All the Ways Home

by Elsie Chapman

  The meaning of home. Home is … a mess of things. The dictionary says it’s a place where we live permanently, especially with family. I don’t know if I agree with that anymore.

  I slide down until I’m lying flat on my back, testing the futon. It’s thin but comfortable. Once I’m back home, it’ll be my own bed that will feel wrong—too soft, too big. Our class had gone camping for a week for outdoor education last year, and it’d taken me forever to get used to sleeping on a bed again when I got back. I missed the bumpy rock ground beneath me, the stars blinking like lights in the sky, my sleeping bag a fat cocoon. All of it had been so new and strange at first, before none of it was.

  I’m still thinking about how dictionaries aren’t supposed to be wrong, about the guitar and the amp in the closet and how much they might be worth, about being careless in rediscovering this country with my brother, when I fall asleep.

  13

  I wake up hours later, in the dark.

  I’m confused, panicked for nearly a whole minute, before remembering where I am. And my bedroom door’s been left open a crack. The weak light above the stove in the kitchen shines in. Shoma left it on so I could see, probably.

  I tiptoe into the front room.

  The clock on the fridge says it’s just past two in the morning. My brother’s bedroom door is closed—no light peeks out from beneath it.

  But I’m wide awake. And hungry—thoughts of the taiyaki and kakigori I missed make my stomach growl. And because I don’t want to wake up Shoma by messing around in the kitchen, I decide to go out and find some food on my own. Japan’s safe, even at night, Mom would say whenever there was news about something really bad happening to some kid somewhere in the world. It’s not perfect, and things still happen, but if you’re not looking for trouble, it usually won’t find you, either.

  I return to my bedroom and empty my backpack onto the bed. I slip my journal and a pen back into it and pile the rest into a wad I shove behind my pillow.

  Slipping the straps of the backpack over my shoulders, I lock up the apartment with my key and go down the three flights of stairs. Outside the door at the back of Irusu, the five-yen coins still on the ground wink beneath the glow of the streetlamp. The lucky cat waves to me as I go by, as though wishing me a good journey.

  I turn the corner and step directly into the beating heart of Shinjuku.

  Lights are everywhere, all of them neon bright—yellow and red, orange and blue. The sides of buildings are lit up with signs and digital screens showing ads. Front windows of stores glow and wash out my skin as I move past them. People stream by on the sidewalk, nearly everyone in short sleeves because even night temperatures here are set to simmer. There is conversation and laughter and music from speakers strung up high. There are smells of cooking meat and cigarette smoke, hints of the beer Jory’s dad likes to drink whenever he watches a hockey or football game on TV.

  I walk past a pachinko parlor. The front door opens, and the noise of hundreds of slot machines roars out in a tidal wave. The karaoke bar on the corner offers ice cream and floats on their food menu; the one across the street lists honey toast and bottomless pop. Both of them are open twenty-four hours.

  My stomach growls again, and I duck into a konbini. I buy late-night junk food—spaghetti-flavored chips, curry and rice that the clerk heats up for me—and a bottle of the same green tea Shoma had bought for us at the airport.

  The clerk hands me my stuff and then holds out a cardboard box. It’s a draw box, with a hole in the top for my hand. “You get a chance at a prize with your purchase,” she tells me, doing her best to sound enthusiastic at close to three in the morning.

  “I don’t … live here.” I’m thinking about contests where the rules are you have to be a resident to win. “Is that okay?”

  “You’re not Japanese?” Her expression goes surprised. “You’re a tourist?”

  “No, I am—Japanese, I mean.” That she assumes right away I live here makes me feel good, but also like I’ve just pulled a trick, was somehow being sneaky. “But I’m from Canada. I’m just visiting.”

  She shakes the box. “The prizes don’t have to be mailed or anything, so it’s fine. They’re just in-store ones.”

  I pull out a voucher for a free iced coffee from the cooler.

