How to Be an American Housewife - Margaret Dilloway [91]
“We are together, princess.” Then he belched directly onto my nose, his breath fish-stinky, laughing, and I shoved him away.
The room brightened. I opened my eyes and was not in Japan at all, but in my hospital room, an oxygen tank helping me breathe. My heart beat strong in my chest; I pictured the stitches healing magically.
“Shoko-chan?” A male voice. It’s so familiar, but I can’t place it. Not Charlie or Mike or a doctor.
Then a face wove into view. My baby brother, hair gray, face wrinkled, but the same broad nose and big-toothed grin. My Taro. “I am not dead?” I said in Japanese, surprising myself.
“Too stubborn, like me.” Taro laughed. I took his arm and pinched it—not hard, because I was weak. He squealed all the same. He was real.
WE SPOKE OF MANY THINGS. Sue had called after the surgery, and he had decided to come, just like that.
My Japanese flowed through rusty old pipes at first, but then came strong and clear. We talked of our children and grandchildren, but not one word of what drove us apart. It no longer mattered. I took his hand in mine, stuck through with tubes. “Look at us, two old farts,” I said, patting his liver spots.
“Only the shell is old.” Taro’s eyes twinkled as I remembered. My baby sister flashed before me, her lilting laugh, her pigtails flying with her jump rope. Oh, if only I could have seen Suki, too! “If Shoko can’t come to Japan, Japan comes to Shoko,” Taro said, showing me photos of Sumiko and Taro-chan.
I smiled. “I will come. You’ll see.”
We have heard Housewives complain of boredom, especially after their children are older.
If you find yourself bored or discontented, try this: Give your house a thorough cleaning. Get rid of everything you have no need for. Make your American house as uncluttered as a Japanese house. There is no better cure for the doldrums.
—from the chapter “American Housekeeping,”
How to Be an American Housewife
Sue
At last, when I had exhausted excuses to stay away, I was forced back to work the following week. Helena returned to school. Everything was back to normal, yet nothing for me was normal any longer.
Mom was getting stronger, still in the hospital. Taro’s visit had jolted life back into her. In a few weeks, she would be moved to another floor. Once she could do a slow lap around the floor, she would be able to go home.
Weeks passed. Taro returned to Japan. Mom got out of the hospital. I talked to Dr. Cunningham—Seth—on the phone a few times, even going out for coffee once, a dinner next. And still I whiled my time away at the office, doing as much work as necessary to keep me employed, running home to attend to Helena, daydreaming about Japan.
How could I miss Japan already? I carried the stone from my family’s land in my pocket, turning it over and over in my fingers, its presence a comfort during traffic jams and long meetings. My little house felt odd to me now. I ran into corners, I put spoons in the wrong drawers. I had to think about which freeway to take to work. San Diego had become a foreign nation. Perhaps I needed more time to readjust.
Or perhaps I needed a change. Nothing held me back. My mother had said I could do whatever I wanted. She was right. I could be doing so much more. Look at what my Japanese cousins had achieved. I applied for jobs in other departments, even at a few other companies. A new challenge to keep me occupied. Anything.
One night, while Helena worked on homework at the dining table, I looked up teaching programs on the computer. I made notes of a few programs, what they required to get in. And then, on a whim, I typed in “Teaching in Japan.”
It was absolutely ridiculous. To think of me, a woman with responsibilities, going to a teaching-abroad program like a college kid with a backpack. But I took out Toshiro’s card anyway, the man we had met on the plane, and looked up his company.
A list of opportunities popped open. One was near Sumiko