By Bryan Washington, THE NEW YORKER, Fiction August 3 & 10, 2020 Issue
Audio: Bryan Washington reads.
It’s still dark when I wake up, the morning after Mike leaves, but Mitsuko’s mincing shrimp. She’s hunched over the cutting board, beside eggs, flour, and honey.
Do you eat, she asks.
I tell her I do.
We don’t say shit while she’s working. Mitsuko blitzes everything in a food processor. Drops the mixture in a skillet, dabbing everything with soy sauce, folding the batter gradually. I take my meds, watching her do all this, and she ignores me the entire time, working at her own pace.
When I sit on the sofa, Mitsuko stops rolling. I stand to set the table, and she starts rolling again.
Once she’s finished, she fills a bowl with some pickled cucumbers and puts an omelette on a plate, leaving another one out for me. We eat hunched over the counter, hip to hip.
So, Mitsuko says, how long have you been sleeping with my son? Or is it casual?
Not really, I say.
I don’t know how it works, Mitsuko says.
I think it’s the same for everyone.
It isn’t, Mitsuko says.
She says, I’m sure you can tell that Michael and I are very close.
We’ve been together for four years, I say. More or less.
More, Mitsuko asks, or less?
A little more, I say.
But just a little, she says.
Mike’s better with numbers, I say.
It occurs to me that my posture is entirely fucked up. Mitsuko’s is impeccable, even at a lean. So I straighten up, and then I stoop, and Mitsuko raises an eyebrow.
She snorts, and says, My son could not be worse with numbers.
After that, we eat in silence. Scattered Spanish filters in through the window. The kids next door kick a soccer ball against the wall, until their father, a big Venezuelan dude, steps outside yelling, asking which one of them has lost their fucking mind.
While Mitsuko’s focussed on her food, I really look at her. It’s clear that, at one point, she was a startlingly beautiful woman.
Then she meets my eyes. I blink like something’s in them.
She says, I realize that this must be strange for you, too.
No, I say, it’s fine.
So you’re a liar, Mitsuko says.
I’m being honest. Really.
I’m fluent in fine, Mitsuko says. Fine means fucked. Did my son tell you how long he’d be gone?
A month, I say. Maybe two. I don’t know. We didn’t talk too much about it.
Of course not.
But did he tell you?
Tell me what?
How long he’d be gone, I say. Or that he was leaving?
Mitsuko cracks her knuckles on the counter. No, she says. My son neglected to give me that information. But this could be a good thing. I needed to get out of Japan for a while. No sense in rushing back to Tokyo to look at a dying man.
So, I ask, you’re staying here? Until Mike gets back?
My voice cracks, just a bit. But Mitsuko hears it. She grins.
Would that be a problem? she asks.
No, I say. That’s not what I meant.
Then what did you mean?
I’m sorry, I say. I really was just asking.
Mitsuko crosses her arms. She leans on the counter, and her hair slips down her shoulders. I make a point to slow my breathing, to let my shoulders droop just a bit.
Then, I think staying here is exactly what I’ll do, Mitsuko says. I could use the time off. Your place is filthy, but it’ll work until Michael makes it back.
And that’s absolutely O.K., I say. Totally perfect.
Remember, Mitsuko says, you’re the one who let him leave.
You’re right, I say. I’m the one who let him leave.
How generous, Mitsuko says, but then she doesn’t say anything else.
Once she’s finished her plate, she drops it in the sink. She turns on the faucet. Reaches for mine. The omelette was delicious, the sort of thing Mike would cook, because he has always done everything in the kitchen, and I think that this may have been the problem to begin with.
Nice chat, Mitsuko says, and I apologize, but I’m not sure why.
•
Here is the root of the problem, our problem: in bed, before we fucked, the night before Mike flew to Osaka, to visit his father—a man who’d left the States when his son was a teen; a man whose voice Mike hadn’t heard in more than a decade; a man who was fighting cancer, with no hope of recovery, only for his son to volunteer to nurse him into his deathbed—he asked if I thought we were working.
What the fuck kind of question is that? I asked. Working. Are you saying we’re done? Right after we bring home your fucking mother from the fucking airport? To visit you?
I’m asking a question, Mike said. That’s all.
Just say it. Don’t be a little bitch.
Ben, I am literally only asking what you think.