  “See?” The clerk smiles, looking as though she wants to ask me something—Who taught you Japanese if you’re from Canada? Why are you here alone? Where is your family?—but then just says, “You can redeem it now, if you want, or the next time you’re in the store.”

  “I’ll save it, I guess.” Coffee can’t be good for jet lag. I tuck the voucher into my pocket. “Thanks.”

  I sit down at the counter that lines the front window and use a disposable oshibori to wipe my hands. The curry is hot, and I’m getting used to the mild bitterness of the tea. The chips actually do taste like spaghetti, but if I think about it too much the flavor seems more odd than good and gets hard to eat. When I’m done, I take out my journal, fishing around in my backpack for the pen. And with Shinjuku just outside the window as wide awake as I am, I start writing.

  14

  Dear Mom,

  I know you only lived in Japan until you were ten. That was when Grandma and Grandpa decided all of you were moving to Canada.

  But I hope that at least once you stayed up too late and snuck out and got to see Tokyo in the middle of the night. When it’s not peaceful like dawn, but it’s not rushed like late evening. There’s this life in the air that seems almost secretive, as though it only comes up from underground once the sun goes down.

  It’s kind of amazing.

  My brain’s still trying to catch up to how I’m actually here. Home to all those things you used to tell me about—Pokémon and Miyazaki and Shonen Jump. You used to talk to me about growing up here, too, but not too much. It was so long ago, you said, and you were running out of stories, and things were fading from your memories.

  I wish you were here again, seeing what I see. Then you could take back the word fade and use the right one instead—vibrant, or real.

  You might never have wanted the two of us to move. Even after you and Dad weren’t together anymore, maybe we could have just moved elsewhere in Tokyo.

  Because maybe then you’d be alive. Maybe there are no Mr. Ameses here. Maybe you’d be leading a whole different life right now, if you’d never returned to Japan for an internship after college. If you’d never met Dad during that time. If you’d never had me.

  Shoma told me today that you were a great mom to him. How you loved him like he was your own kid. How it made him love you like you were his mom.

  That would make you happy to hear, I bet. It made me happy, too. But I also felt this weird sadness, and this jealousy, and it was hard to breathe, as though someone were sitting on my chest.

  See, I had to share you with him for three years, and you didn’t even blink an eye at having a stepson. But I’m Dad’s kid just as much as Shoma is, and Dad chose him.

  I guess this is why Mr. Zaher looks at me with his worried eyes, the way he can’t figure me out. Like I’m some kind of stuck gear, just spinning and going nowhere. Before school ended for the summer he used to call me into his office and ask how I was doing. I could tell my answers weren’t the right ones when I told him I didn’t want to ever forgive Mr. Ames, and how I hoped he developed a bad phobia about driving, standing next to his car every morning too scared to get in. Or how I didn’t mind getting into trouble for fighting or not handing in homework. I always felt bad telling him, but it was the truth. I didn’t want to lie. Lying to someone’s face is a lot harder than just pretending to be okay (which is just a different kind of lie, anyway).

  Also, Mom.

  Dad’s not even here in Tokyo.

  You called it having wanderlust, the way he was, a thirst for the world so big it didn’t leave room for the rest of us. But I don’t know anymore. You reminded me about this old kite we had that we’d bought years ago in Chinat
own, the way it would somehow always know to catch the wind perfectly and would then nearly break the line, wanting escape so badly. You said that kite had flight built right into it, down to every last inch of its frame and joints and wings.

  Still, it hurts, hearing from Shoma how Dad didn’t bother waiting around a bit longer to see me before leaving for Hokkaido, even though it’s been nine years, so what’s a few more days, right?

  Is that why you left him? Before he could leave you first? Maybe you figured it out as soon as I was born that we were never meant to stay, that you were meant to bring us back to Canada. My name is the first clue, I think, what you loved so much there was no other real choice, you later told me. How “kaede” means maple in Japanese.

