Crimson Footprints (41 page)

Daichi sighed.

“
When I met your mother she
was a freshman at Harvard while I was in the last year of my
graduate studies. She was curled under a tree, reading Emily
Dickenson. Back then, Emily Dickenson consumed her. I walked up to
her, took the book from her, and recited Lord Byron’s
She Walks in Beauty
.”

Tak blinked, trying his best
to conjure an image of his father, underneath a maple, wooing his
mother with poetry. The image never came.

“
We dated for six months
and then married. At our ceremony she was already six weeks
pregnant with you.”

Daichi slipped his hands in
his pockets, leaned against the edge of his desk and sighed. “She
left school to marry me and to have you. She was so full of
potential and so brilliant, the guilt from that plagued me. I
wanted so badly to give you both a better life that I lost sight of
what constituted better. I thought that ‘things’ meant better. So,
I pushed for bigger contracts and worked longer hours. And by the
time I accomplished what I set out to do, well, your mother and I
were strangers. The distance brought the alcohol, and the alcohol,
animosity.”

Tak lowered his gaze. “And
what about Kenji? Most days it seems you can hardly stand to look
at him.”

“
I don’t know. When I look
at you, there is so much of me, and of my father. But when I look
at Kenji, I just see—your mother—timid conformist, crestfallen
wife, adulterer.”

“
She had an
affair?”

Daichi waved a tired hand.
“It was a long time ago. Nothing for you to be concerned
about.”

“
You don’t—you don’t doubt
that Kenji’s yours, do you?”

Daichi smiled. “No. Of
course not. We had not decimated just yet.”

He rubbed his forehead.
“Kenji was conceived in a time when our marriage was difficult,
whereas with you, it was a time when I was full of optimism and
hope, joy and love. By the time your brother was born, your mother
and I were divorced in all but the most literal sense. Through no
fault of his own, Kenji symbolizes everything that has gone wrong
with my life, and you, all that has gone right.”

Tak chewed on his bottom
lip. “Do you—still love mom?”

It was a question Daichi had
been asking himself for two decades. He and Hatsumi had shared so
many years, more unhappy than happy, but he’d remained with her
nonetheless. In fact, he’d never considered leaving her. Not on the
countless occasions he’d found her too inebriated to care for their
children and not when he found her in the arms of one of his
interns eighteen years ago. But he wasn’t sure that his reluctance
to abandon her was tantamount to love. Perhaps it was the guilt and
self-loathing he felt whenever he saw her presented in exquisitely
perfect fashion, with her makeup and hair in place, as though
nothing were more important. He’d look at her and think of that
beautiful freshman, hair slightly disheveled as she read Emily
Dickinson. He’d think of the bright future she must’ve had before
Daichi Tanaka derailed her. Perhaps the guilt kept him
there.

“
I don’t know if I love
your mother. But I do know that I love you and I’m willing to say
it until you believe it.”

*

When Tak returned home that
evening, he exhibited signs of forgetfulness, confusion and
disorientation. He put things down and forgot where they were,
faltered midway through sentences and stumbled over
words.

Since Tak’s accident, Deena
had delved into medical journals and self-help books in an effort
to monitor and assist in his recovery. His behavior was symptomatic
of head trauma, something that could exhibit symptoms immediately
or over a period of time.

So she followed him around,
asking probing questions about sensitivity to light and headaches
until he turned to her quite suddenly, as if noticing her for the
first time.

“
Did you know that my
mother was already pregnant when my parents got
married?”

Deena froze, a copy
of
Treating Trauma
in her hands. “No.”

“
Oh. Okay.”

With a shrug, he took a seat
on the couch and began untying his sneakers.

“
He told me he loved me
today.”

Deena’s eyebrows shot
up.

“
Who did?”

Tak grinned. “My
dad.”

CHAPTER
SIXTY-THREE

Daichi entered the master
bedroom and cast off his plush robe and slippers. He changed into a
pair of silk black pajamas and slid underneath the covers next to
his wife. She lay on her side with her back to him. Daichi, taking
in the slow rise and fall of her body and the otherwise lacking
motion, determined she was asleep.

He put on his wire-framed
reading glasses and delved into the latest issue of
Architectural Digest
. He
fully expected to enjoy it, the last of the season, as it featured
a retrospective look at the year’s innovations. But his mind was on
Takumi and the conversation they’d had. Never had he spoken to
someone with such candor, with such vulnerability. Never had his
son seen him cry.

Sighing, he set the
magazine back on the nightstand. There would be no
Architectural Digest
tonight.

“
Hatsumi?”

She turned to face him. How
many nights had they shared like this one? With her back to him,
never speaking, never interacting, just him reading until he fell
asleep and her simply listening?

“
Yes, Daichi?”

He’d always thought her
voice beautiful. As a foolish young man, he’d imagined that if
something as sweet and pure as fruit could speak, it would have the
voice of Hatsumi. How was that young man defeated? And better yet,
why hadn’t he put up a fight?

“
May I speak with you for a
moment?”

Hatsumi drew herself up on
one arm and Daichi frowned at her attire. He was certain what she
wore constituted negligee—black satin and lace cupped her breasts
and hugged her mid-section, held up by only the slimmest of
straps.

“
Why are you wearing that?”
he demanded. “It’s much too cold for that.”

