How to Be an American Housewife - Margaret Dilloway [7]
But I loved to play baseball, and I hit the ball better than the boys. I still loved baseball today. I watched every game I could on television, making Charlie grumble. He hated sports. I hated being indoors, but now allergies and the sun bothered me too much to spend time outside.
Once, when I was little, I sneaked out to the field where my brother played ball with his friends. “Go home and do the laundry, Shoko,” Taro yelled at me when he saw me. His friends laughed and Taro drew himself up taller than he was, which was still half a head shorter than me. His black hair poked out crazily from under his ball cap; Taro had an unfortunate double-helix cowlick on the crown of his head. “We don’t want girls messing up our game.”
I couldn’t let my little brother speak that way to me, especially in front of his older friend, Tetsuo, who always looked at me in a sly way and winked. I squared my shoulders. “I bet you your manju that I hit a home run.” Our mother was making the steamed sweet bean cakes. Treats were getting fewer these days, so this was a bet of the utmost seriousness.
Of course I did hit a homer. Tetsuo and the other boys hooted and hollered. And Taro ran home and told our father, who beat me with a willow stick. “For being better than a boy?” I had shouted at him as he did it.
“For disobedience,” Father had said, giving me an extra whack for talking back. Father, a tall and skinny scholar with glasses falling down his nose, hardly had the heart to give me a good beating. He did it only because it was the right thing for a father to do when a daughter ran wild.
Worst of all, he gave Taro my manju. But that night, after everyone had gone to sleep, I’d been awakened by a soft prodding on my cheek and the smell of sweet beans at my nose. “Here, Shoko-chan,” Taro had whispered. “I’m sorry.” He had given me two, his and mine.
“You better be sorry,” I had responded, stuffing both into my cheeks. “I’ll really fix you next time.” I punched his arm. Taro giggled, and we drifted to sleep, the manju beans making my lips sticky.
Was Taro even still alive?
If you are lucky enough to become a mother to a son, do not attempt to raise him in the American way. Raise him in the Japanese way and he will become a fine young man in the Japanese tradition.
This means treating him better than you treat your husband. Prepare all your son’s favorite meals, buy him toys when he desires them, try to accommodate all his desires before he can voice them. In this way, you will gain his respect and appreciation.
—from the chapter “American Family Habits,”
How to Be an American Housewife
Three
Charlie interrupted my memories by coming in and patting my shin. “You want me to bring you Sanka in here?”
I sat up, then lay back down. How idiotic that the simple act of getting dressed had tired me out. Some days were better than others. “Please.”
“Okay.” He got up and left before I could mention my letter.
I stretched, thinking about how I would run after I got my heart fixed, then got up and applied my makeup. I only wore it to the store or to the doctor’s, really the only places we ever went anymore.
Loud TV came out of my son’s room, which was across from ours. I smelled cigarettes. My chest tightened. I went out and pounded on his door. “No smoke in house, Mike!”
He cracked the door open, his nearly black eyes rimmed with red. There were so many papers and trash and clothes on the floor you couldn’t see the carpet. At the foot of his bed was a big-screen TV, up too loud. “What?” he said, like when he was sixteen, me trying to get him to come out for dinner, when he’d rather eat in his room alone. This was Mike’s way.
Mike looked much more Japanese than Sue. He had sharp high cheekbones, eyes that turned up at the corners. His nose had a flat bridge like my brother’s, but was long like his father’s. Ever since he was little,