The Woman in the White Kimono Read online

  “I know, Pops.” It wasn’t the first time I’d heard the story. “This way.” I motioned toward the elevators.

  “Two things transformed everything for me that year.” He held up his hand, counted them off with knobby fingers. “One, James Dean died in a car crash. And two, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat.” He explained that while one had nothing to do with the other, for him, a young man coming of age in the ’50s, they formed a small epiphany.

  “How much time we had wasn’t in our control, but what we did with it was.” My father placed a hand to his chest. “And if I wanted a different life than my father, I had to stand up to him. So, I faced him square and told him I was joining the navy.”

  “But you were only seventeen and needed his permission,” I said, imagining him going toe-to-toe with my grandfather—a formidable man.

  “Yes, but I had a speech. A good one.” Pops threw his shoulders back, raised his chin, then told me how he used his grandparents’ immigration as an example. How, because they escaped an oppressive Slovakia before the outbreak of World War I to chase a better life, we all had one. And while following in his grandfather’s and father’s footsteps to work at the factory—like every other immigrant in their neighborhood—was a good life, for Pops it wasn’t enough.

  “Then I drove it home. I said, ‘Don’t I owe it to Grandpops, who made that sacrifice, and to you, who benefited from it, to stand on your shoulders and reach for more?’” Pops gave a wide self-satisfied smile. “And that was it. The winning line. My father found a pen and signed permission for me to enlist then and there.”

  “It’s a good story, Pops,” I said, signing him in at reception.

  “I set sail on the Taussig not long after, and here I am again.” He looked at the logo sign mounted on the wall, coughed into his handkerchief and nodded. “Yes, sir, 1955...”

  Not six months before he enlisted, the Detroit Master Plan zoned my grandparents’ struggling neighborhood as heavy industrial. With the grossly polluted river and air, people had begun to abandon their homes or burn them for insurance money. As families moved out, trouble moved in. For the poor Hungarian village in Detroit, these were telltale signs of hard times ahead.

  And while I appreciated my father’s fight-for-independence story, I’d bet my grandfather’s reasoning had less to do with Pops’s speech and more to do with easing their family’s foreseeable burdens.

  I only hoped my father hadn’t agreed to see the specialist just to ease mine.

  Dr. Amon’s bright smile and yellow bow tie put me right at ease. He made small talk as he reviewed my father’s health history and joked during the initial exam. So, when he sent my father to radiology for a CAT scan, I didn’t think twice about it.

  When we met with the doctor the second time, some three and a half hours later, his bright smile had dimmed to match a new, serious disposition. It hovered over the conversation, and I thought of nothing else.

  He apologized for our wait, explaining he’d wanted to consult their extended team, then he smacked his hands together and delivered the news.

  “...the cancer has metastasized...”

  “...enlarged lymph nodes and pleural effusions in both lungs...”

  “...pneumonia.”

  My mouth went dry.

  Coughing, shortness of breath, fever, perspiration, the bluish tint to his nails, low levels of white blood cells, and with his compromised immune system... Other things were said, doctor things that drifted in and around my altered state.

  But my chin snapped up with his final assertion.

  They were checking my father in.

  * * *

  The private room, even with the comforts of a nice hotel, couldn’t conceal the medicinal smell and noisy medical equipment of a hospital. It was astounding how fast the tide had turned. I sighed and rubbed the tension above my eyes. “This has been a long day. You must be exhausted.”

  “I’m okay.” Pops set his magazine aside, then threaded bulbous knuckles across his middle. “You know what I was thinking? In a way, it’s good I got cancer.”

  “Pops...”

  “No, listen. What I mean is, with cancer, we have more time. Time we didn’t have with Mama.”

  My chest tightened. Sure, cancer gave us time, but it stole its quality. Whittled away patience with pain, spitting out tainted last memories not worthy of remembrance. I wanted him. Not what cancer couldn’t swallow. “I miss her.” I wasn’t ready to miss him, too.

