Summer Haikus – Chapter 7

Two weeks at home, and my daily routine has consisted of: sleep in late every day, go for a run, watch TV, pick Jackson, my little half-brother, up from daycare at three, watch him until everyone is home from work, read, hang out at Halley’s house (until she left on May twentieth), come home late. Oh, and checking my phone a hundred million times per day to see if Masa has texted me again. I was smart and didn’t write him a hundred million text messages like a crazy person, just checked the phone a hundred million times in case it forgot to alert me. I’m a hundred million kinds of pathetic.

Memorial Day rolls around on the twenty-fifth, and Michigan becomes its own version of unbearable, hot and soupy. I spend the day outside next to the baby pool with Jackson while my dad grills barbecue ribs and my stepmom, Janie, makes pasta salad and white cake with blueberries and strawberries in the shape of a flag. She’s a Pinterest junkie.

I get text messages from both Halley and Masa wishing me a Happy Memorial Day, and I send them back photos and happy greetings too. Masa’s been quiet, not commenting on the kiss or anything around it, but the sheer fact that he’s texting me at all is a relief. Most guys would have dropped contact. Masa continues to be his own kind of person.

The following Sunday means two things around my dad’s house, church and Sunday dinner. I forgo church to stay home, since Mom raised me a Buddhist. Janie hates that I’m not Catholic. Sorry. I keep reminding her I’m barely Buddhist, so what does it matter? This is my last summer home anyway. I’m not returning to Grosse Ile next year. It was a great place to grow up, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t belong here anymore. I don’t really belong anywhere anymore. MSU is a transient home, and Grosse Ile feels small and alien. I need to find a new place to live in and enjoy.

“Isa, no Hawee?” Jackson asks, crawling up my pant leg. I reach down and pick him up, hoisting him onto my hip.

“No Halley today, kid. Sorry. She left for Tokyo, remember?” I should have flown out with her, but I thought it’d be nice to spend more time with my dad before I bugged out to be with Mom. I’ve spent the last few years at home with him, since flights to Tokyo are stupid expensive and neither Mom nor I could afford to fly me there the last five years. Dad’s used to me being around in the summer to watch Jackson, but babysitting is not as lucrative as a summer internship somewhere at a place that might hire me when I graduate. Fukuda-san’s suggestion has been simmering in my brain the last few weeks.

I reach into the fridge and grab the little nugget a sippy cup of milk while Janie makes homemade pasta sauce for dinner tonight. I pretend to watch the TV in the kitchen, but instead I look at Janie and repeat, I do not hate her. I do not hate her, over and over in my head. This is the woman who broke up my parents’ marriage, and I have tried hard to like her for the past six years. I did hate her until my mom told me, “The marriage was over long before Janie came around.” The signs were all there but I never saw them. My dad never learned more than basic Japanese, and he refused to travel to Japan. I have no idea how my parents ever got along before the divorce.

Janie sautés onions and garlic like a pro. She teaches culinary classes, which is how she met my dad. I would hate her more if she didn’t feed me so well.

“Did you talk to your mom today, Isa?” Janie asks, smiling and pouring red wine into a glass.

“No. I thought she’d call this morning, but she didn’t.” I turn on my phone again and there are no notifications. Traitorous piece of plastic. I should throw it in the pool. Masa has only texted once since Memorial Day, and Mom and I talked last Sunday per usual, but she was busy, and the conversation didn’t last longer than ten minutes.

Jackson hits me in the face. “You color wit’ me?” Ouch, three year olds pack quite a punch.

“Sure, buddy. Just don’t hit me again, please.”

“Jackson, watch how you treat other people!” Janie admonishes him. She’s a good mom, but I still can’t believe my dad had more kids. He’s five years from retirement at GM. You’d think they would have downsized from the outrageous home I grew up in and purchased a condo someplace warm. But no, my dad is now one of those sappy, baby-wearing, modern parents who’s getting ready to send another kid through the same school system he just got done with when I graduated.

