Brave Story (23 page)

“Does Dad want to marry her?”

“Get married?? Isn’t once enough?”

“Say, why aren’t you married? I’ve always wondered about that.”

Uncle Lou’s eyes went wide. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Everything, thought Wataru. What was marriage? Why did grown-ups get married? Why did they want to get married again, when they had already been married before? What made them want to do that?

“Well, for one thing, I’m not very good with the ladies.”

“Really? But there are lots of people uglier than you that get married…”

His uncle smiled wryly. “You don’t go easy on a guy, do you?”

Then, as an afterthought, he said, “I think it’s because I’m probably a coward.”

“A coward? Does that mean you’re scared?”

“That’s what it means.”

“But that can’t be true. You’re brave. You’ve even saved so many people’s lives.”

“That’s a different kind of bravery. Totally different.”

Then he rapped Wataru on the head with his knuckles. “I’m just afraid that, if I got married, something like this would happen. That’s what scares me. That’s why I’m not married.”

“‘Something like this’?”

“I mean this—what’s happening right now.” He lifted his hands in a big sweeping motion. “Please don’t make me explain it.”

“You mean like someone else?”

“Yeah…but, Wataru, that’s not the only reason why some marriages fail. That’s not the only thing your mother and father have done wrong.”

“Really?”

Wataru asked a question that had been lingering in the back of his head ever since his father had walked out.

“Then, it has something to do with me too?”

Satoru stiffened noticeably.

“Maybe I wasn’t a good enough kid, maybe that’s why my dad left.”

Uncle Lou began rubbing his hands furiously through his hair. “Why is it always this way? I dig my own grave every time. I always say the wrong thing. Man, I’m so dumb.” He sounded as if he were on the verge of tears.

“Uncle Lou…”

“You haven’t done anything wrong, Wataru. Not a single thing. Your father’s the one who’s wrong here. Saying what he likes, walking out on you. The way he tried to leave was cowardly too. Trying to sneak away while you were out with me.”

If I’m not bad, that means Dad is the bad one. He’s the coward. If I’m not bad, and my dad’s not bad, I guess that would make Mom the bad one. If neither of us is bad, then the one who’s bad is…the one who’s bad is…

“Damn it! Who is this woman, anyway?” Uncle Lou spat, trying to get the taste of frustration out of his mouth. “I’d like to see her face. Then I’d like to hit it, really hard.”

I know. She’s the bad one. The other woman.

As they sat there in a daze, Wataru’s grandmother came hustling over from the elevator lobby. His mother was right behind her.

“Mrs. Mitani, please, wait!”

She was running and shouting at the top of her lungs. Wataru’s grandmother didn’t stop. Her round little body ran so fast it was like she was rolling. “Satoru! What are you doing just sitting there? Come on! Get the car! We’re leaving.”

Uncle Lou stood up.

“Leaving? Where?”

“As if you didn’t know! We’re going to talk to that fool, Akira. I’m going to dump a bucket of water over his head, and bring him home.”

“I’d love to see you do that, but that won’t change a thing. We have to reason with him calmly.”

Grandma roared, spitting fire from her mouth. “‘Reason’? I’ll show you reason! Chasing other women, leaving his wife—LEAVING HIS CHILD. That’s no son of mine!”

“Mrs. Mitani…” Kuniko knelt before her mother-in-law. “The whole neighborhood can hear you. Please, be quiet.”

Grandma got even madder—and louder. “Who cares what they hear? This is no time to be worried about appearances. You’ve always been that way, Kuniko. What do you care about privacy or propriety now? Do you even understand that you’ve been dumped? Can you just stand there and let some strange woman drag your husband into her bed!”

“Mom!” Uncle Lou shouted. Stars flashed before Wataru’s eyes.

Chasing other women—dragged into her bed?

“Don’t speak that way to your mother!” Grandma was unstoppable. “Look at you, you’re as big as they come, and every pound of flesh on your bones is completely useless. Why didn’t you stop him when he was leaving?”

Some people stuck their heads out over the veranda to get a better view of the unfolding family drama. His mother was crouched on the ground, holding her head in her hands. She was crying.

“Mom, drop it for now, okay?”

Uncle Lou grabbed his mother’s shoulders firmly, but when he saw the look in her eyes, he released her from his grip.

“No good will come from hashing this out here in public.” Uncle Lou’s voice was kind. “Think of Kuniko and Wataru. We’ll go back to the hotel for now.”

“I’m going to get Akira,” Grandma said stubbornly.

“I’ll make sure that happens. Trust me, okay?”

Chapter 10
Falling

Eventually, Satoru managed to calm his mother down and get her back in the car.
As they drove off, Grandma was still vowing that she wouldn’t go home without talking to Akira. Her massive traveling bag sat heavy in the back seat, a testament to her determination.

Wataru and Kuniko went back inside under a pall of silence. As Wataru headed off to his own room, Kuniko called out to him.

“Can we talk?”

She looked horribly tired. Her cheeks were ashen, her hair a tangled mess from when she had wrung it between her hands down in the garden. It was difficult for Wataru to look her in the face.

Mom’s sick, that’s it. Mom’s terribly ill. We should call a doctor.

“I’m sorry,” she said at last in a tiny voice. “I’m sorry you had to go through this.”

Wataru sighed quietly, his eyes cast down to the floor. They were sitting in their usual dining room chairs, only Akira’s chair was empty. It never would have occurred to them to sit there, though there was no danger of its regular occupant suddenly walking in.

This scene, the two of them sitting where they were sitting, right now, at the table, was utterly normal. It was Sunday. Akira had gone out golfing, or maybe he was on a business trip. Nothing was different. Wataru wondered if the day would come when he, or maybe his mom, or someone else entirely, would sit in Akira’s chair without a second thought.