  “With the heart attack, she went quick, and I thought of that, too. At least, that way we still remember her the same. She was still Mama right to the end.” His sky blue eyes clouded with memories, then drooped heavy under baggy lids. “Not like me.”

  “What are you talking about, not like you?”

  “Like this.” He swept his hand up and down in the air to indicate himself. “I’m grateful for the time, but I don’t want to be remembered as some grouchy old man.”

  It was true. My father was grouchy one minute from his aches and pains and fuzzy the next from the pills that dulled them. But what fell between were flashes of the spirit within. The determined boy who didn’t let circumstance define him, the restless dreamer who sailed across the world and the stable family man with a flair for fun.

  I sat tall, determined that he knew that. “That grouchy old man is not my father. I know who my father is. He’s a kind and thoughtful man who loved his wife and lived for his family. I know who you are. I see you, Pops. And that...” I copied his sweeping gesture. “That is the disease. It’s only the disease.”

  “But that’s what people will see at my funeral.”

  My heart dropped to the floor. Cancer was killing him, but he was killing me. “I wish I could just wave a wand, say some magic words and poof.” I wiggled my fingers. “It all disappears.”

  Pops chuckled, leaning back into the stacked pillows. “Abracadabra.”

  “My magic tree.” I smiled, thinking of the story, then pulled the thin blanket up over my father’s too-thin frame.

  He tutted. “The tree wasn’t magic. It was the words.” His yawn overtook the smile.

  “They were good words, Pops.”

  It was a good story.

  We’d been planting a sapling he had sprouted from seed in our backyard when he first told it to me.

  “Not too deep, not too wide, just enough room to breathe.” He packed it in nice and tight. When I stepped back, I expected the branches to wave or sparkle—something. After all, he’d said the tree was magic. I told him it was broken.

  But Pops said the magic was in the words. A written message given to him while standing under a tree just like the one we had planted. “Only this one was fully grown and almost thirty feet tall. And that night, Tori, paper lanterns filled every branch with shimmering light. So many, that if you held on to the trunk and looked up, it was like a giant umbrella shielding you from a hundred falling stars.”

  “But what are the magic words?” I asked, my own lisping through the gap of missing front teeth. “Abracadabra and hocus-pocus?”

  Pops laughed. The quiet kind that shook his shoulders. He placed a hand on top of my young head and tousled my hair, so my braids swung back and forth like a handheld bead drum.

  “To understand your direction, you must know both your roots and your reach.” My father said the saying was magic because of where he stood in life—leaving the roots of home and reaching for a new one. “It just spoke to me.”

  For the longest time, I thought he meant the tree spoke to him. I regarded my droopy sapling with new eyes, tried to remember the magic saying to make it talk. But then I wrinkled my nose, asked if I could maybe just say abracadabra instead.

  Pops laughed, pulled me close and tickled me until I squealed. We spent the next hour making whistles from thick blades of grass. That tree still stands on our old prop
erty. It never reached thirty feet tall, but it talked.

  With Pops’s story, it would talk for years to come.

  “Hand me that, will you?” Pops pointed to his cup of ice. I sprang to my feet to retrieve it. Then, without thinking, I readjusted his blanket and cinched him in along his sides.

  Droopy eyes flickered to mine. He laughed through his nose.

  “What?” I mocked him with my smile because I knew. He used to do the same for me. “You want a story, too?” I asked, angling my chair to keep a better vigil. “I’ve got some good ones from work. How’s this? Falsified reports of illegal logging? I could make it a fairy tale with profiteers and furry woodland creatures.”

  Pops’s chest shook. A silent laugh. For me, a triumphant win.

  He wet his lips. “My magic tree story. Did I ever tell you why I was there?”

  I thought back. No. He hadn’t. “But you can’t just add more to my story.”

  “I’m old. I get to do what I want.” His eyes locked to mine. “Are you listening?”

  “I’m listening.” I scooted closer.

  “Okay, so this ancient tree, as you know, was forty feet high, truly majestic.”

