How to Be an American Housewife (27 page)

I sat down. The remains of a plate of scrambled eggs sat in front of him, along with an untouched platter of chocolate croissants. My stomach growled.

I wanted to act like my mother would, but I couldn’t think of what she would have done. Yelled? Thrown something? Hugged him? I squared my jaw.

I had to give him the letter, stuck in the pocket of my bag, Mom’s elegant chicken scratch so close together, it looked like a pattern.

I waited.

“I have been in meditation all night.” Taro put down the paper and folded his hands.

He examined my face, probably seeing my mother in me somewhere, in the longish shape, the jaw, the unruly eyebrows. And he saw my father, too, disgusting Taro, no doubt. His expression revealed nothing and his eyes were impassive.

He pushed the pastry plate at me and I took one. “I have decided that this is not your fault. Especially your young one.” He bowed his whole upper body. “I apologize for my outburst.”

I frowned. “Why couldn’t you have given Mom a chance thirty or forty years ago?”

His face darkened again. “Some things are not easy to forgive. For instance, what your country did to us. How could I embrace a man from our enemy country as my brother-in-law?” Taro pointed his finger into the air. “It’s all about karma. Your mother’s karma is bad, unfortunately. Perhaps this is why her heart is now failing. The United States has bad karma from using the A-bombs. This is why you were attacked by terrorists.” He took a bite of cold egg. “But, by forgiving her now, I am improving my own karma, and perhaps hers.”

Anger built in my gut. Must everything have a payback, a reward or punishment? I knew I should accept that he wanted to give us a chance, however unreasonable his logic, but I couldn’t help myself. “What about those sarin gas attacks on Tokyo subways? Those were terrorist acts by your own people. What is that repayment for? The Rape of Nanking?”

“Fictional propaganda,” he said flatly.

“If my mother’s heart is her karma, then what about your other sister, Suki? What did she ever do?”

He shut his eyes ever so briefly. “My little sister. Who knows? Perhaps it is karma for our whole family.” His face paled and his hands shook a little as he took a sip of tea.

“Shoko left because she was in love with my father, Uncle Taro, not to hurt you.”

His voice rose and his color returned. “Your mother left to get what she could out of your father, because she could not stay here. She only hurt herself.”

“She’s had a better life than she would have in Japan.” But for a moment I doubted that. Would she not have been better off here, with her siblings who raised singers and teachers and sports champions?

Taro put his arms on his head and chuckled. “You are like your mother. Never give up. Your face looks exactly like hers when she got mad.” He touched my cheek. “I thought you would be an ugly
gaijin
. But I can see her face in yours.” He dropped his hand. “I would not be telling the truth if I said I had closed my heart to Shoko-chan. Every day”—his voice choked—“every day I have remembered her.”

Sumiko appeared. “Ojı̄chan! Thank you for feeding our guest. I am glad you are back.”

He acknowledged her with a wave. “If you will excuse me, it is my day at the temple.” He left the room.

“He is not always so gruff,” Sumiko said. “He is a very kind man. But in this one way, it seems he is stuck, you see?” She smiled. “We go to church this morning. It is Mitama service. You would like to come?”

 

 

A FEW PEOPLE MINGLED outside Taro’s church, waiting for services to begin. Sumiko got her son out of the car. “Do what I do, if you are comfortable.”

We washed our hands in a basin near the door. One wall was covered with notes—prayer requests. I looked up at the dark wood beams of the roof. A platform spanned the entire front of the church. There were three altar areas; the one to the left had photos of people in white priests’ robes and offerings of fruits and vegetables on pillars in front of it; the middle looked like a larger version of Mom’s miniature altar; and on the right was a windowed booth, where a man in white robes sat with his face in profile to them.

Helena grew quiet. She wore the one dress she had brought with her, a long flowered one that looked like she stole it from her grandma Kate’s wardrobe. She reached for my hand and squeezed. “How come you never take me to church?”

I felt a guilty stab. “I didn’t know you wanted to go.”

The only church I’d had limited access to as a child was my dad’s Mormon one; Mom made clear her feelings about that. There was no Konko church in San Diego. The closest one was in L.A. I prayed with Mom often, but Dad never prayed at home, perhaps because my mother objected to it so strenuously and because my father did not like to fight.

The few times I did go to Dad’s church—to see a baptism or a film about its founder—I came with a healthy dose of skepticism, drilled into me by my mother. I watched a woman getting dunked, or Joseph Smith spoken to by God, and I simply didn’t believe it.

Sumiko whispered, “The middle is the Tenchi Kane no Kami altar.” It had a framed scroll with lettering on it, and more edible offerings. A stack of papers sat on one side, and on the other, a big bag of salt. Sumiko went to the main altar, knelt, bowed once, and clapped four times. Taro-chan did the same. Then they bowed their heads.

We copied them. Instead of praying, I watched people discreetly, trying on this religion for size but feeling no profound connection, no shooting light from above. I stood when Sumiko did. The others had already gone to a pew, and the man in the white robe was coming out.