I think you should just come out and say what you’re trying to say, I said. If you think we’re done, just say it. I’ll pack my shit tomorrow.
It’s not that simple, Mike said, and then he put his face in his palms.
But it is, I said.
You are the one who’s been fucking around, I said.
This again, Mike said.
Yes. Again. Again and again and again. And now you’re leaving for who the fuck knows where. For who the fuck knows how long.
You’re not being fair, Mike said. That isn’t fair. It’s my dad.
Who you couldn’t give a fuck about!
That won’t fucking matter when he’s dead.
We’d been whispering. We hadn’t looked at each other. I felt Mike’s body relax beside me.
Look, Mike said. Just because something isn’t working doesn’t mean it’s broken. You just have to want to fix it. The want has to be there.
Tell me, I said. Do you want to fix it?
I guess that’s what I’m trying to find out.
•
That evening, Mitsuko’s cooking potatoes and okayu and a sliver of fish. She sets a bowl aside for me, with some scallions dashed over the porridge. Then she sips tea by the counter, and I drink water like a drowning man, and I never see her take a pill or check her blood pressure or anything else.
So, I say, how was your day?
How was my day, Mitsuko says.
My son leaves the country the morning after I arrive, she says.
He leaves me with I don’t know who for I don’t know how long, she says.
I haven’t seen him in years, she says, and he’s off looking for my ex-husband, who is rotting from cancer as we speak.
My day was fucking phenomenal, Mitsuko says.
When she’s finished, she slips on a jacket and shoes. I don’t ask where she’s going. I won’t make the same mistake twice.
•
It’s how our first week together passes: I drive to my gig at the day care, and I come home to set the table, and Mitsuko eats at the counter while I chew beside her, and afterward I wipe everything down while she hits the dishes.
Otherwise, we mostly keep to ourselves. It’s probably better that way. But I’ve learned a few things. Little things.
Like how, back home, she works at a jewelry store in Shimokitazawa.
And how she flies to L.A. three times a year, to meet a man, or to meet a friend, or to meet a man who is also a friend.
And she’s hardly flashy, but all of her clothes are nice. Every sock and skirt and earring is clearly part of a larger, varied whole.
Mike, meanwhile, wears the same three things seven days a week. He has no patience for schedules, routines, or patterns of any kind.
Before me, he saw whomever he wanted, whenever he wanted, fucking them however he wanted, and then he’d leave when he got bored.
Living with Mitsuko is, in other words, entirely unlike living with her son, whose gayness she is comfortable with, or at least not entirely uncomfortable with, or at least less disagreeable about than my own parents, probably.
When Mitsuko asks about laundry detergent, I tell her it’s in the cupboard under the sink.
When she asks where we do laundry, I point to the laundromat across the street.
When she asks where we buy groceries, I give her a few names, but she looks skeptical at all of them.
Will they have natto? she asks.
I say that the H Mart just might.
You know what natto is? Mitsuko asks, frowning.
Soybeans, I say, right? Mike uses it.
And for the first time in our acquaintance, Mitsuko looks confused.
Here in Houston, she says.
Yeah, I say.
And you eat natto, she says.
I do, I say.
I don’t believe you.
Because you don’t think I could like it?
How the hell would I know what you like? Mitsuko says.
•
In the evening, I hear the television in the living room, where Mitsuko’s been sleeping. She’s scrolling through movies, until she settles on “War of the Worlds,” and I listen as Tom Cruise chases after his son. The kid’s gone to join the resistance or some shit. The viewer knows he’s a goner, but Tom doesn’t see that. He goes after the kid anyway.
I’m dozing off when my phone dings.
Mike has sent a picture of his face in front of what looks like a train station. He’s not quite smiling. The background is clogged with bodies.
And he’s texted: how are things?
I type: How the fuck do you expect.
A few minutes later, Mike sends another selfie. There’s the backdrop of a neighborhood. It looks quiet, bookended by telephone poles.
found him yet? I type.
yeah
and?
he’s doing fine
he’s not really doing fine
idrek
So I text: where can you get natto here
y?
Your mom says she wants to make some.
And Mike’s response is immediate, possibly the fastest he’s ever replied to me: tf?
•
Once, maybe three years in, I asked Mike if he wanted kids. We were at a pub in the Heights, watching two drunk white boys fall all over each other. One of them would stand up from his barstool, and the other guy would catch him. Then the other guy would stand, and they’d repeat the performance.