  “And magic.” I laughed. “It gets bigger every time you tell it.”

  He shushed me with a faint smile. “And because it was in bloom—thousands of pink flowers—it was the perfect place for a wedding.”

  My father said instead of an ordained priest to perform the ceremony, it was a spiritual leader in a robe of white. Instead of family, perfect strangers and brand-new friends attended. Instead of a ring, it was an ornate silk pouch. Inside, a single seed from the majestic tree with a small scrolled message written in English on one side, and Japanese on the other. “That was the magic saying I told you.”

  “It’s a beautiful addition to the story, Pops.”

  He blinked sleepy eyes and closed them. “You should’ve seen the bride’s gown.”

  I brightened. It was always about the dress. My mother’s was a classic ’50s fit and flare—sleeveless, high neck and cinched tight to the waist. Then it exploded in a plethora of tulle to float above her knees. “Was it like Mama’s?” I asked.

  “No, no.” He sighed. “It was a kimono.”

  SIX

  Japan, 1957

  My mother is off to retrieve her treasured shiromuku, wedding kimono, while Kenji and I admire her wedding photos. She worries about my sullen mood since the failed meeting with Hajime yesterday and hopes to lift my spirit.

  I hope yet to change her mind.

  A photo catches my interest, so I pull it close to study. Okaasan had three costume changes: a reception gown of pink, another in bold red for their departure and, the most elaborate in design, her layered shiromuku gown of white for the ceremony. She wears it in this portrait. The faded image hides its glory, but not Okaasan’s beaming happiness.

  “So beautiful.” I hold the picture out to show Kenji. “And Father looks so handsome.” He seldom smiles, but when he does, his expression changes from one of regal dominance to that of a contented cat with his underbelly exposed. He saves that face for Okaasan. Here, it’s captured for all to see.

  Kenji scoots closer and pulls down the snapshot. “Like me.” He flashes a grin. “And you’re like Haha,” he says, using the child’s term for mother. His eyes dart from me to the photo.

  Squinting to regard Mother’s features, I smile. It is my face that stares back. We have the same defined cheekbones, narrow jaw and high nose bridge. “They’re so young, only babies.”

  “You’ll make babies soon.” Kenji wrinkles his face in disgust.

  I mock him, then feign interest in another picture. I have no plans to discuss such intimacies with my little brother, but now I think of nothing else. The stolen kiss that led to more. And how that led to Hajime’s proposal of marriage. I smile to myself, remembering my surprise.

  “You want to marry me?” I asked, eyes wide.

  “More than anything.” Hajime pulled me so close our racing hearts beat as one.

  “Where would we live?” I asked, contented in his arms. While America’s youthful energy colored my dreams, Japan’s cultural traditions rooted me home. I nuzzled under his chin, my previous happiness stifled by truth. “Hajime, I could never leave.”

  “Well...” He kissed my temple, then leaned back to rake fingers through my hair. “What if I stayed here?”

  “Stayed?” My chin shot up. “What about your family?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll miss them something awful. I mean, I already do, and my mom? Yeah, it’ll kill her...” He angled his head and shook it. “And I’ll miss the weekend ball games with the guys and Sunday brunch with my folks. I’d miss that life for sure, because it’s a good life. And yeah, I could just go and live it. But then one day, before I know it, I’m an old man and I’d always wonder, what if? Because I’d know...” He brushed knuckles across my cheek. “Don’t you see, Cricket? I’d give up all the comforts of home because you’re my home. And if my life doesn’t have you, it’s no life at all.”

  I kissed him. He asked for my hand. Instead, I gave him my whole heart.

  “Look!” Kenji waves a picture in front of my face to startle me from memory. “I want to join the army, too. That way I can kill evil gaijins.” His sweet face contorts.

  “What? Don’t say that...” I glance to the image. My stomach twists. It’s Father wearing his military uniform. Kenji isn’t aware that Hajime is American. He knows nothing of what happened at the meeting because he wasn’t here. I push the photo away. “War is what’s evil, Kenji.”