  I’m sorry I reminded you of Dad sometimes. The way your face would close up even as your eyes turned unhappy when I said or did something that made you think of him. But you didn’t use it as an excuse to not stick around. I think maybe it made you stick around more, just to prove you could, when Dad couldn’t. It’s why hearing Grandpa tell me how disappointed you would be about Jory still echoes so loudly in my brain. I imagine sometimes what you would say to me, and whatever anger would be there, it’d be nothing compared to how torn up you’d be over Jory. As though you could begin to give up on me, too.

  Shoma’s a writer, Mom. I don’t know if you knew that, if Dad ever told you. But maybe you wouldn’t be surprised, since you said he used to write for his school paper as a kid. (And he writes about music, about bands. Japanese ones, while you listened to all Western or UK stuff, but still. You guys would have had a lot to talk about, I bet.)

  I wonder if him writing is his choice. If he needs it to help him deal with stuff or if it only happens to be the job that helps him pay the bills. I wonder how much he’s like Dad when it comes to work being more important than family. Then I think about how he might answer, and I don’t want to wonder anymore.

  This journal is supposed to help me deal, even if Mr. Zaher never said it in those exact words. Defining home is my project, except the project is also me.

  But just words on paper? Sentences that are code for what’s going on in my brain, what makes my heart feel like it’s being squeezed sometimes? What is supposed to help me find better ways of dealing with everything inside before it blows?

  I don’t know if I believe in kotodama.

  It almost seems too simple, too easy.

  Then again, dads loving their kids is supposed to be pretty simple, too. Just like big brothers being around for their little brothers, and not hurting your best friend on purpose.

  Mom, I’m scared that I could write down every single possible meaning of the word home and still be confused. That I still won’t be able to tell which ones are right and which ones are wrong. That I’ll never remember what it feels like to have somewhere I’m supposed to be.

  15

  Dear Jory,

  What happened was an accident, but it also wasn’t.

  I’ve been thinking about how fast reality can change on you. How reality, for one single second, can simply mean only thinking about doing something. Then how in the next single second, reality means you’ve already done it.

  I haven’t had the chance to talk to you about it yet because you won’t see me. I’ve texted you, but no answer.

  I don’t blame you.

  But I’m really scared, too, Jory.

  What if this reality—the one where I made half your world go dark—is the one that’s going to stick?

  Have you talked to the doctors again? Have they given you anymore information? I hope your mom isn’t still saying I’ve ruined your future when it comes to hockey, even though she might be right. I hope she hasn’t convinced you we shouldn’t be friends anymore, even though she might be right about that, too.

  You know that old manga Death Note? Roan read it last year and wouldn’t stop talking about it for weeks, he loved it so much, remember? So it’s about a kid named Light who finds a notebook, and whosever name he wrote it in would die. It makes him all trippy with power, knowing what he could do with it, the ways he could improve the world by dooming someone. And even though cops try to stop him, Light honestly thinks he’s just helping everyone out by getting rid of all the bad guys. He thinks he’s a hero when maybe, really, he’s only dangerous.

  I’m no hero.

  But your mom used to ask me to dinner nearly every night after my mom died.

  Now she can barely even look at me.

  I’ve become one of those guys Light tries to scrub clean of the earth.

  She finally talked to my grandpa, who then told me what your doctors are saying.

  How your left eye should regain most of its vision. How there shouldn’t be any permanent, long-lasting damage.

  But there’s no way to tell for sure, since humans are just as fragile as they are strong, depending on what part gets hurt.

  When we’re on the ground looking up, a flock of birds can blot out the sun. But take it apart, and it’s nothing more than a collection of breakable parts.

  Tiny beaks.

  Delicate ribs.

  Wings forever grounded by one wrong move.

  16

  I take the long way around to get back to Shoma’s.

  It’s nearly six, and the sun’s starting to float up in the sky, but I get the feeling my brother’s the sleeping-in type.

  So before heading back, I do two things first.

  I’m not really happy about either of them.