Mike had already finished his beer, but he managed to spit some up anyway.
It was around this time that we had the monogamy conversation. Mike was the one who brought it up.
I didn’t refuse his idea of opening things up outright, but I never affirmed it, either.
I’m just saying we should think about opening things up, Mike said.
There’s nothing to think about, I said.
I wouldn’t care what you did, Mike said, as long as you came back home.
You aren’t in a relationship with yourself, I said.
Just consider it, Mike said. Really. All I’m saying is that it’s a big world out there.
World? I said. What the fuck? What world? We live in one place.
You know what I’m saying.
And the thing is, I did know. I knew. And I’d thought about it. But I was less worried, at the time, about what Mike would do than how I’d handle it. If I opened the door, even just a crack, would I still have a reason to step back inside?
We didn’t actually decide anything, between the two of us. But a nondecision is a choice in itself.
•
The morning after Mike texts me, Mitsuko knocks on my bedroom door for the very first time. She’s fully dressed. I lean on the doorframe in a tank top and boxers.
Take your time, she says.
Jesus Christ, she says.
We leave five minutes later. Our Black neighbors wave from their porch. There’s a question on the grandfather’s face, and I wonder if he’ll ask it.
But Mitsuko doesn’t look away. If anything, she walks slower. Staring him down.
Mike’s car is filthy with clothes: hoodies and socks and a loose pair of shoes. The whole thing smells like him, and I know his mother smells it, too. When I toss a pair of shorts behind us, she grunts, and there’s a jockstrap in the back seat, and I pray to no god in particular that she doesn’t spot it.
We’ve pulled out of the neighborhood when she asks, You’re sure they’ll have what I need?
They should, I say. You and Mike make the same things.
Maybe similar, Mitsuko says. Not same.
We drive past the locals beginning their day. Whole swaths of Houston look like chunks of other countries. There are potholes beside gourmet bakeries beside taquerías beside noodle bars, copied and pasted onto a tinted landscape.
At a stoplight, these two smiling dudes walk a toddler across the street, each holding one of her hands. One of the men is white. The other one’s brown. They look like something straight out of OutSmart. I glance at Mitsuko, and her face doesn’t tell me much.
So, she says, you’re Black.
You noticed, I say.
Just barely, Mitsuko says. And how did you find my son?
Accidentally, I say.
Let me guess—it was Grindr.
It wasn’t.
You found my son on the Internet.
No.
We met at a get-together, I say. An acquaintance introduced us.
Sure, Mitsuko says.
After the couple crosses the road, their daughter looks up at them, beaming. She is the happiest that a child has ever been, ever. If Mike had seen them, he’d have feigned some sort of choking, or honked his horn, or he’d have grown sober, not saying much at all.
•
Two years in, my sister met him accidentally. It happened on Halloween, at a bar off Westheimer, in the thick of Montrose. I’d wandered away from Mike to take a piss, and when I made it back to the table Lydia was stirring her Coke beside him. She wore some witchy getup, a costume with too many straps. Mike had on a toga. I’d gone as myself.
I was just talking to Mark, Lydia said.
You didn’t say you had a little sister, Mike said.
They went on like that, back and forth. Lydia ordered more drinks. When I asked if she didn’t have a date to get back to, she smiled and told me she’d just have to reschedule it. This, she said, was special. She’d never meet her baby brother’s boyfriend for the first time again.
Lydia was Mike’s age. A few years older than me. She wrote copy for the Buffalo Soldiers museum downtown, and if you told her you didn’t know Houston had one of those she’d smile at you and ask how many Black friends you had, or if you had any at all.
But that evening she played it cool. Laughed at our jokes. Paid for more beer.
Just before last call, Lydia gave Mike her number.
Wow, Mike said. This is a first.
Life is long, Lydia said.
Cheers, Mike said.
Later that night, Lydia texted me.
he’s funny, she said.
too funny for you 🤪, she added.
•
Another thing: on Sunday mornings, Mike drove us from market to market, all over the Northside. He juggled onions and guanabana and garlic and pineapples. He haggled with venders in his shitty Spanish, and in the evening he’d cook three versions of the same fucking meal. I’d take a bite of one, and then a bite of the second. Then Mike would motion me toward the third. I usually went with the second.