I color with Jackson at the kitchen island until I’m so bored I can barely concentrate on the picture. I set aside the crayons and pull my paper planner towards me. I know that apps are all the rage for calendars and to-do lists and notes, but I work best with pen and paper. I open it and flip to the calendar. My departure date is this coming Friday, June fifth, a whole five days from now. I run the tips of my fingers over the red and white diagonal washi tape borders around the edges and the Hello Kitty sticker I affixed to that day’s entry. I chose one of her floating away with a handful of balloons.

Flipping to my packing checklist, I double-check every item: passport, cash (which I’ll get on Thursday), Japanese dictionaries, maps, my Olympics IDs, my camera, running gear, clothes for nights out on the town, etc. I’m going to be there for three months, two months with Halley in Tokyo and a month traveling with her afterward. I’ve sent some things ahead to my mom, but I have to check a traveling backpack full of stuff and carry on a rolling bag too.

I skip around in my calendar and look at the dozens of little notes I’ve made over the past year. All the dinners I went to, lectures, study dates, movie nights with Masa. In the front pocket, I have a picture of the two of us I printed out from an MSU football game we went to together in the fall. Looking at the photo makes me simultaneously sick, happy, and sad.

“How’s Masa?” Janie asks, leaning forward and jerking her chin at the photo. I slip it back in the pocket and shut my planner. Janie tucks her chin-length, light brown hair behind her ears and sips on her wine.

“He’s fine. At home in Novi.”

“Will you see him this summer? Don’t his parents have a place in Tokyo?”

“Yeah, but they have subletters living there for the summer, so he’s staying home. He’s bummed, but I told him I’d see him in August.”

Janie dumps cans of crushed tomatoes into her pot and stirs. “He’s such a sweet and handsome guy.” She sighs, and my insides scream, Yes! Yes he is! Fuck. I fucked it up and someone else will snatch him away from me!

I go through the motions at dinner and excuse myself to my room afterward. Last summer, I took down the posters on my walls and helped Dad and Janie reorganize my room into a guest room slash workout room, which was fine with me because they bought a treadmill and stuck it where my old desk used to be. A trade-up as far as I’m concerned. I do miss my corkboard where I planned out every school year until I graduated. I upgraded to a brand-new one when I left for MSU, and it’s now downstairs in the storage space in the basement. I’m tempted to go get it, just so I can have something familiar around me.

I turn on my phone, check my email, futz around on Instagram and Facebook, stare at the ceiling, and finally decide to change into pajamas and watch Lost for the night when the house phone rings. Hearing the house phone ring is analogous to seeing a pink pony walk by. My dad only has it now because with a baby at home, having access to 911 was more important than saving the thirty bucks per month, but no one ever uses it.

My dad’s voice filters in through the crack of my door, high-pitched and agitated, not angry but definitely not happy. Belatedly, I realize he’s speaking broken Japanese, which is something I haven’t heard him do in years.

“Hold on, hold on. Chotto matte kudasai.” He opens my door and I sit up in bed.

“Honey, it’s your grandma. Something’s not right.”

He hands me the phone, his eyebrows pulled together, the gray hair at his temples standing straight out from his head.

“Hi, Grandma,” I say in Japanese. “How are you? Is everything okay?”

“Isa-chan…” My grandma’s tiny voice sounds battered. “It’s so good to hear your voice. You must come to Tokyo now. Can you come tomorrow?”

“What do you mean, I need to come to Tokyo now? What’s wrong?” My voice rises, and my dad’s eyes widen. Janie, peeking in at the door, clutches her robe at her neck.

“It’s your mom. She was hit by a car today while riding her bike back to the ryokan from the market. She’s in the hospital and broke her left arm and leg. I’m sorry to ruin your plans. She’s asking for you to come.”

I hold the phone away from my head and stare at it. What? My mom’s been hit by a car and I have to come now to Tokyo? What about Halley? What about training? What about the Olympics?

My fingers are so numb, I can’t feel the phone, and my thoughts tunnel away to a distant pinpoint before snapping back and whipping me out of my own head.

My mom’s been hit by a car!

“Isa-chan! Can you hear me?”

“Yes. Yes. I’ll be on a plane tomorrow. I’ll call you from Narita.”

I hang up the phone as my grandma cries and begins to utter prayers for my safe passage.