Southern Fried Sushi (6 page)

“
Tadaima
!” I said to no one in particular. “I’m home!”

I shrugged off my expensive jacket and hung it in the small wooden wardrobe near my bed. My apartment looked more like a mini hotel room: sterile modern furnishings, tiny spotlessrooms, solid white paint and carpeting. The “living room” (more like a “six-by-six-foot living space”) barely contained a sofa and tiny table, a narrow hallway with a mini fridge and stovetop, and just enough room to swing my legs over the (single) bed without hitting the wall.

I was lucky; most of my expat friends lived in one-room efficiencies or cheaper underground pads. Bill Gates made chump change compared to staggering Tokyo rent.

My favorite feature: the mini balcony, where I could look out over the city and watch it twinkle and sparkle into the night. Even my new flat-screen TV, which I’d wedged next to the table, took a backseat. I couldn’t fit a chair on the balcony, but I could sit on the arm of the sofa and look out, out, as far as I could imagine. In fact, in a few minutes I’d take my favorite seat and dream, and maybe call Carlos.

My second favorite feature: the toilet-sink. Yes, my toilet did play music, but the top of the toilet tank also sported a faucet, scooped porcelain, and drain—making its own little sink. As Ben Franklin said, “Waste not, want not.”

I doubt he referred to space, but in Tokyo, every millimeter counts. The Japanese did it again—and not just with onigiri wrappers.

The apartment still smelled of newness and carpet. A minimalist design, certainly, but I’d brightened it up with memories of my two years in Japan: brilliant red-and-white carp streamers, colorful kites, paper lanterns, a blue-and-gold silk wall hanging decorated with kimono patterns.

On the corkboard in my bedroom I kept a stash of mementos: special news stories I’d written, ticket stubs, pictures of
Kinkakuji
(Golden Temple), an iconic “I L
OVE
NY!” postcard, letters from friends, pressed gingko leaves, a flowered kimono hairpiece, and my mom’s mini pecan pie.

I’d skewered the pie there by the corner of the plastic with a thumbtack. It looked sticky but otherwise the same as it did six

months ago.

The collection of absurdities displayed my life, in a strange little nutshell.

I pulled my hair back into an elastic band and took off my bracelets, setting them in the artsy dish on my dwarfed bedside table. I was just reaching for my running shorts when I noticed the blinking light on the answering machine. Fourteen messages.

No. Please no. Dread crept up my spine. What if Dave …?

Impossible. He would have called my cell phone. He knows I’m almost never home. Right?

Nobody calls my home phone except occasional salespeople, who are too cheap to pay the more expensive cell-phone rate. The number 14 flashed red again like a warning, and a tremor of fear passed through me.

Four. Shi. Death. Mine, at the hands of Dave Driscoll.

As if on cue, the phone jangled loudly, startling me in my silence.

H
ello?” I nervously picked up the receiver.

The line crackled. “Shiloh?” asked a choked-up voice. “Are you there?”

I stared at the wall, the tremor of fear increasing with every second. “Who is this?”

“Shiloh? This is Ashley.”

My half sister?
I could barely hear over incoherent sobbing.

I stood up and grabbed the phone as if to cling to something, anything. I sensed bad news and approaching fast. Ashley never called me. The pit of my stomach shook like when I felt an earthquake coming on.

“Ashley!” My voice rose. “Speak to me! What’s going on?”

No answer, just sniffling.

“Did you lose the baby?” I couldn’t think of another possibility … unless her husband, Wade …

“Shiloh, I didn’t want to be the one to tell you, but …” More sobbing.

“Ashley!” Panic prickled.

Muffled noise sifted to my ear, some staticky clicks, and an embarrassed male voice sounded on the line. “Shiloh? Hi. This is Wade. Sorry about that.”

“Wade. So you’re okay.” I sat down warily on the side of my bed, coiling the phone cord tighter around my white fingers. “She lost the baby, didn’t she?”

“No, Shiloh. The baby’s fine. Ashley’s fine. We’re all … fine. It’s your mom.”