He kept their home as cool
as possible to ward off bacteria.

Hatsumi lowered her gaze.
“You wanted to speak with me about something?”

Daichi looked
away.

“
Yes. I uh, wanted to ask
you something. Ask your opinion, rather, on something.” He took a
deep breath.

“
Do I love you,
Hatsumi?”

She frowned. “I’m not sure I
understand what you’re asking.”

She shifted in her chemise,
the cool air upon her breasts. Daichi's gaze faltered
momentarily.

“
I want to know whether or
not I love you,” he said simply.

Hatsumi hesitated. “I don’t
think so.”

He blinked a few times and
nodded to himself. When he turned to her once more, she shifted
again, her nipples pressing through the lace of her
chemise.

“
You’re cold," he observed.
"Allow me to get you something.”

He was out of bed and
searching for a robe before she could object.

The last time he’d
volunteered to do something for her was two weeks before Tak’s
accident, when he offered to pour a bottle of alcohol directly down
her throat, thereby dispensing with the constant refilling of her
glass.

The robe Daichi handed her
was his own. Standing to take it, she revealed the full cut of her
nightie—the sheerness of material, the slight curve of her slender
body and long bare legs. He was rendered breathless where he stood,
recalling a time when his lips would trace the length of those
legs, delighting in the sweet fragrance he found there.

“
Thank you,” Hatsumi said,
tying the straps of the oversized cotton robe about her
waist.

“
You’re welcome,” he said
quietly. When he looked away, it was in frustration.

“
I uh, spoke at great
length with Takumi today,” he said.

Hatsumi blinked.

“
We talked about many
things, Takumi and I. This is why I asked if I loved you, as it was
the question posed to me by him.”

“
And what did you
say?”

“
The truth. That I didn’t
know.”

Hatsumi walked to the large
window facing the foot of their bed and gazed out at the bay, and
beyond it, the Atlantic Ocean.

“
When we were younger you
looked at me and you saw a beautiful woman, an intelligent woman, a
woman you were honored to have by your side. But as time went by,
that vision deteriorated. I became a woman who sacrificed a
promising life, foolishly according to you, to have your child and
be your wife. Quite simply, I became a fool.”

She turned to face him. “But
where is it written that I can’t be all those things—beautiful and
intelligent, wife and mother? When you look at me, you do so with
regret. You think of what I could’ve become. You measure greatness
by outward appearances and superficialities.”

She swallowed. “No, there
are no monuments erected to pay homage to my ego, and no, I don’t
grace the covers of magazines, but I have two beautiful sons and a
family that I love. So, I do not meet your standards of greatness,
but I am no one’s failure.”

Hatsumi turned away from her
husband.

“
Why do you stay, Hatsumi?
Why do you stay in this empty, hopeless marriage?”

She sighed. “Because…we can
find each other again.”

Daichi stared at her back,
pained by the temptation her words afforded him. Suddenly, he knew
why he’d never, why he’d never leave. Daichi, like his wife, had
held out hope that love would find them again. Each in their own
way longed for something, anything to rejuvenate the passion they’d
once shared.

Hatsumi took a step towards
him and allowed her robe cascaded to the floor. She revealed
deliciously subtle curves under dark and yielding fabric. Daichi
stared, his thoughts imbued with images of long pale legs and the
delectable enticements he'd once savored.

Aroused to the point of
madness, his hands, his mouth, his body found hers before his mind
could convince him otherwise.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

The library still plagued
Daichi. True, once completed it would be the largest in the state,
shared by four colleges clustered in Broward, but it was just a
library. He’d designed facilities for some of the largest companies
in the world. His work donned the covers of magazines and the
glossy pages of books in cities all over the earth. Could a library
really be such a challenge?

At four o'clock, exactly six
hours after entering his study, there was a knock at the door.
Absentmindedly he told whomever it was to come in.

Kenji stood with a hand in
the pocket of his relaxed jeans, head down, voice soft.

"Mom wants to know if you're
hungry."

"Perhaps."

Daichi frowned at the
computer-generated renderings of his flawed vision.

He grunted. “I just
can’t…”

Kenji took a step closer and
frowned at the screen. "You can fix it if you make your promenade
wider. And put reflecting pools on both sides."

Daichi looked up.
"What?"

Kenji faltered. "I said you
should make your—n—never mind."

Daichi stood. "You
understand what you're looking at?"

Kenji’s gaze returned to the
floor. "I guess so."

Daichi frowned. Suddenly
seized by an idea, he snatched a pencil and sheet of paper from his
desk and drew frantically. When finished, he held the sheet up
before Kenji.

"What's this?"

He looked from the paper to
his father's expectant face.

"A column."

Daichi pursed his lips in
impatience.
"What kind?"

Kenji looked again.
"Tuscan."

Daichi allowed the paper to
fall as he snatched another. He sketched frantically, then wielded
his work once again.

"And this?"

"A trefoil."

Daichi whirled as if seized
by madness, searching, rummaging wildly.

"And this? What's this,
Kenji?"

He brandished a copy
of
Architectural Record
.

"A magazine."

"The building, son, the
building."

"Oh," Kenji gave it a second
look. He bit his lower lip and looked up uncertainly.

"You can do it, Kenji.
You're my son. It's in you."

Kenji frowned before
returning to the picture.

"It's a church."

Daichi sighed, already
turning away.