Tokyo Ever After: A Novel (Tokyo Ever After #1)(6)

My head spins. This is more than I could ever want. More than I could ever dream up. What I’ve been waiting eighteen years for. And yet … something gets stuck in my throat. It’s inescapable, unpalatable. “My whole life is a lie. Why would my mom hide this from me?”

Glory snaps her fingers. “That’s the million-dollar question, my friend.”





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Messages


5:26 PM


Me

Legit, the thought of confronting my mother is the best laxative ever.

Noora

You can do it.

Noora

Go in and Law and Order it up. It’s time she pays for her crimes. You be the plucky DA who brings her to justice.

Me

I’d much rather be Mariska Hargitay. She’s badass. Plus, Ice-T is her partner.

Me

Gotta go. Mom’s home.

Noora

Remember. Hammer of justice!

With a sigh, I silence my phone. My shoulders square. My heart resolves. The pit in my stomach remains. I carry it with me as I head down the hallway and into the kitchen. Mom is already banging around, opening and closing cupboards, pouring oil into a giant wok. Stir-fry night. I flex a tremor from my hands. Play it cool. Act natural. This shouldn’t be hard to do. It’s practically my job to hang around the kitchen starting at six o’clock and ask every ten minutes when dinner will be ready.

I belly up to the bar and sit on one of the stools. Mugs hang from hooks under the cabinet. Mom collects them. Her favorites have quirky sayings. Geology Rocks is in my direct line of vision. Mom places a cutting board, knife, and multicolored bell peppers in front of me. “Chop, chop,” she says.

I do as I’m told, slicing into an orange bell pepper. “Mom?”

“Hm?” She wraps tofu in a cloth. She’s removed her suit jacket, but still wears the rest of her “school uniform”: button-up shirt with sleeves rolled to her elbows and a tasteful pencil skirt.

“Tell me again about my father, the sperm donor.”

Our relationship used to be so straightforward. I could distill it into one sentence—single mom with daughter, two against the world. Now, it all seems so complicated. Everything has changed. But she doesn’t realize it yet. Kind of like when Glory’s parents got divorced. Her mom fell out of love and started dating their dentist while her dad planned their twentieth anniversary. Lies taint everything.

Mom closes her eyes. Ah, she’s in one of her I’ve-had-a-long-day-and-don’t-have time-for-this moods. “I’ve asked you not to use that term.”

“Sorry. I go to public school. We have sex education. I know too much.”

She unwraps the tofu, cubes it, and throws it into the wok. It sizzles and the sound is oddly satisfying, like coming home. “Can this wait? I’m in the middle of making dinner.”

I grip the knife harder, a rush of determination courses through me. Her answer doesn’t make me feel stabby. Not at all. “It can’t wait. Just tell me again.”

She stops and stares at me over her shoulder, a suspicious gleam in her eyes. “What is this about? Are you missing something not having a father?”

Gah, the look on her face—heartbreaking. My determination goes on the defensive. What can I say? Yes. I miss having a dad. Even more, I miss having a past. There isn’t any family on Mom’s side. She’s sansei, third generation Japanese. Her grandparents emigrated in the thirties. They didn’t speak the language and only had a whisper of a better life when they boarded a ship bound for America. After World War II, they slipped their heirloom kimono under the bed, put up Christmas trees in December, and exclusively spoke English.

But some traditions refuse to fade. They seep through the cracks and cling to the walls—remove your shoes before entering the house, always bring a gift when visiting someone for the first time, celebrate the New Year by eating Toshikoshi soba and mochi. The promise of that ghost life makes me yearn. I want to understand myself. I want to put my hands in the earth and pull up roots.

But I can’t tell my mother any of this. I can’t tell her that when people ask me about my story—who I am, where I come from—I tell it like it’s an apology. No, I don’t speak Japanese. No, I’ve never been to Japan. No, I don’t like sushi. It’s always clear in their disappointed gazes. I am not enough.

All of this would hurt her.

So instead I let my silence do the talking.

Her sigh is long and suffering. She looks to the ceiling. Lord, give her patience. “I met him my senior year of college at a party. We slept together. I found out I was pregnant with you after I graduated. By then, it was too late to find him.”

“You never knew his name?”

She won’t make eye contact. “That’s right.”

“Didn’t know where he lived?”

“Nope.”

“What about one of his friends? Did you try tracking him down through them?”

“We didn’t have any mutual acquaintances.”

“Huh.”

“Are we done with this now? Did you finish your English project, the journal on Huckleberry Finn?”

I take her question as a personal insult. “Of course I finished it.” Truth: I didn’t finish it. But I did get a week extension. All hail the period excuse. What Mom doesn’t know won’t hurt her. “And no, we’re not done talking about this.”