Brave Story (26 page)

He was still falling, and he was alone, plummeting down a lightless shaft, down, down, the wind whistling past his ears. Far above him, the shaft entrance grew smaller and smaller, and his father, standing at the edge, was already a tiny speck.

“Of course I’ll pay for your education. And I’ll do what I can to help you and your mother meet expenses. Once I can talk to your mother more officially, I intend to do everything I can to make things easy for her. You can live in that apartment. That belongs to you and your mother now. Everything is taken care of.”

Dad’s talking about money. Right. Money’s important.

“Dad…so, you don’t like me and Mom anymore?”

Akira shook his head. “That’s not it. The way I think about you and the way I think about her are two completely different things.”

“Why? You’re my dad and my mom. We’re a family, aren’t we?”

“Families are…a group of individuals, Wataru. They can live entirely different lives, and sometimes the paths they take lead away from each other.”

“You’re living with another woman now, aren’t you? You like her more, right? That’s why you abandoned us, right?” Somewhere along the line, Wataru had gone from asking to accusing.

Akira’s eyes grew larger behind the rimless glasses. His mouth gaped. “Who told you that?”

“What does it matter who told me?”

“It matters to me. It’s not something you should have to hear. It’s not something I wanted you to hear.”

“But if it’s true, I want to know about it. I don’t like lies. You were the one who told me lying is bad, Dad!”

Wataru’s voice had grown louder and louder as he talked. They were catching glances from the people on nearby benches. A young couple pushing a stroller nearby stopped in their tracks.

Akira reached out a hand and affectionately stroked Wataru’s back.
Don’t touch me
. He had to clench both his hands into fists to stop himself from swatting away his father’s hand.

“Lies are bad, that’s true,” Akira said in a low, husky voice. “But twisting the truth and not saying something that’s private are two different things. You should understand that. You do understand, don’t you? You’re a smart kid.”

Who cares if I’m smart? Why are you always trying to change the subject?

“Satoru told you, didn’t he?”

Wataru was silent.

“Your grandmother? Not your mother, surely.”

Wataru jerked his head upward. “I won’t tell you unless you tell me if it’s true or not.”

Akira sighed.

The usual bustle had returned to the fountain square.
All these people have no idea what we’re talking about. Everyone in the world is happy. Everyone except us.

“It is true,” Akira said.

The words shot by Wataru, still falling, and disappeared above him. They weren’t falling—he had fallen by them. Now he saw they had grown wings, and were flying up into the sky, happy.

“I’m going to start a new life with this woman. If your mother agrees to a divorce, I intend to marry her.”

The rumble of tank treads sounded in Wataru’s fears. “Grandma’s pretty mad. She’ll never go for it.”

To Wataru’s surprise, Akira laughed. “Of course she won’t. One phone call was enough to convince me of that. She told me I wasn’t a father anymore—or her son. Your grandmother disowned me.”

“Disowned? What’s that?”

“That means we officially stop being a parent and child.”

“So you’re not Grandma’s son anymore? And Uncle Lou…does this make him not my uncle anymore?”

Akira’s mouth curled into a grim smile. “No, Grandma didn’t really disown me. But she was mad enough to say she would.”

“And Grandma being so mad doesn’t make you think twice about your decision? Do you think you’re doing the right thing?”

Akira looked into Wataru’s eyes. “Do you think it’s the right thing to abandon your convictions because someone close to you gets angry?”

“Abandon your convictions? You mean change your mind?”

“Yes, that’s right. Convictions are very important decisions, the kind you can’t go back on.”

So abandoning me and Mom was an important decision.

“So what
are
your convictions, Dad. I mean, Mom is really sad, and Grandma’s furious, and all Uncle Lou does is hold his head in his hands and moan. How can convictions be worth all that?”

An elderly couple eating ice cream on the bench next to them had caught a snippet of the conversation and were now peering at them with interest. Akira shot them a withering glare. The two looked at each other and resumed licking their cones.

“What are my convictions?” Akira echoed. “You need to know?”

“Yeah,” Wataru said firmly, but inside he was frightened. He had backed his father into this and now he was treading on unknown territory. He was trying to open a door that shouldn’t be opened. If only there were a strategy guide for this, like for a role-playing game.
A powerful, secret boss lies in wait behind this door. If you’re under level fifty, it’s best to sneak past.

“Your father’s conviction,” Akira said slowly, “is that you only live once.”

You only live once.

“That’s why, if you think you’ve made a mistake, no matter how much you struggle, how much difficulty you face, you have to fix what can be fixed. There’s no time for regrets.”

He spoke slowly, saying every word with the proper weight, but the only one that stuck in Wataru’s head was
mistake
.

Dad’s life was a mistake.

So…what does that make me?

“Are you saying it was a mistake for you to marry Mom? So what about me? Does that make me a mistake too? Is that what you mean?”

Akira shook his head. “No that’s not what I mean. I’m not saying that.”

“Then what was your mistake? I don’t get it.”

“Look, this isn’t something you can understand right now. Maybe when you’re older, when you’ve lived through some of the things I have. Maybe then you’ll understand. Though I’m not sure understanding will make you happy.”

Wataru was getting lost in a maze that grew more and more complicated with every word said. His father’s explanations always made so much sense. Even when things seemed tangled beyond belief, his father would untangle them, and lay them out flat for all to see.

But this time it was exactly the opposite. Things were simple.
Dad left Mom, he left me—he left our house. He wants to marry another woman. It’s that simple.
So why does the explanation seem so complicated?

