Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (12 page)

"This

is
her home," Henry shot back, standing up from his easy chair. "She wants to be here. She doesn't want to die in someplace unfamiliar--no matter how nice it is."

"You
want her to be here. You can't live without her--without controlling everything!" Marty was practically in tears. "They'll take care of her medicine, Pops, they have nurses ..."

Henry was angry, but he didn't want to make the situation worse by getting into another pointless shouting match, especially with Ethel sleeping in the next room.

The home hospice service had brought in everything to make her last few months more comfortable--a hospital bed and enough morphine, atropine, and Ativan to keep her relaxed and free from pain. They called each day, and a home health worker popped by as needed, but never as often as Henry had hoped.

"Henry ..." Both he and Marty froze at the sound of Ethel's weak voice. Neither had heard her speak in at least a week.

Henry went to their bedroom.
Their bedroom.
He still called it that, even though he'd been sleeping on the couch for the last six months, or occasionally in a recliner next to Ethel's bed. But only on the nights when she grew restless or scared.

"I'm here. Shussh-shhhhh. I'm here ...," he said, sitting on the edge of the bed, holding his wife's frail hand, leaning in close to try to hold her attention.

"Henry

..."

He looked at Ethel, who was staring wide-eyed out their bedroom window. "It's okay--I'm here." As he said it, he straightened out her nightgown and pulled her covers back up around her arms.

"Take me home, Henry," Ethel pleaded, gripping his hand. "I'm so sick of this place, take me home ..."

Henry looked up at his son, who was standing in the doorway, speechless.

After that day, the arguing had ceased. But so had their conversations.

"Pops, I think we need to talk."

Marty's voice woke Henry from his melancholy. He walked up the steps, partway, until he stood looking at his son, eye to eye. "Shouldn't we go inside and sit down and talk about what's on your mind?" he asked.

"I'd rather talk out here."

Henry noticed his son staring at his clothes, covered with dust from watching the renovation at the hotel. "Are you okay? What'd you hit, a line drive and slide into third base?"

"You have your long story, I have mine." Henry sat down next to his son, watching the long, dark shadow of Beacon Hill fall behind the trees, stretching the width of the avenue. The streetlamps above them flickered and hummed to life.

"Pops, we haven't talked about much of anything since Mom died, you know?"

Henry nodded stoically, bracing himself for an onslaught of criticism.

"I've busted my tail on my grades, I've tried to be the son you want me to be."

Henry listened, feeling remorseful. Maybe I spent too much time taking care of Ethel--
maybe I left him out
, he thought. If I did, it wasn't intentional. "You don't need to apologize for anything. I'm immensely proud of you," he said.

"I know you are, Pops. I see it--I know you are. Which is why I've been dodging talking to you about this. One, because there was so much going on with Mom, and two, well, because I just didn't know how you'd react."

Henry furrowed his brow; now he
was
worried. His mind checked off all the things his son could possibly tell him under these circumstances:
He's on drugs. He's
been kicked out of school. He's wrecked his car, joined a gang, committed a crime, going
to jail, he's gay ...

"Dad, I'm engaged."

"To a girl?"

Henry asked the question in all seriousness. Marty laughed. "Of course to a girl."

"And you're scared to tell me this?" Henry searched his son for some meaning in

his face, his eyes, in his body language. "She's pregnant." Henry said it as more of a statement than a question. The way you'd say "We surrender" or "We lost in overtime."

"Dad! No. Nothing like that."

"Then why are we talking out here ..."

"Because she's inside, Pops. I want you to meet her."

Henry lit up. Sure, he was hiding a pang of hurt that this mystery girl had been kept a secret, but his son was busy, he was sure Marty had a reason.

"It's just that, well, I know how crazy your own folks were. I mean, they weren't just Chinese, they were super-Chinese, if you know what I mean. They were like ice cubes in America's melting pot, you know-- they had one way of seeing things." Marty struggled for the words. "And you know, you married Mom and did the whole traditional wedding thing. And you sent me to Chinese school, like your own old man did-- and you always talk about me finding a nice Chinese girl to settle down with, like Mom."

There was a pause, a moment of silence. Henry watched his son, waiting for him to continue. Nothing stirred but the shadows cast on the steps as the fir trees swayed in the slight breeze.

"I'm not like Yay Yay--not like your grandfather," Henry said, as he realized where this was going, stunned to be categorized in the same breath as his own father. He loved his father, deep down, what son doesn't? He'd only wanted the best for him. But after all Henry had gone through, all he'd seen and done, had he changed that little? Was he so much like his own father? He heard a click as the door opened behind them. A young woman poked her head out, then stepped out smiling. She had long blond hair, and cool blue eyes--the kind Henry called Irish eyes.

"You must be Marty's father! I can't believe you've been out here this whole time.

Marty, why didn't you say something?" Henry smiled and watched her look in surprise at his son, who looked nervous, as if caught doing something wrong.

Henry offered his hand to his future daughter-in-law.

She shone like a light. "I'm Samantha, I've been dying to meet you." She stepped past his hand and threw her arms around him. Henry patted her, trying to breathe, then gave in and hugged her back. Looking over her shoulder--smiling--Henry gave Marty a thumbs-up.

Urne

(1986)

In the backyard, Henry put on garden gloves and pruned dead limbs off an old plum tree--dotted with small green fruit used in Chinese wine.

The tree was as old as his son.