“Don’t apologize. It wasn’t either of our faults. That’s what Uncle Lou said,” Wataru muttered. “It’s Dad’s fault, he was the bad one. He and the woman he’s with now.”

Kuniko sat with her head hung low, wrinkles showing on her forehead. “The woman…”

“He’s right, isn’t he?”

Kuniko looked up with a wan smile. “I suppose you heard what your grandmother was saying down in the garden. There’s no point in trying to hide anything from you now.”

No, there’s not.

“Wataru, do you know what that means?”

“I think so.” Wataru recalled what his uncle had said about that sort of thing happening on television all the time. He said so.

“Soap operas…” Kuniko said with a sigh. “You’re right. I used to think this sort of thing happened only on television. Those advice columns, and those radio call-in shows, I thought they were all fake. I never thought…” her voice trailed off. She was talking half to herself. “Those sort of things happen to other people. People who didn’t run a good family, people who were lazy, who got into trouble. Not…not us.” She shook her head. “Maybe I was too proud, and this is my punishment.”

Wataru knew he should say something.
You’re wrong. That isn’t it at all.
But he said nothing.
Because I feel the same way!

He only had more questions. “What do we do now? How do we get Dad to come home?”

“I don’t know,” Kuniko answered quickly, the words coming out in a jumble. For a second, Wataru saw his mother differently. She was more than his mother and more than his father’s wife. She was a complete person, someone he had, until this moment, never seen before.

And then it was gone.

“No, Wataru, you shouldn’t think about this. It isn’t your problem to worry about. It’s like your uncle Satoru said, you haven’t done anything wrong. This problem is between me and your father.”

Wataru’s logical brain—inherited from his father, no less—immediately began clicking, constructing a counterargument. Sure, if it was a problem between “Akira” and “Kuniko,” then it may very well have nothing to do with “Wataru.” But what if it was a problem between his “mother” and his “father”? Then it didn’t make sense to leave him out of the equation.

So who are you? Kuniko and Akira, or my father and my mother?

What good would asking do anyway?

“Dad told me that even if he—even if he divorced you, he would still be my dad.”

“He said that when you came back on Friday night with Uncle Lou?”

“Yeah.”

“Your father told you that, did he?” said Kuniko, her eyes filling with tears. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? You only said he told you that he would be leaving and wouldn’t come back for a while.”

Wataru had lied to her, he remembered. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not something you need to apologize for,” Kuniko said with her elbows resting on the table and her hands covering her face. “Why should you have to apologize? That’s terrible. I…”

She slumped onto the table, and started crying. Wataru whispered that he was sorry. Everything he saw went blurry. He rubbed his eyes again and again but the blurriness didn’t go away.

“No, Wataru, I’m sorry,” Kuniko said between sobs, her head still down on the table. “The terrible one is your father. Can you believe it? He says that even if he leaves he’s still your father—and what are you supposed to say to that? Nothing, that’s what. You had to just swallow it all up inside. And then he walks out.”

Uncle Lou’s voice rang in Wataru’s head. Akira had always been that way, keeping his thoughts to himself, voicing only his conclusions. Wataru knew this about his father. Logical thought led to rational decisions, and those, once made, were final. No amount of arguing could dissuade him once he had set upon a course of action.

Rational decisions.
For Akira Mitani, the rational decision had been to leave, to abandon his wife and son, so that’s what he had done. But how had he come to that decision? What path did his reasoning take? How could Wataru be sure his father hadn’t made a mistake, an error in his calculations?

Because Dad never gets anything wrong, never makes a mistake.
Until now. This was the exception, it had to be. Somebody had to tell his father that. Somebody had to check his math.

“What did he say to you, Mom?”

Kuniko lifted her head at the question and shook her head. Tears trickled from her eyes. “I don’t think you need to know that.”

“I want to know,” Wataru said, his heart rising in his throat. Kuniko looked at him through teary eyes and smiled a smile so bitter she seemed to be in pain. “Such a good kid.”

“Mom…”

“No. No, you don’t need to worry about a thing anymore. I’m fine!” Kuniko nodded exaggeratedly. “I’ll do it. I’ll speak with your father; reason with him. Then, he’ll come home. Look, Wataru, why don’t you just think of this as an extended business trip? That’s really what it is. He had some difficult work to do, and he has to devote his time to it for now. A business trip. Right?”

And what was he supposed to say to this? Nothing—just like it had been with his father. Maybe that was the way it had to be.

“That’s right,” Kuniko declared. “You’re such a good kid, how could
you
lose your father? You can’t, of course, and I’ll make sure of it.”

After that day, his mother didn’t bring up the subject again. She met with Grandma in Chiba and Uncle Lou, talked in a hushed voice for long hours on the phone, and called her own parents in Odawara. Oddly, Wataru never knew what was happening, or what she was talking about.

Dad’s on a business trip. That’s all.
A lie, he knew, but he tried to believe it all the same.

When it grew inside him until the pain was too much to bear in silence, he went to Uncle Lou. His uncle changed the minute he brought the topic up.

“What has your mother told you? You listen to what she says, and just, er, live life. Normally.”

Huh? Normally?

“Hey,” Uncle Lou beamed. “Less than two weeks until summer vacation. You’re coming out here in August, right? You’d better, cause I’ll be waiting. And finish your summer homework too!”

Wataru’s mother had told Uncle Lou not to say anything; that much was clear. He pressed harder.

“What about Grandma? Did she talk to Dad like she said she would?”

“She’s getting busier at the store, what with summer coming and all. Don’t you worry about that, okay?”

“What do you mean, don’t worry?! It’s my life!” he shouted.