Nom nom! You should be here!
I poke a hole in the egg yolk with my chopsticks and stir the yolk into the noodle broth a little. It makes a rich, silky contrast to the salty broth and chewy soba noodles. Dad should be here. And it’s not like he couldn’t. He’s somewhere in town, after all.
The more I eat—the sweet pumpkin, the daikon seasoned and cooked to melt-in-your-mouth tender perfection—the more resentful I feel about Dad’s absence, and by the time Mom and I are carrying the dishes back to the sink, I’m ready to tell her. Jamie’s right. She deserves to know the truth.
“Mom,” I begin, “do you ever wish that Dad didn’t work so much? Or go away so much?”
Mom is sorting through her Tupperware, eyeing what’s left in the serving dishes and figuring out which containers to use. “No point,” she says, selecting four containers. “He has to work hard and go on business trip no matter what.”
“Yeah, but do you ever wish it was different?”
She starts scooping the pumpkin into a round container. “What difference does it make? Wishing does not change the life.”
“But is that what you want?”
She stops scooping and looks at me, exasperated. “What I want does not matter. It is the life.” She resumes scooping and shakes her head. “An’ta ni wa wakarahen.”
No, I don’t. I don’t understand at all. And anyway, we’re getting off track. I fill another container with carrots, daikon, and taro root.
“But what if . . .” What if what? What if he’s sleeping around? What if he cheats on you? How can I say this to my own mother?
“What if does not change the life, either.”
Arggh. Am I going to be reduced to the “I have a ‘friend’ with a problem” ploy? Then I have an idea. “But like, in this book we read for class, The Scarlet Letter. The wife cheats on the husband. When he’s like, traveling or whatever.”
“Cheat? Dou iu imi?”
“Cheating. It means . . .” Keep it clean. “It’s like falling in love with someone else. Or like, kissing someone else who’s not your husband or wife.” Even with this G-rated version, I have to hide behind the refrigerator door with my head in the fridge, pretending to rearrange things so I can fit the Tupperware in.
Silence. The sound of water running as Mom prepares to rinse the dinner dishes. I don’t dare come out from behind the door.
Then, “Ah!” She laughs and I can hear incredulous delight in her voice as she says, “You think I am cheating Dad? Aho-rashii.”
Well, of course, that’s ridiculous.
“How can I do such a thing?” She laughs again.
I guess it wasn’t the best example. Beautiful young wife has affair while ugly old husband travels? No wonder she misinterpreted. I try again. “Okay, well, what about Dad? What if he . . . What if, while he’s on his business trips he . . . you know.”
I watch Mom’s back stiffen as she leans over the sink, swirling hot water around in a serving bowl. Without straightening up, without turning around, she says, “If Dad does cheating, what can I do? I am his wife.” She stops rinsing and motions me over to open the dishwasher. Then with an air of finality, she says, “Aho-rashii hanashi yame-nasai.”
“But—”
“Yame-nasai.” And that’s the end of that. No more foolish talk.
She hands me dish after dish and I load them into the dishwasher without a word, like she wants, the same way we stow away our secrets in this family, shutting the door on them and locking them away from sight until we come up with a version clean and respectable enough for all to see.
In the same way that being with Jamie is like carrying a star in my pocket wherever I go, knowing about Dad’s affair is like walking around with a backpack full of rocks. Talking to Mom last night only made it heavier.
“Why don’t you tell your dad you saw him?” asks Caleb at lunch. It’s Tuesday and I’ve pulled him away from his friends, and I thought I saw his cheeks go a little pink, but I had other things to think about. I have to talk to someone, and I’m still too embarrassed to pull Jamie away from her friends. And since our spying misadventure the other week and my little breakdown on Sunday, Caleb is the only person besides Jamie who I feel comfortable talking to about Dad.
“Are you out of your mind? What am I going to say, ‘Hi, Dad, I was out at PopStar—where, by the way, I wasn’t supposed to be—and I saw you and your mistress . . . canoodling’?”
“I wouldn’t say canoodling, but yeah. Something like that. Anyway, it’s not like he could get you in trouble. He was doing something way worse.”
“No. I’m not doing it.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, come on. How awkward would that be? Would you tell your dad you saw him cheating?”
“I don’t have a dad.”
“Fine. Your mom’s boyfriend. Would you tell him?”
“Hell, yeah. I’d kick his ass.”
“Well, your mom’s boyfriend is not my dad, and I’m not you, and anyway, I can’t kick my dad’s ass.”
“Fine. Suit yourself. But I think you should say something. I think people should always be honest with each other.”
He gives me a look so serious that suddenly I’m sure he’s talking about Jamie. He takes a breath like he’s going to spill some really big news. Does he know? Did Elaine go blabbing it to someone? I try to look innocent. Then, thank God, he lets his breath out, and I can see him change his mind. “If your dad can’t be honest with you, then you have to step up and be honest with him. It sucks, but I really think it’s what you have to do.”
My own sigh is one part aggravation with all this harping about honesty and three parts relief that he isn’t talking about me and Jamie. “Fine. Okay. I’ll think about it.”
But I know I won’t do it.
POETRY JOURNAL, HONORS AMERICAN LITERATURE
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7
“Wellfleet, Midsummer”
by Kimiko Hahn
It’s kind of a long poem, but it’s easy to read. It’s almost not even poetry—each stanza is just a sentence or two about the speaker’s life at a rented cottage on a beach somewhere—Wellfleet, I guess. Her mother is dead, her boyfriend is there, and it’s hot and humid and sad. She has a daughter and an ex-husband, too, but they aren’t at the cottage. Maybe the daughter is at her dad’s house for the weekend.
Here is one of my favorite stanzas:
Loneliness is the habit of this house: even with two box turtles in a box on the porch I wonder what home may be.
It’s sad to think of loneliness being the habit of a house, like you can’t escape it. Probably the speaker misses her mom, but maybe she misses her daughter, or even her ex-husband, even though she says she doesn’t. I don’t even know what box turtles are, but it seems like having two of them in a box on the front porch is like making a home for husband and wife turtles. Maybe the box is like a symbol of the cozy home that she wants. But it isn’t enough. Maybe the box turtles still look lonely. Maybe they look trapped.
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