Memorial(73)

But I don’t know what I could possibly say.

So I don’t say anything at all.

And then I open my mouth.

And what comes out is, Well.

That’s when Mitsuko steps across the room. She sits on the sofa across from my parents. My father’s eyes widen, and Mitsuko doesn’t flinch, and my father says, I’ve heard a lot about you from my daughter.

You’re pretty infamous, too, says Mitsuko.

I hear Mike migrate toward the kitchen with the bags, and it’s clear that he’s left me afloat. But a few seconds later, he’s back in the living room. He’s right beside me.

He squeezes my mother’s hand and says, Ma’am, it’s nice to finally meet you.

He leans over to hug Lydia, whispering something in her ear.

He stands in front of my father, a little wider, a little shorter.

And my father, for no reason in particular, stands up to face him, nearly towering over him.

Mitsuko sighs. Lydia laughs. My mother elbows her ribs.

Then, inexplicably, my father extends his hand.

I’m Ben’s father.

I know, says Mike.

Good.

And I’m your son’s boyfriend.

So I’ve heard, says my father.

My father says, It’s nice to meet you, and Mike lets go of his hand.

Mike looks at the whole of us. He looks at me.

Mike asks if anyone’s hungry. He says, I was just about to start dinner.





4.



The fifth I love you came in the middle of the night. I’d started living at Mike’s place. There was a banging at the door, a frantic sort of slamming, almost like a pleading, and it woke me up first. So I nudged Mike’s shoulder until he finally moaned, swatting at my hand, and then I squeezed the bridge of his nose.

What the fuck, he said.

And then he heard the door, too.

Mike rolled out of bed. Didn’t even bother with a shirt. As he stumbled down the hallway, I called out after him to leave it alone, but of course he didn’t listen, flipping on the hall lights and all three front door locks with his elbow.

The knockers were a pair of college kids from up the road. Brown, and sweaty, and stoned out of their minds.

When they saw Mike, they started giggling. One told him that they were cooking. They needed some butter, and paprika, and the words came out between spurts of laughter, with the two guys leaning all over each other.

But Mike gave them two sticks and a vial of spice anyway. He told the boys to get home safe.

Rolling over me on his way back to bed, he palmed my stomach, whispered the words into my ear.



* * *





The seventh time came at a party. Mike had rescued me from a conversation with a half-drunk mother. I’d been drinking, but I was lucid, and it slipped out of his mouth the way words sometimes do. And this was the first time I said it back.





5.



In the kitchen, with my family in the living room, Mike tells me that he wants to meet Omar. I don’t respond, juggling a trio of eggs, pacing around the stove. Mike has already assembled some kind of rice casserole with chicken, tofu, and carrots, simmering three slabs of cod with white onions splayed across them, prepping dashi in the pot beside them. As many times as I’ve seen him cook, I’ve never really just watched him, but his rhythms mirror his mother’s, right down to the shuffling of his feet.

I’m peeling potatoes beside him, and then I’m boiling them, sautéing onions and pork in a pan on the other end. Mike glances my way, once, and then once again. When I start folding the potatoes into the sauté, he asks what I’m making, and I tell him: potato korokke.

He blinks, once.

Korokke? he asks.

Yeah, I say.

Really? Potato croquettes?

That’s what I said, I say, stirring.

Then Mike opens his mouth a third time, but nothing comes out. He turns right back around.

At first, Mike watches me move around the kitchen, grabbing and shifting and slicing. Eventually, he joins me, taking care with his body, negotiating it around mine. We’ve never cooked together, but we move through the room like we’ve been doing it for years. There are moments when I know he could say something about how I’ve cut one thing, or stirred another, but he doesn’t. Mike just watches, doing his own thing, complementing mine.

He asks about Omar a second time, and then a third, before I tell him that it’s inappropriate, it’ll never fucking happen, and that’s when the first egg falls on the floor, followed by another pair behind it.



* * *





And now, maybe an hour later, our families sit down to eat. We chew at the casserole, sip the soup. Mike and Lydia and I laze on the floor, and my parents sit beside Mitsuko on the sofa, juggling their chopsticks and spoons. I eye Mike’s mother nibbling a croquette, and when she looks my way, she winks.

Overall, the meal is simple and filling, but I still didn’t think it would take. I’d never even seen my father so much as sip from a bowl of tomato soup, let alone anything entirely unfamiliar.

But now he chews silently.

The six of us chew silently.

The only ones who speak are Mike and Lydia. They ask each other questions, laughing at shitty jokes. Mike doesn’t bring up his absence, or his father, but he’ll address something to my father, and Lydia will answer, and Lydia will direct something to Mitsuko, and her son’ll answer in her stead, and, at one point, Mike asks how my mother’s family is doing—her other family—and before I can kick him in the balls, she says that everyone’s fine.