it. The kid laughs a little bit, and then a lot, and then he’s burping again.

  But hey, says Noah, where’s your better half? Is Mike coming?

  He’s out of town, I say. He sends his best wishes.

  He’d better, says Noah, rubbing his nose against Juan’s.

  The kid can’t stop laughing, like he’s the luckiest boy in the worl
d.

  * * *

  Ximena’s mother informs us that we’re all going to make her late. Her ex-husband, Ximena’s father, stands beside her, smoking a cigarette by the doorway in a cowboy hat. They’re both wearing this formal red, nearly matching from top to bottom, and I wonder if they’ve planned this or if that’s just what sharing a life with someone does to you.

  But when Ximena finally pokes her head around the corner, she really does look beautiful in her dress. It’s a purple gown. This lace-up thing.

  She shouts at everyone from the bathroom, a volley of Spanish I can’t understand.

  * * *

  A few days back, I’d asked Ximena if she was worried. We were smoking at lunch, which Ximena never does.

  Noah’s a good dude, but what if it doesn’t work out? I asked. What if you don’t know?

  Nobody ever knows if it’ll work, said Ximena. That’s why you do this shit. To find out.

  * * *

  • • •

  Once, I asked Mike about his parents’ wedding, and he didn’t know much about it. He told me they’d had it in a living room. Mike’s father shouldn’t have even been the groom, but the story behind that was messy, too.

  Messy how, I asked.

  Who fucking knows, said Mike. I can’t exactly ask now.

  My folks got married in a living room, too. But they didn’t have a grand reason. They were young and fucking broke and they thought it was a good idea. That’s it.

  When I told Mike about that, he just shook his head at me.