  “A necessary one.” Father’s deep voice startles us both. His narrowed eyes scan the memories scattered about on the floor.

  How long has he been standing there?

  With two fingers he motions for Kenji to give him the military photo. Regarding it, he grunts with a bunched expression. He has experienced war more than once. “One too many,” Okaasan says any time it’s brought up.

  I borrow Hajime’s courage, swallow hard and dare to speak. “Necessary but over, Father. Otherwise we are forever in a monkey-crab battle.”

  His eyes glare daggers, then dart toward Grandmother shuffling by with tea.

  “Monkey and crab...such a foolish battle, tsk, tsk, tsk.” As she turns into the garden, her lightweight summer yukata blends into the deep indigo of the evening sky.

  For once I agree with Obaachan. A silly story to illustrate a horrid truth. The crab has a rice ball, and the monkey convinces him to trade it for a persimmon seed. The crab agrees and plants the seed for the fruit. But then the monkey climbs the tree and steals the fruit. The crab’s children are so angry they seek revenge, and so on, and so on.

  When I look up, Father still stares, so I lower my chin and my voice. “Revenge only creates more revenge,” I say, hoping to soften his resolve.

  “Tut, tut, tut. Enough of all this.” Mother waves off the unpleasantness as she enters the room. “Naoko’s match meeting with Satoshi is only days away. Let’s speak only happy words, yes?”

  We silence our conversation as we know not to upset her. Okaasan’s enlarged left heart chamber sometimes beats to its own rhythm when stressed. A small abnormality seldom discussed, but always considered.

  Satisfied, she holds out her traditional ceremony kimono and smiles. “Here, Naoko, try it on and let us see.”

  “Try it on?” My eyes drink in its lush fabric. It is a visual feast of tripled white fine silk and detailed workmanship. The intricate pattern is revealed or masked, depending on how it flirts with the light. It is stunning, and I dare not touch it. To wear this on my wedding day is to honor my family and signifies I am unblemished and presented pure for my husband. I shake my head, full of guilt for failing both. “It’s too beautiful, Okaasan, too much for me.”

  Father turns toward her. She drapes the che
rished kimono over his forearms, and I catch a shared glance of warmth that lingers between them.

  Facing me, Father nods. “Try it on. It’s not too much for a daughter who will marry into such a prominent family. Not everything must be a battle, Naoko.”

  There it is. A conditional offering of peace to a battle that has only just begun.

  After our evening meal, with a clear view of Father and Taro on the patio, I take over washing the dishes while Mother dries and Grandmother returns them to their display.

  “Do you not want to take your tea in the garden, Obaachan?” I motion outside. “You could rest your feet, and I could bring you a fresh cup.”

  Mother casts a curious glance in my direction. Maybe I’m too obvious?

  Grandmother hobbles closer, smelling of custard and jasmine, eyeing us both with suspicion, but moves to join Father and Taro on the patio.

  I place the kettle over the flame and, when I’m sure Grandmother’s in the garden, begin. “You look so pretty today, even more than usual, Okaasan.” It’s not a lie. Her hair is pulled tight in two sections and fastens with combs of gold and dark sapphire. “Your summer kimono flatters you.”

  “As you flatter me, Naoko.” Mother glances sideways, only this time with eyes that glint and smile.

  Giving a small head bow, I stay focused on my rehearsed words.

  They are a trap of poetic truth.

  Okaasan takes the overwashed bowl from my hands. “You have my ear, Naoko.”

  My heart’s beating wild, like a tiny bird trapped in my chest. I take a breath for courage, and release, hoping her fragile heart holds its rhythm as I cast my plea. “Do you think it is possible that Satoshi can change his mind about me?”

  “Is this what troubles you?” Her shoulders drop as though braced to carry a heavier load.

  “Please, Okaasan, is it possible?”

  “Of course it’s possible, but I don’t think—”