Memorial(76)

We talked about it, I say.

He’s always been a little funny, says Mitsuko. Since he was a boy. He’d tell me one thing, start in on it, and decide on another. Or he’d get tunnel vision.

Mitsuko stares into her bowl, stirring the eggs with her spoon. She scoops the ketchup again, gradually, piling it on one end of the plate, before she picks it back up, redistributing everything.

How old were you when you started tying your shoes, says Mitsuko.

What, I say, wiping my eyes.

You asked me to tell you a story. How old were you?

I don’t know, I say. Shit. Six?

It took Michael eleven years, says Mitsuko. It took that long for my son to get it through his head. He just didn’t believe he could do it. The laces fell right out of his hands. I would show him, and his father would show him, and he’d try to do it on his own, but then he’d just give up. Nearly four thousand days of life. He had to wear Velcro sneakers until middle school.

I watched Mitsuko play with her food. She kept not watching me.

So what happened, I say.

What always happens with my son, says Mitsuko, smiling a little. He figured it out. He made the decision to do it at one point, and then he did it. The same way my son figures that he needs to run this bar, or whatever it is, in Osaka. The same way he figured that he needed to see his father through the end.

But you didn’t even want him to leave, I say.

Correct, says Mitsuko. I didn’t. That was not the decision I wanted my son to make.

But he needed to, she says. And he knew that he needed to. So, from time to time, Michael can see past the front of his nose. He’s gotten better about that, apparently. And even if I never tell him this—and you will never tell him that I told you—I’m proud of him for it. Seeing him make decisions, big decisions, makes me proud. But I don’t think that this is one of those times.

Mitsuko crosses her arms, leaning onto the table. Finally looks up at me.

Do you see what I’m getting at, she says.

I’m not sure, I say.

I’m saying that if you leave Michael to his own devices, he’ll come around eventually. He will. But that might be too late for you. My son likes you.

I love him, too.

Exactly, says Mitsuko. So tell him that. Those exact words.

And then he’ll change his mind? I say.

I don’t know about that. It could look like a lot of things. But that’s when he’ll make the decision he wants to make, as opposed to the one that he thinks he should. Or the one that’s actually the easiest path forward.

You’ll be all right, says Mitsuko. It’ll be all right. I promise.

If you say so.

I say so.

You came from good stock, says Mitsuko, and before she leaves the kitchen, she sets a palm on my neck.



* * *





When I spot Ximena at the daycare, I don’t know what I’m expecting her first day back, but she’s flipping through a magazine before we’ve opened for business.

Ximena winks my way once she sees me.

Noah left the place a fucking mess this morning, she says.

Happy wife, happy life, I say.

Shut up, says Ximena. He’s a slob. Cups on the table and everything. He said he’d do better, but here he goes, fucking making problems.

It’s the little things.

My ass. I’m no fucking maid.

So much for the honeymoon period, I say. Welcome back.

That’s got nothing to do with anything, says Ximena. The wedding’s been over.

But look, she says, and Ximena shows me her tan, and her skin is a pulsing bronze from her shoulders to her fingertips.

I’m literally fucking glowing, says Ximena.

That’s the difference, she says. That’s what matters.

You could’ve done that without him, I say.

No shit, Kierkegaard. You think I don’t know that?

But here’s the thing, says Ximena, winking, I wanted to put him on, too.



* * *





The kids are restless today. When I ask Marcos and Lorraine to cool it with the running, they just puff up their cheeks, sprinting even faster. When I ask Silvia to stop with the colored pencils, she snaps a pair in half. I ask Xu and Ethan, for the fifteenth time, to do me the biggest of favors and keep their hands off each other, and the brothers blink simultaneously before doing exactly that, opting for head-butts instead.

Shit, says Barry. It really is the end of the world.

Go figure, says Ximena.

The kids just shrug. They do their thing.

But honestly, truly, we can’t blame them. It’s not their fault. We did the same thing at their age—would do it again if we could.



* * *





At the end of the day, once Barry and Ximena start vacuuming and mopping and wiping, I sit with Ahmad by the door. He’s the last kid to get picked up, and quiet, with his fingers in his lap. He spent his morning coloring in a sketchbook—the one he told me his parents bought him—and his afternoon shooting basketball on the court. First, with Barry. Then with Ethan and Xu. Then with Thomas, and Margaret, and Silvia, until Ahmad was the only one left.

Now, he’s still coloring. The pastels blend into one another, forming tiny, lucid solar systems.

I ask if he’s still on strike.