Summer Haikus – Chapter 10

I worried that seeing my mom in the hospital would be hard, and I was so, so right. I’m supposed to be a responsible adult, but I feel like a little kid. Every time my eyes sweep over her on the bed, I have to remind myself, She’s not dying, Isa. Get a grip. Mom’s left arm and leg are in casts, and she’s covered in bandages.

“Thank goodness I was wearing a helmet or I’d be dead,” she mumbles through the gauze on her cheek. The helmet probably did save her life, but with her face and right side scraped up and two limbs out of commission, she is half the mom I’m used to. It’s a good thing she suffered two clean breaks and her pelvis is fine because otherwise she might have been in here for months. As it is, the doctor said she’ll need about six weeks of recovery. Tears well up in my eyes before she shushes me and pats my hand.

“Don’t cry, Isano. You were never one of those sappy kids who cried at everything. Don’t change now.” She smiles, and I laugh, grabbing a tissue from the table next to her bed. The room she’s in is modern, clean, and bright. Cards, balloons, and various treats overflow several tables. No flowers, though. Fresh flowers are banned at this hospital, so in their place are stacks of magazines and bowls of fruit. I set my mom’s iPad on the bed next to her but regret bringing it. She’s fairly immobile and slow on pain meds, so I doubt she’ll use it.

“I’m settled in at the house. Grandma put me up in the loft.”

“Is it too hot for you? You can take my bed.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“So sorry,” my mom says, tears filling her eyes. “I know this summer was supposed to be with Halley —”

A short knock on the door jolts us both. Halley stands in the doorway, a crooked grin on her face. “It’s okay, Mrs. Brown. I want Isa to be here with you.”

Halley, dressed in a blouse, skirt, and flats, comes to stand at the foot of Mom’s bed. I peek out into the hallway, and her dad and translator converse quietly with my grandma. Our parents were always friends — they couldn’t avoid it since Halley and I have been inseparable for years — so her dad waves and smiles but stays put.

“Besides, you should see the runs Isa planned for me. They’re killer. Up and down Roppongi Hills, through Omotesando and Harajuku. Really, she would die if she ran half of it.” Halley pokes me in the arm.

“Comet tail,” my mom says, her words slow and slurred.

“The best running partner I could ever ask for.”

“I’ll make sure she runs with you…” Mom’s eyes droop but she jerks herself awake. “Meds are strong, but I need to talk to you before you go.”

“What do you need?” I ask, taking her hand in mine. Her skin is dry and cold. I make a mental note to bring moisturizer and ask the staff for another blanket for her.

“I want you to help Grandma and Grandpa with the ryokan until I’m back on my feet. Take my planner.” She nods at the side table. I move a few magazines and find a black leather paper planner not unlike my own, pregnant with receipts, business cards, and sticky notes. “Follow my schedule. Ask the store owners and suppliers for help. Explain the situation. We have Olympics tourists coming in soon and a dozen families before that.”

I nod, flipping through her planner. My eyes skip over all the Japanese, tiny hiragana, katakana, and kanji written in fine point black ink. I smile and run my fingers over the Hello Kitty stickers and colorful washi tape on each page. Like mother, like daughter.

When I look back at my mom, she’s asleep. I close the planner and hug it to my chest. I have a lot of work to do.

Halley grabs my arm and pulls me across the room.

“How are you?” she asks.

I just stare at my mom in the hospital bed.

“Isa?” she asks, shaking my shoulders.

“I’m wretched, if you must know. I can’t think of a worse thing to happen right now.” My eyes widen and I shake my head. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”

“For what?” she asks, aghast.

“For this. Everything. I’m supposed to be helping you, getting you ready for the big day.” I drop my gaze and direct my eyes at the tiled floor, guilt over abandoning Halley clouding out every other thought in my head.

“Isa, you’re crazy. Nothing is more important than family. My race will be just fine. You’ve gotten me this far, given up so much to run with me. Remember when you gave up the family trip to Mexico so you could come to the New York Marathon? Or that you chose to train and run with me instead of being the editor of the yearbook?”

“I’m glad I did those things with you, though…”

“That doesn’t negate the fact that you gave up important parts of your life for me.”

I shrug my shoulders and rock on my feet. She grips my hand.

“I’m ready for the Olympics, more ready than I ever will be, and it’s because of you. Whatever you need? Now’s the time for me to give you support. I can run the race blindfolded. We’ll both need our eyes open for this.” She jerks her head at my mom, whose chest is rising and falling with blissful, medicated sleep.

—-

Halley and I walk over to the ryokan, only eight blocks from the hospital. The building is impeccably kept, with potted plants on either side of the dark wood front door; the house number, cut from a piece of metal and affixed to the right of the entrance, is modern yet in keeping with Old Japanese metal working traditions. The ryokan is four stories tall with sixteen guest rooms and its own elevator. Each floor shares a bathroom divided for men and women, and a lounge area occupies the downstairs along with a coin laundry, office, kitchen, banquet room, and rear garden.

I open the front door and my grandpa is at the front desk, giving directions to German tourists by the sound of it. My grandpa’s English is good while his German is all over the place, but they’re getting information across to each other, nonetheless.