Akira reached out a hand and lightly held Wataru’s shoulder. Rocking him slowly back and forth, he spoke. “There’s one thing I want you to remember. No matter what mistakes your mother and I have made, no matter what our failures, it has nothing to do with you. You are your own person. Haven’t I always told you that? A child has his own personality; he’s not just an attachment to his parents. Even if our marriage has failed, it doesn’t mean you’re a failure. That’s the truth. Never forget it.”

Akira’s brow furrowed. “If you lift your head and look our marriage in the face, you will see it for what it is. Failures
are
failures. Ours was a mistake from the very beginning. We were just kidding ourselves the whole time.”

Mom always kept the house clean. She always made dinner. She hardly ever slept late. She fought with Grandma sometimes, but they always made up afterward.

“Mom hasn’t done anything bad. She didn’t make a mistake,” Wataru muttered. Then he noticed that amazingly, incredibly, his father’s calm demeanor had faded and was replaced by a look of outright irritation. When he spoke the words came in a rush, like he was trying to push something back down in its place by sheer force.

“Failure doesn’t mean anyone did anything bad. Sometimes people fail even when they only do good things. Or they do what they think is good. Only with hindsight can anyone understand the failures they experience.”

The lady on the next bench over had stopped licking her ice cream to stare at them. She was oblivious to the melting rivulet of vanilla coursing off the edge of her cone and staining her skirt.

The old man grunted and nudged her with his elbow. “You’re dripping.”

Flustered, the woman brushed at her skirt. Wataru watched the scene unfold blankly.
You can hear what we’re saying, can’t you? Do
you
understand?
Could you translate for me? What is my father trying to say?

“I don’t understand,” Wataru said meekly, to which Akira nodded.

“I didn’t think you would. You don’t have to. This was my mistake…and I think meeting you today was a mistake too. I can’t explain it so you’ll understand, I’m just hurting you. See? That’s what I mean.”

“That’s what I mean” was his father’s code for “this conversation is over.” How many times had his questions about everything under the sun been answered, tips been given, advice handed out with those words.

A sigh came out unbidden. He felt like he had been holding his breath this whole time. Like he had swum the length of an Olympic-size pool underwater and only just now reached the edge, his lungs burning.

He breathed, and the reality of it hit him. Then, just like that, the thing he had been thinking from the very beginning came welling up and popped out of his mouth. “So basically, you just like this other woman more than Mom. That’s what this is all about, right?”

His father did not answer. Brow furrowed, he tapped his glasses with a finger and looked down at the ground.

Spray from the fountain fell lightly on Wataru’s forehead.

“If that’s what you want to think, fine. Think that,” Akira said. He stood up to leave. “I’ll walk you to the bus stop.”

“No, that’s okay. I want to stay here awhile.”

“Don’t sulk, Wataru.”

“I’m not sulking. I just want to go to the library.”

“I can’t leave you here alone after all we’ve talked about.”

“I’m fine. I can make it home myself.”

Just go home, Dad. I’ll be fine. Just go back to your woman. The one who isn’t a mistake.

Wataru didn’t meet his father’s gaze again that day.

Akira stood quietly in front of the hard bench where Wataru sat staring at the ground in uneasy silence.

The wind is blowing water from the fountain and it’s cold. I can hear a girl laughing. I hear a baby crying.

“Wataru…This idea to meet me—was this your idea alone?”

“Katchan helped me.”

“That’s not what I mean. Um, did you come up with the idea yourself?”

Wataru looked up.
Funny, he looks scared.
“What do you mean?”

Akira’s lips curled, as he searched for the proper words. He thrust his hands into his pockets and looked away. “Did your mother send you here to do this?”

Wataru didn’t catch what he said. “Huh?”

“Did your mother tell you to meet with me and ask me to come home?”

Wataru’s mouth gaped open. “No, not at all.”

“Okay.” Akira nodded, still frowning. “That’s fine. If your mother had put you up to this…if she was trying to use you, that would be bad. You understand? I just wanted to make sure.”

“Mom wouldn’t do that.”
She wants me to pretend you’re on a business trip.
“She doesn’t know I’m here.”

Akira’s shoulders relaxed. He seemed relieved.

“It’s the truth, Dad.”

“Right, I understand. Well, I’m going now. You take care of yourself, and go straight home.” He began to walk off, then paused. “Call me on my cell phone anytime. If you want to talk, just call. Even if it’s just about homework. Anything.”

Wataru sat alone, staring off into space when he heard a tiny voice. He was too tired to actually focus on it, to hear what it was saying.

“Sonny?”

He felt a light tap on his shoulder and looked up to see the old lady who had been sitting on the bench next to him. He saw the dark stains of the ice cream in the fabric of her skirt. She was plump, and bent over to the point where she was only about as tall as Wataru. She crouched by the bench and smiled a faint smile. “Where do you live, sonny?”

Wataru was empty. An old shopping bag turned upside down. His voice had fallen out a long time ago to clatter on the floor.

“We could take you home?” she offered.

Behind her Wataru could see her husband sitting on the bench, frowning. Then Wataru’s mouth opened, and the sound that came out was alien to him, flat, like a synthesized voice.

“No, I’m going to the library.”

“You sure, sonny? You live far from here?”

Wataru repeated himself, then stood.

“Leave him alone,” the old man said to his wife. “He can take care of himself.”

The lady grabbed her husband’s shirt by the sleeve. “But aren’t you worried?” Wataru heard her saying. “He’s so young…”

He left them and began to walk toward the library building. “Oh, sonny!” the old lady called out. “How about some ice cream?”