It was Taro. He held a tapering piece of wood, which he stuck into the fold of his robe. He wore a cap with a long plume coming out the back and curving skyward. It wasn’t a feather; it might have been carved wood, but I couldn’t tell from this distance. He faced the main altar and clapped four times, saying a prayer.

“This is the
mitama
for all the priests who have died. We remember them and pray for their guidance,” Sumiko said. Taro-chan held his finger to his lips, silencing her.

The congregation approached the altar. We were offered a tree branch with a piece of white paper attached to its branches. “Put it on the table, and pray to the priest you want,” Sumiko instructed quietly.

I looked at the tableau of photos, stopping at a man with a small smile on his face, the expression wrinkling around his mouth and eyes. “That’s your great-grandfather,” I whispered.

“People are praying to him? Like a god?” Helena peered closely.

“Not exactly,” I hedged, though I suspected she was correct.

I settled down and tried to make my mind go blank. What did I want to pray for? World peace sounded like a Miss America contestant. Mom’s health was a given, like the health of the rest of my family. I wanted to pray for something I could change. I swallowed. My throat was ash dry.
For guidance. I need guidance in my life
.

A
fter church, Sumiko took us shopping and then to lunch for the best sushi and sashimi I had ever eaten. The fish was pulled straight from the ocean and sliced up, eyes still moving, at a little restaurant overlooking the water.

“What do you want to do for the rest of our time?” Helena dipped deep-red tuna into the sashimi sauce. “We have a week. Are we going to do any more sightseeing? How about the monkeys in the hot spring?”

“Those are in the north.” I took a bite of fish that melted in my mouth. “And I still haven’t given Taro the letter.”

Helena blanched. “Come on. What’s the big deal? He’ll read it and respond, or not.”

“Mom needs an answer, not silence.”

“He’s not going to change just for you, you know.” Helena sounded wiser than I felt. “Will he, Sumiko?”

Sumiko twirled some long noodles into her son’s mouth, a mother bird feeding her baby. The wind picked up and blew her hair off her face. “One never knows with Taro.”

“Does he change his mind a lot?” I asked. “How he thinks about things.”

“Ah. Never.” Sumiko went off to wash Taro’s hands.

“See?” Helena nudged me. “Never going to change. Mom, you’re the one who said I shouldn’t expect people to change. You married Dad expecting him to change and he didn’t. Take people for what they are, remember?”

I remembered. “And yet, people do change, Helena.”

“But we can’t expect it,” she prompted.

“Are you going to throw everything I ever said back at me?”

“Yep.” Helena grinned. “So let’s go see some stuff.”

“I thought you didn’t like historical sites.”

“I do, as long as you’re not lecturing me.” She leaned back on her black bar stool. “It’s nice here.”

We looked out at the water. “Less crowded than a San Diego beach.”

The only sounds were Helena clicking her chopsticks against the porcelain dish and seabirds cawing as they dove for fish. She swallowed. “Is it funny to feel homesick for a place I’ve never been before?”

I had been feeling the same way. “No.” As much as I called her “my” Helena, she was her own person, by turns introverted and extroverted, coming up with observations it took me years to figure out. “Do you know you’ve amazed me every day since you were a toddler?”

“Mo-om.”

“Of course, sometimes it’s sheer amazement at your craziness,” I said as Sumiko returned.

Sumiko pulled Taro-chan onto her lap. “Tales of Helena? Tell me.”

We lingered over lunch, talking now of our life in America. I watched Helena speak about her grandparents and her plays and her last algebra test, her hands flying around in the air to illustrate her stories, Sumiko covering her mouth as she giggled. Helena and I were not athletes or superstars, we were us. And that was enough.

 

 

TARO RETURNED LATE. Sumiko and I watched the news; Helena had already gone to bed, along with Taro-chan.

Taro acknowledged us with a nod. “How are the
gaijin
this evening?”

“They are family, not foreigners,” Sumiko corrected.

“Hmmmph.” He clanged in the kitchen, returning to the table with a dish of food and a rice bowl. He wore slacks and a light-brown short-sleeve shirt, buttoned up.

His serenity and dignity at church were completely at odds with the man sitting there, gobbling up rice grains and looking crotchety. “That was a lovely service today.”

“Are you Christian?” He ate an unidentifiable piece of fish. It smelled like caramelized soy sauce.

I paused, trying to think of how to explain what I was. I remembered the prayer I had made earlier. “I’m nothing, I guess.”

“No one is nothing.” Taro drank water. “Is that how my sister raised you?”

“No. She taught me what she could.” I braced myself for a join-my-church-it-will-save-you lecture.

Instead he looked at the news, chewing.

Sumiko excused herself.

It was quiet for a while. I watched him. I wanted to give him Mom’s letter. No time like now. How can Taro the priest turn down my mother’s request?

I went to my bag and got out Mom’s letter. I placed it on the dark lacquered table in front of him. “This is from my mother. I don’t know what it says, but I do know she wants you to respond.”

His eyes fell to the paper. Silence.

At last, he rose. “Suiko-chan”—he picked up his rice bowl—“it is very late. I will see you tomorrow.” He tucked the letter into his shirt pocket and shuffled off, his pant hems dragging, a very old man suddenly.