Halley and I step aside as the tourists leave.

“Isa-chan, how’s your mom doing?” Grandpa asks, slipping back into Japanese and coming around the desk to hug me.

“She’s asleep. They have her on pain meds.”

“I know,” he says, stroking my arm. “She’ll be okay. Is this Halley?” he asks, switching back to English.

“Hi, Mr. Sugai. It’s nice to meet you finally. I’ve seen photos and heard all about you for years.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too.” He bows and shakes Halley’s hand. “Congratulations on making the Olympic Team. My wife and I wish you luck.” I smile and try not to roll my eyes. Halley hears this a million times per week. But Halley melts under my grandpa’s soft gaze, her face lighting up.

“Thank you. That means a lot to me.”

I stare at her, puzzled.

“What?” she scoffs, knocking me on the shoulder and dropping her voice. “He’s your grandpa.”

All the luck and the wishes do mean a lot more when they come from people we love and respect. I talk about my grandparents all the time, and this is the first time Halley is ever meeting them. My grandparents have only been to the US once in their lives and never to Michigan. When I was younger, they came to New York City and my mom and I visited them there.

I pull my mom’s planner from my purse.

“Mom’s asked me to help out with the ryokan while she’s in the hospital.”

“Oh, hmmm… Etoooooo…” he hums and thinks. “This is a big job. I’m not sure if you’d be able to handle it.”

I open the planner and thumb through the pages of business cards and notes, the weight of it pulling a frown onto my face.

“Isa is the most organized person I know, Mr. Sugai. If anyone can handle learning a new job, especially here in Japan, she can.”

I love Halley but I want to punch her in the face. I’m not feeling confident enough to tackle this. I’m sure my grandpa is right. This is probably an extremely complex job with lots of Japanese spoken every day and personal relationships, not something a twenty-year-old can come in and take over at a moment’s notice.

“Mom asked me to do it, though, and I said I would…” I tap my foot on the ground and chew on my lip.

“Come into the office and we’ll discuss it. Halley, would you like some tea?” My grandpa motions her towards the lounge where he pours her green tea in a handmade mug. She smiles at me as she lounges on the couch, takes out her iPhone, and sips.

I follow my grandpa into the office and sit down in one of the chairs.

“No, no. Over here,” he says, gesturing to the chair behind the desk. I cautiously sit, laying Mom’s planner in the middle of the desk. “This is all your mother’s work. On the left, she keeps the customer invoices. I’ll handle those. On the right, she handles the vendors we do business with. You can handle those. We do everything on credit, and they bill us once per month.” He lays his hand on a stack of papers, and I swallow in a dry mouth, wishing I had some tea. “Most everything is in good standing. We are a proper business and always pay our bills but little things need to be dealt with on a daily or weekly basis. Your mom does certain things every day. Open the planner, Isa-chan.”

I open the planner in front of me, and he points to today, Wednesday, June third. “Flowers. Vegetable market. Fish market. Bakery.” Scanning the rows of weeks, this is written every day in the mornings. Some days have items like “Linens” written. Other days have “Visit Fukui-san” or “Sake tasting” — all in my mother’s neat handwriting. Nothing in English. Everything in Japanese.

“I think, for our first week, I will take you around to each of these people and introduce you. Then you can be in charge of these daily chores. Okay?”

I count the lists and, most days, my mother has more than a dozen things to do. How will I run, relax, read, or study? How will I make it into the city to see Halley? Will I still be able to go to the Games? I’ve looked forward to this summer for the last four years, ever since Halley approached me at my locker junior year of high school and told me she was going for it.

Grandpa stays silent as I lift the stack of papers and flip through the invoices. “I’ll need my Japanese dictionary if I’m going to make sense of most of this.”

He smiles down at me, warm and sure. “You’ll do great. It won’t be forever. I’m sure your mom will heal quickly.”

I try to smile back at him but I can’t. I saw my mom today. She’s going to be out of commission for a long time.

“You can come to me if you need anything. I’m here every day. Your grandma is here twice a week to work on the books and pay bills, and she is around the area otherwise handling the accounting for other places as well.”

He sighs and crosses his arms, walking to the window and peering outside. “This ryokan has been in my family for several generations. If it can survive earthquakes and fires, it can survive my granddaughter at the helm for a summer.”

Despite his confident attitude, I’m not so sure about this, at all. He pats me on the shoulder as he steps out of the office to deal with someone at the front desk, and I stand alone in my mom’s work space. This is my responsibility now, a responsibility so heavy, I’m four years old again, asking her how to write my own name with a crayon. How will I ever be able to handle this?

I pull my planner from my bag and yank open the button holding it closed. Flipping to the back, I run my fingers over the detailed plans and ideas I had for exploring Tokyo on my own, the ones Masa and I spoke about on our walk home from the frat party. I had ten different tours sketched out, places I wanted to visit and experience for myself, things I wanted to purchase and food I wanted to eat. I rip the pages from my planner, crumple them into balls, and throw them in the trash, anger propelling them so fast they bounce around the bin before settling at the bottom. Fuck my dreams. My dreams are done.