Instinctively my eyes turned to the pecan pie on the corkboard. “What’s wrong with Mom? Is she … sick or something?”

“No. Yes. Uh … no.”

“Huh?”

Wade sighed. “Shiloh, I don’t know how to tell you this. I’m really sorry. It’s just … she … well, she’s gone.”

“Gone? She’s … missing?” My mom’s photo on a milk carton flashed through my mind.

“No. She passed away.”

The line buzzed faintly like static. I rubbed my ear to see if I’d heard right.

“Excuse me?”

“She passed away, Shiloh. I’m sorry.”

I felt my throat tighten, but no tears came. I couldn’t speak. The wind had been knocked out of me. Literally. I slumped from the bed to the floor, landing in a pile.

“She … what?”

“She passed away early this morning. At the hospital. The doctors say she had a brain aneurysm. They tried to help her, but … they couldn’t. It happened so suddenly. Nobody ever expected it in a million years. She was fine and healthy … from what I … you know, hear …”

I felt numb and strange, as if hearing two perfect strangers having our conversation. I had the urge to hang up and pretend everything had never happened, that I’d dreamed it all up. The room shimmered transparent, unreal.

“Shiloh, are you there?” Wade’s voice again.

“Hmm?” I had lost the feeling in my fingers. I unwound the cord slightly, letting blood flow back into the tips.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I stammered. “Fine.” What else could I say? “Does Dad know?”

“Yeah, he does. Ashley just talked to him. He and Tanzania are … well, really sorry. She meant a lot to all of us.”

I thought of Dad, off with his belly-dancing wife in Mexico City, and felt a wave of fury heat my blood to boiling. Not only did Dad know before me, but he could care less about Mom. Sorry? He doesn’t know the meaning of the word sorry!

Wade cleared his throat. “I know she was … well, her own person, in her own special way.”

Hot anger toward Wade stabbed me so fiercely I could hardly think. How dare he say anything about Mom? He never knew her, probably never even spoke to her. Ashley didn’t even invite Mom to her wedding.

“How did it happen?” I barked, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

“Well, Ashley said Ellen—your mom—was out working in her garden when she just fell over. A neighbor saw her and called the ambulance, and … they pronounced her dead at the hospital. That’s really all we know.”

“How did Ashley find out?” I could feel my voice rising. “How does she know everything?”

“It’s okay, Shiloh. I know you’re upset.”

“I’m not upset!” I hollered.

“Okay.” Wade sighed, sounding tired. “Do you want to talk to Ashley?”

“No. She’s probably still … no. Forget it.” I don’t do crying. Ever. My stomach tightened at the thought. “Sorry, Wade. I’m just surprised. That’s all.”

Wade took a deep breath. “Some of your mom’s friends called Ashley. She had listed Ashley and me as emergency family contacts since you live overseas, so …”

His voice just hung there in the air. “Are you still there?”

“I’m here.” Some of my anger had subsided.

“There’s something else, too, when you’re ready for it.”

I gripped the phone cord. “What else? Go ahead. My day’s already ruined.”

“Wait. It’s not bad. Not really. I mean, I don’t think so.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What?”

Wade cleared his throat. “Well, you know the house she lived in …”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, a house. Her house. She left it to you in her will.”

“Her house?” My throat closed again, and I sagged back against the bed. “What do you mean?” I was really making this hard for Wade.

“She had a house, Shiloh. It’s not much, apparently, but she paid for it, and she wants you to have it. She knew Ashley and I already have our own house, and besides, you’re her daughter…. So it’s there, waiting for you. You can sell it, which is what I figure you’ll want to do, and put the money in your bank account. It can’t hurt with the economy the way it is.”

I grunted my understanding as the words wrapped themselves around my fogged brain. “She left me her house.” I said my question as a statement.

“Yeah. Something like that. I … uh, suppose you’d like to know about the funeral, too, which will be there where she lives. It’s Monday if you can … you know, make it. I guess it might be difficult for you to come, but …”

I didn’t speak, so he cleared his throat again. “It would be good, though, if you could, so we could get the house business squared away.”

