Memorial(47)

A group of guys sat in a booth, smoking cigarettes over their soup. I nodded, and they nodded, and the cashier wordlessly passed me a menu. I wasn’t really hungry, so what I did was sit there, and it took another five minutes of staring into oblivion before I realized that Tan was sitting at the next table over.

He looked my way, but it was more like he was looking past me. Smoking and staring.

Once we made eye contact, he smiled. Walked over.

Stalker, I said.

I was already here, said Tan. And you spoke first. I thought you didn’t know your way around the city?

I don’t.

You don’t. And yet we’ve found ourselves at the best Chinese restaurant in Osaka.

Bullshit.

For real.

Is this really the best one?

It must be if we both made it here.

The cashier appeared at our table again, shifting her head at Tan. She set a bowl of noodles in front of me and plate of steamed vegetables across from him. Tan smiled at her, said something in Mandarin, and she said something back, and he laughed.

You’re like Google, I said, when the cashier stepped away. All those languages in your head.

I’m not nearly as cheap, said Tan. If that’s what you mean.

The two of us ate. The dudes behind us laughed and laughed.

So what brings you out here? said Tan.

A walk.

Fair. It’s all right if you don’t want to say.

Promise you won’t hold that against me?

I’ll do my very best.

We ate, whispering to each other in English. The guys in the booth behind us burst into laughter again, rattling their table. Our cashier looked up, just once, wiping at her bangs, but once they’d settled down, she slipped back to her phone.

So listen, I said. Who are you?

You really like to talk, said Tan.

I just asked a question.

There’s nothing to tell. I work for a dying industry. I live with my mother, and I want her to come home, back to Singapore, and she doesn’t want to come home, and I don’t know what to do about that. Your turn.

I’m from the States, I said.

Where?

Texas.

With the horses.

Yeah.

The Astros. Beyoncé.

Sure. But I flew here for my father.

Because he asked you to?

Because he didn’t ask me to.

I see.

He’s stubborn.

Many fathers are, said Tan. Mine was.

And now?

You tell me.

I’m sorry, I said.

Don’t be, said Tan. I’m well. My mother’s well. For me, home is wherever she is.

You shouldn’t make a home out of other people.

Is that right?

I think so.

You speaking from experience?

You could say that, I said.

Maybe you’ve met the wrong people, said Tan. Or you’ve met the wrong people for you.

Maybe, I said. But people change. And then you’re stuck in whatever your idea of home was.

There’s nothing wrong with that though, said Tan. We all change. We’ll all have plenty of homes in this life. It’s when you don’t that there’s an issue. That’s settling.

And what’s the difference between that and settling into one person?

That’s not for me to say. We all live our own lives.

Well, I said. Thanks for nothing.

It’s all I’m good for, laughed Tan.

When the group of guys behind us stood, our table jostled just a bit. The cashier hustled over to their booth.

No girlfriend to go back to? said Tan.

You already asked me that, I said.

I took a bite of rice, and he nodded.

And for you? I said.

With the beginning of a grin on his lips, Tan rose his bowl to his face, inhaling half of the broth.



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When we stepped out of the diner, we walked for twenty, thirty minutes. Didn’t say much to each other.

At some point, I realized we’d been wandering in loops.

Looks like we’ve made a perfect circle, I said.

It’s only perfect if you end up where you started, said Tan.

That’s what we did, I said, and Tan looked up at me, reaching for my hand.

He held it while we walked. His thumb looped across my palm, rubbing until he reached the edge of my pinky.

I’ve been thinking about what you asked, said Tan, about home.

Really, I said.

Really, said Tan.

And what have you decided?

That loving a person means letting them change when they need to. And letting them go when they need to. And that doesn’t make them any less of a home. Just maybe not one for you. Or only for a season or two. But that doesn’t diminish the love. It just changes forms.

I don’t say anything to that. Tan and I walk from one street to the next. His thumb grazes my knuckles, and I massage his palm, and we keep letting each other do that.

And now, said Tan, swiping his finger, we split.

Tan squeezed my shoulder, turning away. Leaving my ass to watch him cross the road and dip into a train station.

Overhead, it’d gotten a little brighter. A little closer to morning. Osaka was rousing itself awake, and when I looked up, I realize he’d walked us back to Eiju’s bar.



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