Mike said that this was practice for him. He’d been working at the café for years, and he was getting a little sick of its menu. He called it limiting. This, he swore, was how he’d get better, and I told him that not everyone did this, and he said there was a reason for that.
I didn’t grow up with their palates, he said. They can assume a lot of shit that I can’t.
So you force it on me, I said. Down my throat.
You’ll miss it when it’s gone, Mike said.
•
Our local H Mart is, inconceivably, closed, and the next grocery store I take Mitsuko to is objectively filthy—but there’s natto. There’s also a metal detector by the entrance. A fried-chicken vender in scrubs sits beside the doorway. Older women and their grown children finger carrots, and a little girl wandering the aisles wears a bunch of parsley like a crown.
I drift around looking for a shopping cart. I find one with three wheels. We end up filling the whole thing, and also Mitsuko’s basket, and also the crooks of her elbows.
At the register, I feel for my wallet, and I wait for Mitsuko to stop me. But she doesn’t. So I slowly pull out my card, and that’s when Mitsuko plucks a bill from her bag, shaking her head.
The girl behind the register laughs, tugging at a braid.
Just like a nigga, she says.
Isn’t it, Mitsuko says.
•
And then, hours later, Mitsuko’s chewing vitamins when I make it back to the apartment from work, and I’m ducking toward the bedroom when she calls my name.
Can you cook a chicken? she says.
You mean boil it, I say.
I meant what I said.
Like, frying wings?
Absolutely not, Mitsuko says. Come here.
She’s more comfortable in Mike’s kitchen than I’ve ever been. He arranged everything to his liking, but Mitsuko’s reorganized all of it. Everything in the drawers, all of the ladles and spatulas and sticks. The bowls were a certain way, and now they are not. Plus, all Mike’s spices. And the utensils. I never knew where he kept his chopsticks—they just materialized whenever we needed them. The place looks unrecognizable. She’s flipped it on its head. It’s entirely disorienting, but for once I can actually settle in.
Mitsuko grabs the chicken by one leg, balancing the other with a cleaver. In one fluid motion, she slices the bird in half.
Jesus fuck, I say.
Quiet, Mitsuko says.
She proceeds to break down the carcass, bone by bone, stuffing the remains in a pot on the stove for stock. When she’s finished trimming the fat, she shakes each piece with a flick of her wrist. Her seasonings are lined up. She douses the meat in what looks like a pool of salt. But she doesn’t say shit about it, and eventually she pirouettes to the side, flinging the pieces into a pan. They sizzle like a sheet of rain.
If I were at home, I would’ve marinated this, Mitsuko says. But I’m not at home.
When the meat’s cooked, Mitsuko sets two bowls on the table. That’s new. I sit across from her.
We eat, mostly in silence.
Did you get that? Mitsuko asks.
Well, I say, bits and pieces.
She looks me over a little coolly.
That’s all right, she says, you’re going to learn.
You have to, she adds.
Mike texts me that night. His father’s doing worse.
worse? I reply.
can’t sleep, won’t eat, breathing heavy, Mike writes.
i’m sorry
you didn’t put it inside of him
When I ask Mike what the next steps are, he tells me that they don’t know yet. He tells me his father is stubborn. But the one certainty Mike has is that he’s glad he flew over, or he thinks that he’s glad, or he can’t really imagine not having flown over.
It’s too much to parse on a screen. I tell Mike that I dismembered a chicken with his mother.
Mike writes, ???
i know, I text. i’m shocked
you enjoy it?
i survived
ha. think you’ll try again?
we’ll see
I wait for Mike to ask about his mother. Or how we’re doing in Texas. But he doesn’t. The dots on my screen appear, and disappear, and reappear, but nothing comes through.
So I ask him how he’s doing, how he’s really doing, and he sends me a selfie.
He’s shaven, wincing in the photo. I can see his whole face for the first time in a year.
•
When I’m up the next morning, Mitsuko’s already gone. Her jacket is gone. Her shades are gone. I check for her shoes and they’re gone.
I look for a note, and Mitsuko’s left one on the table.
It’s written entirely in kanji.
I could pull my fucking ears off.
But then I notice that she’s taken the laundry baskets. Hers, and mine, and all the detergent.
By the time she makes it back, we’re well into the afternoon, and I’m lying on the sofa. She takes one look at me, opens her mouth, and closes it again.
Then she says, My son called.
She says, He sounded horrible.