Marty and his fiancee sat on the back steps and watched while sipping iced green tea with ginger. Henry had tried making iced tea with Darjeeling or pekoe, but they always tasted too bitter, no matter how much sugar or honey he added.

"Marty told me this was some sort of a surprise, I hope I didn't completely ruin it-

-it's just that he's told me everything about you, and I've been dying to meet you."

"Oh, not much to tell, really," Henry said politely.

"Well, for starters, he told me that's your favorite tree," Samantha said, doing her best to fill the awkward silence between father and son, "and that you planted it when Marty was born."

Henry continued pruning, clipping off a twig with delicate white blossoms. "It's an
ume
tree," he said, slowly pronouncing it "ooh-may" "Its flowers bloom even during the harshest weather--even in coldest winter."

"Here we go ...," Marty whispered to Samantha, just loud enough for his father to hear.
"Viva la revolucion ..."
he joked.

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Henry asked, pausing from his labors.

"No offense, Pops, it's just that--"

Samantha interrupted. "Marty told me that tree has a special meaning for you.

That it's a symbol of some kind."

"It is," Henry said, touching a small, five-petaled plum blossom. "Ume flowers are used as decoration during Chinese New Year. It's also the symbol of the ancient city of Nanjing and now the national flower of all of China."

Marty stood up partway and offered a mock salute.

"What's that for?" Samantha asked.

"Tell her, Pops."

Henry kept pruning, attempting to ignore his son's jest. "The flower was also my own father's favorite." He struggled against his pruning shears before finally clipping off a large dead branch. "It's a symbol of perseverance in the face of adversity--a revolutionist symbol."

"Your father was a revolutionary?" Samantha asked.

"Hah!" Henry caught himself laughing at the thought. "No, no--he was a nationalist. Always scared of the communist. But he still believed in one China. The ume tree was special to him that way, understand?"

Samantha smiled and nodded, sipping her tea. "Marty said that tree came from a branch of your father's tree--that you planted it here when he died."

Henry looked at his son, then shook his head and clipped another branch. "His mother tell him this."

Henry felt bad for mentioning Ethel. For bringing up such sadness on what was an otherwise happy day.

"I'm very sorry," Samantha said. "I wish I could have met her."

Henry just smiled solemnly and nodded, while Marty put his arm around his fiancee and kissed her on the temple.

Samantha changed the subject. "Marty tells me you were an incredible engineer, they even let you retire early."

Henry could see Samantha out of the corner of his eye as he tended to the tree; it was like she was checking off an imaginary list. "You're a great cook, you like to garden, and you're the best fisherman he's ever known. He told me about all the times you took him out on Lake Washington for sockeye."

"That so ...," Henry said, looking at his son, wondering why he never said these things to
him.
Then he thought about the communications gaps, more like chasms really, between him and his own father and knew the answer.

Samantha sipped her iced tea, stirring the ice cubes with her finger. "He says you love jazz music."

Henry looked at her, intrigued.
Now we're talking.

"And not just any jazz. The roots of West Coast jazz and swing, like Floyd Standifer and Buddy Catlett--and that you're a big Dave Holden fan, and a really big fan of his father, Oscar Holden, as well."

Henry pruned a small branch and tossed it in a white bucket. "I like her," he said to Marty, loud enough for her to hear it. "You did good."

"I'm glad you approve, Pops. You know, you surprise me."

Henry did his best to communicate without words. To give his son that smile, that knowing look of approval. He was certain Marty picked up every phrase of their wordless communication. After a lifetime of nods, frowns, and stoic smiles, they were both fluent in emotional shorthand. Smiling at each other as Samantha showed off her impressive knowledge of Seattle's rich prewar music history. The more Henry listened, the more he thought about going back to the Panama Hotel next week. About sifting through the basement. All those crates. All those trunks, and boxes, and suitcases. And about how much easier it would be if he had help.

But more than that, Henry hated being compared with his own father. In Marty's eyes, the plum hadn't fallen far from the tree; if anything, it was clinging stubbornly to the branches. That's what I've taught by my example, Henry thought, realizing that having Marty help him in the basement might ease more than the physical burden.

Henry took off his garden gloves, setting them on the porch. "The ume tree
was
my father's favorite, but the sapling I planted--it didn't come from him. It came from a tree in Kobe Park ..."

"But wasn't that part of old Japantown?" Marty asked.

Henry

nodded.

The night Marty was born Henry had cut an incision in the small branch of a plum tree--one of many that grew in the park--placing a toothpick in the cut and wrapping it with a small strip of fabric. He came back weeks later and took the rest of the branch--new roots had grown. He planted it in the backyard. And tended to it, always.

Henry had thought about grafting a cherry tree. But the blossoms were too beautiful--the memories too painful. But now, Ethel was gone.

Henry's father was long since gone. Even Japantown was gone. All that remained were days filled with long, endless hours, and the plum tree he had tended to in his backyard. Grafted the night his son was born, from a Chinese tree in a Japanese garden, all those years ago.

That tree had grown wild during the years Ethel fell ill. Henry had had less time to tend to the massive branches that had grown to fill the small confines of their backyard. But once Ethel had passed, Henry had started taking care of the tree once again, and it had begun to bear fruit.

"What are you two doing next Thursday?" Henry asked.

He watched them look at each other and shrug. His son's face still bore a wrinkle of confusion. "No plans," Samantha said.

"Meet me at the tearoom of the Panama Hotel."

Home Fires

(1942)