“Mom found the screen in your room. Where did you really go?”
If they planned this Dad As Bad Cop routine to throw me off my game, it’s working. I’m confused—I’m pissed at Dad and I feel bad for Mom. I’m not about to tell them where I was, but it’s a tough call about what attitude to take. Should I be contrite and retreat, or should I be sullen and push back? To buy time, I heave a sigh that could go either way.
“Chanto henji shina sai.” That’s Mom’s line, but once again, it’s Dad who says it. That liar wants me to give him a proper answer? Fine. Sullen pushback it is.
“Nowhere bad—it’s not a big deal. I’m back, aren’t I?” I scowl and cross my arms for good measure.
“Sana! Tell me where you were!” I can see a vein bulging on the side of his neck, and his face darkens with anger. I feel my own anger rise and I push back harder.
“No. Why should I? You’re never at home when you’re supposed to be. It’s not like you don’t go out to who-knows-where on the weekends. Huh? Where do you go?”
“Sana,” Mom says sharply, “irankoto iwahen-no.” But to me, there’s nothing unnecessary about what I’m saying. So I say it again.
“Where do you go, Dad?”
There’s a long silence before he says, “That has nothing to do with you.”
Suddenly, I’m done pretending. I’m done with Mom avoiding the subject. I’m done with Dad lying. Because where he goes has everything to do with me. And I realize that gaman—what I thought was gaman—can’t be what I’ve been doing. I haven’t been facing a bad situation and enduring. I’ve been hiding from a bad situation and allowing it to get worse. And I can’t allow it anymore.
I run to my room and snatch my lacquer box from its place on the bookshelf. On my way back to the living room, I crash right into Dad, who’s coming around the corner into the hallway after me, and the box and its contents fly out of my hands—my pearl earrings, the sea glass, That Woman’s little gift box, the phone number, Jamie’s poem—all of my treasures and secrets—clatter and bounce like hail, flutter to the floor like dying moths.
I drop to my knees and grab for the poem, which is none of my parents’ business. Then the phone number, then my earrings, which have rolled down the hallway. I pick up my beautiful red box and put the earrings, poem, and phone number back in. Then the gift box. Finally, I gather up the sea glass and put it away.
Only after I’ve put everything safely back in the box do I realize that Dad hasn’t moved, and that Mom has joined him in the hallway. I stand up, and he turns and walks slowly, heavily back to the living room, and sits down.
Heart pounding, I follow him. “Gomen,” he says as I enter the room, and I’m not sure if he’s apologizing for knocking into me, or for something else.
I take a breath and get ready to tell him off, because I’m still so mad, I’m shaking. But once the air fills my lungs, I can’t form the words to express what I’m feeling. “I know where you’ve been, I know what you’ve been doing,” I want to say. “How could you? How could you have an affair? How could you lie like that for so long?” But the words stick in my mouth, and the air remains in my lungs. The space that separates me, Mom, and Dad seems to widen and stretch, soundless and empty.
I realize that I’m terrified that if I say the words, if I demand the truth, there’s no going back. He’ll have words of his own, an answer that will fill the space between us, then fall and shatter like glass. And the fragile threads that bind us to each other—the memories of my childhood games with him, the stories, the stunted conversations we have now—will be severed by the sharp edges of the truth, and he’ll be gone. We’ll have no relationship at all, and we’ll be separated forever, driven further and further apart by the different currents of our lives.
I look at Mom, sitting silently next to Dad. Waiting. Motionless. I’m filled with a fresh anger, this time at her. How could she hide herself from the truth all these years? How could she have allowed him to treat her this way—to treat me this way? How could she have let him continue to lie to us?
Then it strikes me. If I continue to say nothing, if I continue to do nothing, then maybe nothing will happen. Or maybe Dad will leave us anyway. The truth could split us apart. But it’s better than drowning with the weight of a secret. Better than waiting for the fraying threads to be worn through one at a time by a lie. The truth will be there, no matter what, no matter how many words we say or don’t say. I take the lid off my box and pull out the crumpled slip of paper and the gift box with That Woman’s pearl earrings inside.
I put them down on the table in front of Dad and say, “I know where you’ve been and who you’ve been with. You don’t have to hide anything anymore.”
I walk back to my room and close the door.
The light wakes me up in the morning, and last night comes flooding back. Once I got into my room, I pulled out my phone, which was bursting with texts from Elaine, Reggie, and Hanh asking where I was and if I was okay. I answered them (I came home. Mom awake. I’m in big trouble) and put the phone in airplane mode. Then I spent a long time alternately congratulating myself for being honest, worrying about whether I’d ruined my family, and trying to eavesdrop on Mom and Dad, who were still talking in the living room. Finally, I gave up and lay down. The last thing I remember is wondering how I was ever going to fall asleep.
I’m still in my clothes, sprawled on top of my covers, but someone has spread a fleece blanket over me. I look at my phone: ten o’clock. Mom must be feeling bad for me—she’s never let me sleep in past eight unless I’ve been sick. I get up, change into my pajamas, and crawl back into bed. I’m afraid to leave my room, afraid to find out what consequences my actions last night might have had. I wish I could stay here for the rest of my life. Then I’d never have to deal with Dad, with Jamie, or with Caleb. Mom could just bring me soup and rice at mealtimes, and I could read and keep up with my studies from here. I could learn to write code and work for an Internet start-up without ever leaving home.
At eleven o’clock, Mom finally peeks in. “Sana?” I pull the covers off my head. I’m not ready to get out of bed, but I figure she deserves some thanks for letting me sleep in. It must be killing her that I’m not up and doing something useful.
“How are you doing?”
“Mmf.”
Mom comes over and sits on the bed next to me.
“Dad wanted to talk to you, but he had to leave.”
Figures. “He’s a coward.”
Mom stiffens. “I told him to go,” she says.
“Why do you let him do that to you?”
“There are things you do not know. It’s my choice to live this way.”