•
On our four-year anniversary, Mike and I went to Galveston for a long weekend. We hadn’t gone on trips together, not a single one, so this was a brand-new thing. But, for the first time in months, he’d taken time off from the café. My gig was closed for a holiday weekend. We had a weird energy brewing around the apartment with both of us there, just lying around. And then there were the neighbors, who’d knocked on our door the night before, warning us that they’d be hosting some sort of marathon quinceañera. They spent the entire first night outside in the yard, shouting and dancing and beating a piñata. Around two in the morning, they locked hands to sing a song about Jesus. When their sixth chorus rolled around, I told Mike that it didn’t matter where we went, as long as we went somewhere else. But he was already snoring.
So the sand was grimy and pale. Our end of the beach was sparse. A high-school couple argued about Sadie Hawkins under a makeshift fort behind us. Some girls rolled around in the water in front of us while their mother tucked her head in a Ferrante novel. Every now and then, she’d look up at her girls, and then at us. When Mike finally waved, she wiggled her fingers.
We laid out a towel, took off our shirts, and glazed in the sun for the whole afternoon. For lunch, we drifted up the pier for fish tacos. The woman who sold them was missing an ear. They were delicious, and we ordered four more, and then we watched some boys do somersaults in the sand by the dock. A pair of older couples mimicked them, husbands and wives looking round and unbothered.
Eventually, we bought more tacos from the one-eared woman. She said, Buena suerte a ambos, and I asked Mike what that meant.
He told me that we were lucky charms. Everything we touched turned to gold.
And we walked the food back to our tiny spot in the sand. I fell asleep with Mike’s calves on my shoulders.
When I woke up, the beach had cleared out. Windows glowed from houses lining the pier.
I felt around for Mike. He wasn’t on the towel. But his trunks were right beside me, and I felt this sort of chill.
That was when he called. He stood in the water, far enough out to float away. He yelled my name, waving his arms, with this big‑ass grin on his face, and, when I started to make my way over, he yelled for me to strip.
I looked to see who else was on the beach. Mike told me to stop.
He said that nobody cared.
And, if they did, it didn’t matter.
And, sometimes, it helps to think that I was someone who could do that. I could strip buck naked on the beach and sprint through the sand, because I felt that strongly about someone.
•
Three weeks into her stay, Mitsuko tells me that we’re going to start with the classics. She’s been brighter since she heard from her son, as if Mike had given her a charge—and, that night, she cooks what she tells me is his favorite: potato korokke, crowded beside onions and gravy, surrounded by sliced tomatoes and lettuce. She mashes the potatoes and pork with her fingers, drizzling the mixture with salt and pepper, molding tiny patties and flipping them in flour and egg yolks and panko. From the counter, I watch them crisp, and Mitsuko watches me watch them.
It is the most personal thing she’s shared with me so far, and I tell her that.
She looks at me for a while, then says, Don’t be stupid.
•
The next morning, before I head to the day care, Mitsuko says she needs a ride downtown. She’d mailed herself ingredients from Japan to the FedEx by the Marriott.
So we pull out of the neighborhood, and past I-45, dodging the never-ending construction on Elgin. As I hook a right at a stoplight under the bridge, a dishevelled guy in a Rockets jersey sips from a paper bag. He’s seen better days, but the jersey’s brand new. It’s got the tags and everything.
He nods our way. I nod back. Then the light changes, and we both turn back to our lives.
Tell me something about my son that I don’t know, Mitsuko says.
Well, I say.
But, the thing is, I’ve got nothing.
Mike is irritable.
Short-winded.
He can do this thing with his tongue.
For the first few months, he’d trace shapes across my back in bed.
Whenever I got them right, he’d chew on my shoulder.
Mike knows a little bit of Spanish, I finally say.
That’s nice, Mitsuko says.
He has to. For his job.
Also, I say, he’s really into food.
Thank you for that, Mitsuko says. Really. You’re a wealth of knowledge. An oracle.
But tell me, she says, when did you know you were gay?
I nearly swerve onto the sidewalk. Some loiterers in shades hop away from the curb. Through the rearview mirror I see them flip me off.
Never mind, Mitsuko says.
Sorry, I say, it wasn’t you.
Obviously, Mitsuko says.
We resettle into traffic.
If it helps, she says, I had no idea Mike was that way.