  But I’m thinking about my dad and how he’s all the way up in Sapporo. Just … there. Working, according to Shoma, but what if he’s also hiding from me? I’ve got my box of questions, and I’m in this boat and chasing after my dad to ask them, but I’m being chased, too. And no matter how hard I might row, there’s no escape.

  Because deep down, those same questions are also meant for me. I need to reach my dad on whatever shore he’s on so he can send me back out to find my landing space. Dad, was it just me and that’s why you walked away? Or was it just you, which means I was always okay?

  First, I make my way down to Kabukicho, following the directions on my cell. It’s the area Shoma had pointed toward and told me it was too seedy to explore on my own. I hadn’t drunk that coffee I’d won, but I might as well have, given how wide awake I feel, knowing I’m doing something wrong.

  So what’s so seedy about it? I’d asked him. The word made me think of drunk guys stumbling around on streets. Litter and bottles and weeds layered thick in the curb. Places in Vancouver where, driving through, my mom would tell me to lock the car doors from the inside. Japan’s safe, I’d said to Shoma. Mom used to say that all the time.

  She’s right, for the most part. And Kabukicho’s not exactly dangerous. It’s just … not anything you’d be interested in seeing.

  Like what?

  Ah, you know. Bars, nightclubs, overpriced restaurants—places like that. Boring for a kid your age.

  It had sounded kind of boring, hearing Shoma talk about it that way.

  But sitting at the counter in the konbini, I’d looked up the area on my phone and realized why my brother didn’t want to take me there. Kabukicho is Japan’s biggest red-light district, meaning (according to Wiki) not just bars and restaurants, but places like love hotels and massage parlors. Mom probably wouldn’t want me going there, either.

  The thing is, there’s something I remember about driving through seedy places in Vancouver, staring out the window at things I probably shouldn’t have been staring at.

  It’s that seedy usually means resale shops.

  That guitar in Shoma’s closet looked like it wouldn’t even be missed for a while, hidden behind his jackets and boxes the way it was.

  And it looked worth something.

  A large red archway tells me I’ve reached Kabukicho, but the area isn’t electric or buzzing or even that busy. At dawn, everything seems wound down and exhausted. Store lights are dimmed, signs are flipped to Closed, and there a
re no hosts or hostesses on the sidewalks calling for guests. The air still hints of old cigarette smoke and food, there’s trash kicking around, and a handful of people are making their way along the sidewalks, but whatever my mom or Shoma might have worried about me seeing isn’t going to be seen. Not at dawn, anyway.

  I wind my way through the few blocks that make up the district and mark down on my cell the locations of the first resale shops I see.

  Just in case.

  Suddenly there’s a siren, close and shrill, and my heartbeat speeds up. It pounds deep in my ears and turns my mouth dry. Seconds later a fire truck comes down the street and zooms around the corner, and in my head it’s spring again. My hands smell like smoke and fire, and I’m back on the other side of the ocean.

  It’d been the week after the funeral. The house had gained a strange emptiness my grandpa couldn’t begin to fill, a nervous silence the news on the radio couldn’t touch. Going to school seemed pointless when I usually walked out of there not remembering anything and not minding that I didn’t. Nothing tasted good, and everyone seemed afraid to look me in the eye.

  Then one night, two in the morning, Grandpa asleep. I’d gotten the brick from the pile in the wheelbarrow in the backyard. Mom had paid me and Jory each twenty bucks to take apart an old raised flower bed that had stopped draining well. She’d rebuild it somewhere else in the back later, she’d said. When it got closer to summer. When she had the time.

  I’d wrapped a dish towel around the brick, knotted the ends together, and soaked the whole thing with lighter fluid I found in our garage. I’d held it in one hand as I’d biked over to Mr. Ames’s house, only fifteen minutes away. He’d been on his way home, too, when he’d been distracted by his vibrating cell phone and gone to answer it and hadn’t noticed the traffic light had already changed back to red.

  Mom hadn’t felt a thing, they told me over and over.