Memorial(12)

Mitsuko grabs the chicken by one leg, balancing the other with a cleaver. In one fluid motion, she slices it entirely in half.

Jesus fuck, I say.

Quiet, says Mitsuko.

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 clipping the fat, Mitsuko shakes each limb 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 chicken into a pan. It sizzles like a sheet of rain.

If I were at home, I would’ve marinated this, says Mitsuko. But I’m not at home.

Once she’s finished and the meat’s cooked, Mitsuko sets two bowls on the table, which is new. I sit across from her.

We eat, mostly in silence.

Did you get that, says Mitsuko.

Well, I say, bits and pieces.

She looks me over a little coolly.

That’s all right, she says, but you’re going to learn.

You have to, she adds.



* * *




? ? ?

My parents didn’t cook. Neither did Lydia. They ordered everything from this Vietnamese spot a few blocks from the house or we went out to eat. But after the women in my family bounced, I made my hungover father simple meals for breakfast: scrambled eggs, grilled cheese, fruit bowls. A mangled guacamole.

Once, a little beside myself, I cooked chilaquiles. I’d watched a man on the internet fry a batch the night before. Foolproof, he called the recipe. Impossible to fuck up.

So I sprinkled too much cheese. Cut myself chopping tomatoes. My father glazed in the living room while I mashed the chips and the eggs. He groaned, eyeing the weather, when I passed him a paper plate.

We sat on the couch, chewing slowly, tracking a storm. My father winced while he ate. But he didn’t spit it out.



* * *




? ? ?

Mike texts me that night. His father’s doing worse.

worse? I say.

CAN’T SLEEP, WON’T EAT, BREATHING HEAVY, says Mike.


i’m sorry


YOU DIDN’T PUT IT INSIDE OF HIM



When I ask Mike what the next steps look like, he tells me 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 having not flown over.

It’s too much to parse over the phone, over 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 again, 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.





8.



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 finally notice that she’s taken the laundry baskets. Hers, and mine, and all of the detergent.



* * *





At work, Ahmad sits in a corner for hours not talking to anyone.

Ximena tries coaxing him with Legos. Barry offers a basketball. When it’s my turn, I ask Ahmad why he’s doing what he’s doing, and he tells me that he’s on strike.

All right, I say. But why?

The rules, he says.

Fascinating. When did you start?

Yesterday.

And how long will it last?

However long it takes.

You could be sitting around for a while, I say.

Okay, says Ahmad.

So I nod, and stand, and Ahmad exhales.

You’re leaving, he says.

You’re on strike, I say. I’m the appointed authority here. We’re at a crossroads.

But you don’t have to go.

I think I do.

Nobody has to do anything, says Ahmad. Not even you.



* * *





Which is, inconceivably, something that Mike would say.

And because I can’t think of an adequate retort, I sit back down.



* * *





Over lunch, Ximena flashes pictures of her reception dress. She’s in the process of picking the shoes. Her mother won’t weigh in on either the shoes or the dress. Her father drove in from Laredo the weekend before, and when he met Noah, he told his daughter the young man was fine, but did she have to choose a gabacho?

Imagine, says Ximena, the fucking nerve.



* * *





When Omar arrives, I inform him that his little brother’s on strike. When I ask if he knows why, Omar smiles.