He never told me, Mitsuko says. Or his father. I had friends whose children are gay. Sons who sleep with sons. Girls who sleep with boys and girls.
But not mine, she says. I didn’t see it.
And then one day, she says, I just knew. Before he left home, it clicked. Everything finally made sense.
There was nothing to say after that, Mitsuko says. We both understood.
Cruising into the parking garage, we find a spot just across from the elevator. Once I’ve settled the car in park, we sit in the darkness.
What kind of guy did you think your son would end up with? I ask.
Is that your real question, Mitsuko says, or are you asking something else?
Are you asking if I thought the man would be Japanese? she says. Or if I care that you’re Black?
A white dude emerges from the elevator in front of us, looking extremely distressed. He fumbles with his keys for a second. At the sound of his car alarm, his whole body relaxes.
If you put it that way, I say.
Well, Mitsuko says, I didn’t think about that. That wasn’t my business. Isn’t. I’m his mother.
Or are you really asking what I think about you? she says.
Another white guy in a suit unlocks the car beside us. He peeks into my window, frowning above his tie.
I’d tell you, Mitsuko says, but you might drive us into the wall.
I trail Mitsuko as we walk up an escalator, and over a crossway. The staff in the FedEx are mostly women, mostly Black.
They look at Mitsuko. They look at me.
A light-speed calculus blips across their faces.
When we reach the front of the line, I smile as wide as I can. Mitsuko still hasn’t taken off her shades. She hands one woman a card and receives an armful of envelopes. When she’s asked if she needs a bag, Mitsuko declines.
That’s what he’s for, she says, nodding at me.
My kind of woman, a lady behind the counter says, chuckling.
On the drive back, I ask Mitsuko what her home in Tokyo’s like. She raises an eyebrow.
Quiet, she says.
•
The next evening, on my way home from work, I’ve literally just parked by the apartment when my cell rings.
Ben, Mike says.
Godfuckingdammit, I say.
It’s been a minute, Mike says.
I agree that it has. Just over a month.
One of our Black neighbors is sitting on the porch. She’s rocking in her chair, watching the street lights flicker. The block’s quiet, for once, and the mosquitoes are out, and the woman swats her elbows from time to time.
Well, I say to Mike.
How are things? I ask. Are you at your father’s?
I am, Mike says. Or, we were. We’re out now. Took a little trip.
He’s not doing well, Mike says.
I’m sorry, I say.
And instead of Mike’s usual You Didn’t Do It, or his You Don’t Have to Say That, he just says, Thank you.
That’s when I understand.
But how’s my mother? Mike asks.
Just lovely, I say. Still adjusting to our shared proximity.
That’s what she told me.
Go figure.
But it’s a compliment, Mike says. Could be worse. Ma says you’ve been cooking.
We play house together, yes.
I can’t even imagine it.
Just because the neighborhood’s snoring, that doesn’t mean it’s asleep. There’s a house party going on a few doors down. Some white girls trample onto the lawn, laughing, with red Solo cups. They glance back at the door, and one of them covers her mouth, and her friend latches on to her shoulders.
Hey, I say, when are you coming home?
Scattered voices slip through the phone, and also the sound of motion. For Mike, it’s midday.
That’s the question, isn’t it, Mike says.
It is.
Mike asks if I want him to come back, and I don’t say a word. We’re both silent. Both holding the line.
I owe him a lot, Mike says.
Not everything, he says. But I think I should see him through this, you know?
I know, I say.
So when he’s gone, Mike says, I’ll come back.
When he’s gone, I say, you’ll come back.
The white girls stumble into the grass, laughing all over each other. The street lights keep flickering. A chill settles in. And our neighbor, as if snapping out of a reverie, smiles and waves my way, putting her whole shoulder into it.
And you, Mike says. How are you doing?
The other day I saw a pigeon fly away with some cash, I say.
Go figure. It’s probably for booze.
You think so?
Duh, Mike says. Don’t overthink it.
I shut the door behind me as quietly as I can, but Mitsuko’s already asleep on the sofa.
There’s a bowl of rice on the counter, covered with a paper towel. It’s still a little warm.
•
Another week passes.
And another week after that.
And then, nearly two months in, it’s astounding how little Mitsuko and I have talked about her son. When I tell her this, she shakes her head.
What is there to discuss? she says. What could you possibly tell me? I asked you once already and you gave me nothing.
