Love and Other Consolation Prizes(13)

“Since when did you become the outwardly religious type?” Ernest asked.

“It was a gift,” Juju said. “From one of Mom’s old friends from church. You know how they are, everyone’s my auntie and all of them are hoping I settle down, find a nice man to take care of me, maybe a doctor or a lawyer—or maybe just their acne-scarred nephew. They want me to have kids, go to PTA meetings, and host cakewalks. Those ladies are always seeking to save my soul, one religious trinket at a time.”

“Amen.” Ernest nodded, remembering the last time he’d heard the bells at the Baptist church on King Street. He hadn’t been there in years, mainly because that was always Gracie’s church, while Ernest considered himself a deist, agnostic, Shinto Jesuit—a mishmash, a spiritual refugee who had fled an oppressive regime as a child and could never assimilate anywhere else. Though the ladies at church were nice, and he did miss playing bingo, pinochle, and mah-jongg on Tuesday and Thursday nights.

“Now that I’ve agreed to pick you up,” Juju said, lighting a cigarette and changing the subject, “you’re going to give me the whole story about your childhood, yes?”

Ernest cracked the window and watched her menthol smoke swirl away. He noticed burn marks on the dashboard where Juju’s cigarettes had melted the plastic. “I swear to tell the truth,” he said. “The whole truth and nothing but the truth…”

“So help you God?”

Ernest chuckled. “So help me and the poor folks at the Black and Tan.”

“So, Uncle Paz told you I made the rounds last night?” Juju asked. “Sorry, Dad, that’s just me doing my job as always, lots of spadework—you understand how that goes. Write hard, die free—rah, rah, rah. Besides, a good reporter never knows what other stories might be uncovered along the way.”

Ernest grimaced.

“Do you know who was the first Asian person to win a Pulitzer?” Juju answered before Ernest could respond. “Carlos Romulo, in 1941, who went on to become the president of the United Nations General Assembly. Do you know who the first woman was—in the category of Journalism?”

“No.” Ernest felt a tad carsick. “Though I’m certain you’re about to tell me…”

“Anne O’Hare McCormick—who went on to join the editorial board at The New York Times. And do you know who the first Asian woman was?”

Ernest smiled grimly and said, “I’m guessing there hasn’t been one but the leading candidate works for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and has a habit of shaking down old men who live at the Publix Hotel.”

“Dad—you know me better than that. I’m as careerist as anyone, but this isn’t all about me and it’s not all about you, it’s about what those reporters had in common. They weren’t afraid to turn over a few rocks and look at the squishy things underneath. It’s about all the marginalized people who never get their stories told properly. And, yes, I can understand how, like you, some folks might not be tremendously inclined to talk about the past, but eventually someone will. Might as well be to me—your daughter.” Juju smiled and patted his hand. “Trust me, I’ll make you look good.”

Ernest chewed his lip. It’s not me that I’m worried about. He watched the green light turn red. He waved absently to a street musician on the corner.

“I’ll tell you everything I can,” he hedged, as he allowed himself a little white lie. “But I think I should talk to your mother first. We haven’t had a meaningful conversation in more than a year, and even then…”

Ernest sighed. He didn’t know how to explain that his childhood was also Gracie’s childhood. And that whatever indignities he’d suffered through, hers were a thousand times worse—especially in the eyes of their friends and neighbors.

“Do you suppose…?” Ernest hesitated. He didn’t want to get his hopes up. “Do you really think she’ll recognize me today? I mean—it’s been a while…”

Ash fell onto the steering wheel column and Juju stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray. She coughed and then drew a deep breath, letting the air out slowly in an uneasy sigh that was more of a suppressed groan as she pulled into a steep driveway. Her ivy-covered Victorian home sat perched amid magnolias that had been there since before she was born, overshadowed by an array of new television antennas that towered above the hill, stretching toward the overcast sky.

She wrenched on the parking brake. “I guess we’ll find out.”

—

DO YOU KNOW who I am? Those are the words Ernest said over and over in his mind as he sat across from his wife, who was napping in the living room. Ernest sat fidgeting as though he were a little boy again, curiously regarding the framed photographs that decorated the walls, the end table, and the fireplace mantel. Family portraits, some featuring a younger-looking Grace, who smiled with a familiar, mischievous sparkle in her eyes. That twinkle shone from their wedding photo, on vacation in San Francisco, at graduation. Juju explained that Dr. Luke had recommended surrounding her with photos from her past.

Gracie, in real life, reclined in an easy chair, motionless.

Juju greeted her mother as though she were awake and merely listening with her eyes closed. Ernest watched as his daughter picked up a brush and smoothed out Gracie’s thinning hair, tinged with silver. She fixed her mother’s coffee-stained pajama top where her buttons had been fastened out of order. Then she gently held the elder woman’s hands and whispered something in her ear. Gracie, who hadn’t yet opened her eyes, didn’t respond.