I leave the office and sit down next to Halley on the couch in the lounge. “It’s a lot of work. A mountain of work.”

Leaning forward, I sigh and put my head in my hands, trying to stop my anxiety from skyrocketing. Other tourists have taken a seat across from us, their noses buried in their phones or guidebooks. Halley rubs my back.

“It’ll be okay. You had no plans this summer anyway.” She huffs and waves her hand.

“Right. Absolutely no plans at all. Who needs a summer with nothing to do anyway?”

“Try not to worry too much. I’ll keep the training runs going, and I’ll try to come here once a week for a run too. Remember, it’s only the beginning of June. The Games aren’t until the end of July. We’ll be fine.”

I clench my hands together, let go, and repeat, watching my knuckles turn white over and over. “I’m. So. Screwed.” I reach into my bag for my phone, turn it on, and find no new notifications, except for favorites on Instagram pictures I posted yesterday and today. Nothing from Masa. You would think he’d at least acknowledge I’m here in Tokyo. I open the Messages app, and the last texts we exchanged were on Memorial Day. Shit. I forgot to tell him about my mom!

“Nothing from Masa?” Halley asks, craning her neck over my shoulder.

“Are you a mind reader now too? Jesus. Am I that transparent?”

Halley kicks my shoe. “You met Masa your first week of school freshman year, and I swear I’ve never seen anyone as lovesick as you for as long as you have been. Most girls would have given up right away, especially since he had a girlfriend and everything.”

“I know. I know. I’m pathetic.” A hundred million kinds of pathetic.

“I wasn’t going to say that. I kinda admired the fact that you became such good friends. You were able to put your feelings in a drawer and keep going. And it’s not like he’s an awful guy or anything. He’s always been sweet and nice and pretty much perfect…”

“Except…” I sigh.

“Except he’s never made the move on you, and never once showed he cared about you as more than a friend. A really good friend. A best friend…”

“But just a friend.”

I sit way back in the couch; push my whole body into the cushion. Maybe if I diminish myself to the size of a tennis ball, the heartache won’t hurt as much. I close my eyes, and the kiss, followed by Masa’s disgusted reaction, smacks me upside the head again, the shock of its impact enough for me to clutch my forehead.

“We’ve texted a few times since the kiss but haven’t mentioned it at all. He actually told me we should try to forget about it. Forget about it!” My voice peaks with incredulity. “Can you believe that? It’s all I can think about. And I totally forgot to text him about my mom.” I slam my phone down on the table, angry I’ve let our silence go on for so long. I should have pressed on like nothing happened. Instead, the kiss is branded in my brain and I feel awkward talking about anything else now.

“I figured you would.” She smiles. “You tore out of Michigan like your pants were on fire.”

“I’ve never caught a plane so fast in my life.” I release the tension in my shoulders by rubbing them into the back of the couch.

Halley perches herself on the edge of the cushion, setting her cup aside.

“Next time you see him, you just need to tell him how you feel. Pull off the Band-Aid. If he feels the same way, great. If not, that sucks, you break things off, and move on.”

“No fucking way,” I say, then cover my mouth, hoping the tourists didn’t hear me. I’m going to be here every day. I should stop swearing, or at least lower my voice. “When I see Masa again, I’m not going say shit,” I whisper. “I love him and I miss him. So. Damned. Much. I used to tell him everything —”

“Everything but how you really feel.”

“Yes, that. Thanks so much. Anyway, I don’t want to lose him as a friend. I need all the friends I can get.”

I knock my knee against hers. I have always been woefully unpopular. I had some friends growing up, but once I got to high school after my dad cheated on my mom, and my mom moved back to Japan, my closest girl friends faded away, and only Halley remained. She was super popular (cheerleading, track, etc.), so I always had people to hang out with. But Halley’s friends were never my friends. Now with Halley going to the Olympics, she overshadowed me in college too. Not that I hated her for it or anything. I never expected to make friends. Masa and the friends I made through him were a bonus.

I walk Halley to the hospital to meet up with her dad and translator but veer towards my grandparents’ house instead of going inside. I could sit at the hospital all day, but watching my mom sleep, drugged up and immobile in double casts, is too depressing. Grandma is there anyway.

I wander the neighborhood for an hour and enter the gate at my grandparents’ house before I realize I don’t have a key and have no way of getting inside. I plop down on the front porch and take out my phone, turn it on, then turn it off and sigh, before gathering courage to turn it back on again. I open the Messages app and navigate to Masa Eguchi.

“I just wanted to say again how sorry I am for what happened the other week. I was drunk, and I didn’t mean it, and I’m afraid I ruined our friendship. I can forget about it, if that’s what you want. But I really miss you. Really. I came to Tokyo early because my mom was in an accident. She was hit by a car while riding her bike. My mom expects me to take over her work at the ryokan, and I don’t know if I can do it. Can you please message me back? Even just to say hi. I’m lost and I could really use a hug or a familiar face. A familiar text? I hope you’re all right.”

I read it over twice. I don’t sound too desperate or needy, but it’s enough to get my point across.

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