He came out of my body, Mitsuko says. He’s a homosexual. He left his mother with a stranger. I’ve already got everything I need to know.
She’s sitting at the table, scrolling through her tablet. I’m in the kitchen, leaning over the stove.
I don’t know, I say.
Exactly, Mitsuko says. You don’t. So don’t worry about it.
Maybe you could tell me a story, I say, and Mitsuko actually laughs.
A story is an heirloom, she says. It’s a personal thing.
O.K., I say.
You don’t ask for heirlooms. They’re just given to you.
O.K., O.K.
Check the rice, Mitsuko says.
I figure she’s just cutting me off, but then I look at the stove and it’s bubbling.
•
One afternoon, I watch Mitsuko crack an egg in her palm. I think it’s a fluke, but then she does it again.
Wait, I say. Wait!
What? Mitsuko says.
How did you do that?
Do what?
Mitsuko gives me this look like she’s entirely exasperated. But then she does it again, executing the cleanest of breaks.
•
A little later, I text Mike, thinking he’ll just be starting his day, after Mitsuko and I finish an elaborate collaboration: udon cooked in a hot pot, beside abura-age and kamaboko and spinach and two chicken legs.
When Mitsuko cracks an egg into the pot and tastes a spoonful, she actually doesn’t grimace.
It’s edible, she says.
Really?
Really.
Once we’ve brought everything below a simmer, I take some photos. All of them are blurry. But when I send them to Mike he responds immediately.
Nice! he says.
Mike has never, not once, used an exclamation point in our correspondence. Ever. He’s not one of those people.
I ask if he’s all right.
The next message he sends takes a little longer to arrive.
No, he says.
No?
It’s happening, he says.
And I stare at the phone. I don’t need to be told that there’s nothing I can say to make it better. Mike went to find his dying father, and now his father is dying.
That sucks, I say.
Thank you, Mike says.
For what?
And, after a pause, Mike writes: For not apologizing.
And then, immediately: I’ll call soon.
Everything will be OK, he says.
I promise, he says, and that’s what I take to sleep with me.
•
Mike’s never promised me anything. Only delivered or didn’t. He always said that promises were only words, and words meant only what you made them mean.
•
It’s just past midnight when I hear rustling.
I slip on basketball shorts, some sandals, and dip into the living room. Mitsuko’s sliding into a jacket and her pair of graying sneakers. She gives me a look when I cough in the hallway.
You can come, she says, but keep your mouth shut.
We walk to the next street over, and then a few blocks more. The air is mild for Houston. A little too crisp for February. Plodding behind Mitsuko on the sidewalk, I wonder what we look like to anyone watching from a window.
Eventually, we stop in front of a church. Something Something Methodist. I look at Mitsuko, and then at the signage, and she waves me over to the door.
There’s a light on by the pulpit, but otherwise the place is empty. The aisles are cleared. The seats are clean. The church’s windows are stained with various highlights from the Old Testament.
When we reach the pulpit, Mitsuko takes to her knees.
I feel ridiculous standing behind her, so I settle next to her.
We stay like that for a while. Mitsuko mutters gently, quietly, in Japanese. Her hands are clasped. Her head is bowed. At one point, I hear Mike’s name, and then once again, but that’s all I get.
It’s been at least a decade since I stepped into a church. I’d been baptized, as a teen, because my mother had insisted. The pastor dunked me in the water and everything. Afterward, I came out soaking, feeling brand new, like money, and I ate a wafer and drank some wine and never went back again.
I wonder how long Mitsuko’s been doing this.
I wonder if it’s even legal. If we’re trespassing somehow.
But when Mitsuko’s finished she nods toward the choir pews, at no one at all. Then she stands up beside me, steadying herself on my shoulder.
Hurry up, she says. We’re leaving.
Back in the apartment, I pour us both a glass of water. Mitsuko doesn’t thank me, but she takes it.
In case you’re wondering, she says, that’s what it’s come to. It’s absurd.
I don’t think it’s absurd, I say.
It’s absurd, Mitsuko says.
We do what we can, I say.
With that, Mitsuko looks me in the eyes. It feels like only the second time she’s done that since I’ve known her. And then briefly, nearly imperceptibly, she gives me a nod.
But the moment doesn’t last. I watch her drink the water. That’s all she has to say. So I take my glass back to the bedroom, draining the rest on the way. ♦
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