“The house,” I repeated stonily.

“I didn’t mean the house is more important than …” He sounded frustrated. “You know what I mean, Shiloh. If you can come, it would be great. If not, Ashley and I will try our best to fax you the stuff … get your signature and … whatever. I knowyou’re busy there. It’s up to you.”

“Yeah.” I rubbed my head in a daze.

“I also thought you might want to … maybe … go through your mom’s things and see if there’s anything you’d like to keep. Something with special memories or something.”

I almost laughed out loud. Special memories? Mom? Dad? My family? What a joke! My special memories had been success. Work. A few friends who helped me make it through dark and tangled years. Even Ashley hadn’t been around that much, although to her credit she always kept in remote contact, even after my dad left.

“Is Ashley okay?”

“She’s fine. She’ll be okay. Don’t worry about her.” He paused. “She just wishes we’d been there more for your mom.”

“Ashley never got an onion for lunch,” I shot back.

“A … what? Sorry?”

“Never mind.” Suddenly I couldn’t talk a second longer. I could hear Ashley blowing her nose. “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you. Thanks.”

And I abruptly hung up.

I sat in a daze for I don’t know how long, and the room seemed to fade.

Mom is dead.

The thought stupefied me, as if I were trying to comprehend a difficult Japanese sentence and failing blankly. I tried to think and rethink it until it made sense, but it did not. I began to wonder if Wade was joking or if I was asleep. Certainly Mom did not die; things just don’t happen that way.

He’d made a mistake. I’d call and tell him I didn’t care for his silly stories and to stop worrying me with ridiculous nonsense.

Wade. What a bonehead my half sister married.

I found myself in front of Inoue’s convenience store in my house slippers. Really. I had no idea what I was doing there or why Ihad on my slippers. I just saw myself looking up into the lighted sign front, with several Japanese people staring at me as they walked past.

“Taking it easy tonight?” laughed an unmistakably British accent as a lanky someone, maybe a foreign-exchange student, pushed open the glass door.

I turned unseeingly to eyes I didn’t recognize. Looked back at the I
NOUE
sign and down at my striped slippers.

Call Carlos. I need to call Carlos
. I punched in his number, and it rang and rang. No answer.

In an uninhibited stupor that accompanies shock, I dug for Mia’s business card and dialed her number. Again, no answer.

Mrs. Inoue appeared in the store window, head covered in a kerchief. Obviously wondering why I was standing on the curb. I dialed again.

“Kyoko?”

“Ro-chan? What’s up?”

“Come get me.”

A strange silence. “Where are you?”

“I have no idea.”

And I shut the phone.

I
was playing a Tetris-like game on my cell phone when a taxi zoomed up the street and stopped in front of Inoue’s. Kyoko burst out, flushed and worried, then sprinted over to my side. I didn’t look up.

“Ro-chan, what’s going on?” She stopped, panting. “What are you doing? You’ve got your … Are you okay?”

I looked up at her and then back at my game. Kyoko snatched the phone away from me and snapped it shut.

“What?” she demanded, shaking my shoulders.

“Green onions.” My voice came out small and quivery. “I need to buy some green onions, I think. And some jasmine tea.”

Kyoko stared at me in absolute shock. “If you called me over here just to buy groceries, I’ll …” Her eyes widened. “Something happened, Ro. What? Why won’t you tell me?” She flailed her arms in exasperation.

Mrs. Inoue hovered at the window. Then she leaned through the glass door, holding it open for me.

Kyoko nervously followed me inside, as if afraid. She greeted Mrs. Inoue briefly, and they exchanged remarks, and I bowed politely. Tried to smile. It seemed a toothy grin to me, like a wolf might make, but I couldn’t remember how to do it right.

I wandered over to the tea section, unable to force out the words. Maybe if I didn’t say them they would somehow not be true.

Kyoko trailed me, hands on her hips. “Okay, so you want some tea?” she asked in a surprisingly gentle voice. “Will that make you feel better?”