In Plain View. Julie Shigekuni

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СКАЧАТЬ favorite,” Satsuki said.

      Daidai recalled the events that led up to the brief transaction she’d had with the tall, old nun. When Hiroshi arrived home she served up what was left of the ahn-bread for dinner. Evidently he knew about the stuff, too, going so far as to claim it was the best ahn-pan he’d ever tasted and getting Daidai to promise she’d buy more.

      “So you went downtown today?” he asked, assuming that she’d brought the ahn-bread back from J-Town.

      “Mm-hmm.” Daidai nodded, watching Satsuki’s attention shift from her to Hiroshi, as if needing to gauge his response.

      “See anyone?” he asked.

      “I took some bread to Gizo to give to Danji. He’s been sick.”

      Hiroshi stared at her from across the table, clearly waiting for something more. “If you were in J-Town, why didn’t you bring the bread to Louise to give to her father? The public defender’s office is right there on Temple, isn’t it?”

      “I figured she’d be busy,” Daidai lied, stumped by her inability to explain her actions, even to herself. “And it was easier to find parking along East First.”

      She felt relieved when Hiroshi shrugged. What harm could there be in a simple substitution? So what if she’d bought the bread from Holy Heart Monastery, not J-Town, and what did it matter whether Louise or Gizo delivered some to Danji? It was more important that Satsuki and Hiroshi liked the ahn-bread, because her curiosity about Ritsuko Suzuki had been piqued and she needed an excuse to return to the monastery. She’d ask the nun about Ritsuko and bring back more ahn-bread. But two events kept Daidai from returning to Holy Heart Monastery in the month of January: first she found out she was pregnant, and then, a week later, she miscarried.

       8

      Daidai’s mother was elated to hear the news of her pregnancy. “I knew it!” she said. “I’ve had a good feeling about this month.” Even over the phone Daidai could see the spritely woman dancing around her kitchen, planning in her head for the birth of her first grandchild. A week later when Daidai drove over to tell her she’d miscarried, Mako sat down and wept.

      Taken aback by the dramatic display of grief, Daidai tried to comfort her. “I’ve been to the doctor—twice now. The first time for tests, all of which came back negative.”

      But Mako refused to accept assurances, wiping at her eyes even though she wasn’t the one to have experienced the loss. “Are you sure there’s not something wrong with you?”

      Daidai shook her head. Feeling her heart rate quicken, she drew in a deep breath and counted down from ten as she let it out.

      “There’s nothing wrong, then?”

      “Look,” Daidai said, waiting till she’d gotten down to zero. “If I hadn’t been monitoring my cycle so closely I might not even have known about the pregnancy. I’m told a quarter of all pregnancies abort spontaneously in the first weeks.”

      “I don’t think so.”

      “It’s a fact.” She shrugged, hating to argue. “The miscarriage proves I’m able to get pregnant.”

      “Maybe you just don’t want to have a baby.” Having stated the underlying reason for her upset, Mako sat perfectly poised and erect, still dabbing at her eyes, letting Daidai ponder her assertion. Did she not want to have a baby?

      “You’ll get your grandbaby,” Daidai said, unwilling to entertain her mother’s doubt.

      “You don’t have to have a baby to be happy,” Mako said, refusing to let up.

      As far as Daidai knew, babies were, to her mother, synonymous with happiness. So why say the opposite of what she meant? “I don’t think you mean that,” Daidai said, careful not to let on to what she was really thinking. The way Daidai saw it, her filial debt to her mother increased every year in proportion to her age, so that by thirty she owed her mother a baby—at least one. That was just the way things were between women of Mako’s mind-set and their daughters. Even though she’d lived on the West Coast from the time she was a teenager, her upbringing in Tokyo had prevailed. Her traditional Japanese father had picked her husband, then a line worker at the car plant he ran. Peter Flynn certainly wasn’t Japanese, but he was loyal and hardworking.

      Daidai could imagine her parents young from pictures she’d seen, but she doubted they’d ever been in love. As far as she knew, love was an acquired skill, brought on by familiarity and common goals. Or maybe it was instinct, tempered by effort.

      “Don’t talk to me that way,” Mako snapped.

      “What way?” Daidai tried softening her tone.

      “Baka!” Mako bared her teeth and threw her arms up. “You never listen to me!”

      “I always listen to you,” Daidai said softly, befuddled. Did Mako actually believe that a miscarriage and not wanting to have a baby were one and the same thing? “Hiroshi and I have gone through a lot of trouble to have a baby,” she said, unable to stop herself now, pacing the room, stepping out of the way of the towering black unit that spanned the length of the wall. Bolted to a stabilizing beam after it had toppled in the last big earthquake, the console housed a flat-screen television beside a set of model Toyotas (the first Toyopet Crown and Land Cruiser alongside a Corona and Corolla), photos of a young Daidai in various stages of development, and wooden plaques that charted Peter Flynn’s rise up the ranks at Toyota. He’d been Production Manager of the Year in 2008, the year before he died.

      Next to the Buddhist altar her grandfather had brought with him from Japan, the martyred Jesus caught Daidai’s eye, placed there by a woman whose judgment she now called into question. It occurred to her then that her desire to curate arose not from the peculiarity of her origins, but from her inability to situate herself in the images she’d been given. Turning from the artifacts of her childhood back to her mother whose defiance had collapsed into sadness, she could see her contribution to the confrontation she’d sought to avoid. “I can hear what you say as well as what you mean,” she said.

      “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Mako said. “Why don’t you say what you mean?”

      “I think you wanted me to have this baby, maybe even more than I wanted it, and you’re disappointed that I miscarried.”

      “Of course I’m disappointed!” Mako said, no longer able to contain her anxiety.

      Daidai bit her lip and turned away. “Have you heard how Mr. Hashimoto is doing?” she asked, suddenly remembering the question she’d meant to ask earlier.

      “Maybe not so good.” Mako shook her head. “I heard he was mugged. Hurt pretty bad.”

      “Mugged?” Daidai echoed, struggling to make the transition in her thoughts. “Inside his shop?”

      “No, it happened in the middle of the night.”

      “Was his house burglarized?” Daidai asked, doubtful that Danji would be anything but asleep in the middle of the night.

      “I know, that’s what I thought, too.” Mako nodded deeply, seeming satisfied that they’d found a point of agreement. СКАЧАТЬ