by M R Field
I swallow the emotion that I know I shouldn’t feel. “Oh.” I nod, biting my bottom lip. It’s been five years; I can’t expect him to be alone forever.
“She’s not your mother, nor is she a replacement. Your mother and I spoke of the future, Trinity.” He brushes my hair away from my face, and I lower my gaze. I wasn’t there to hear what she wanted. I was too busy trying to pretend she wasn’t fading away.
“I missed so much. I don’t have anything to …”
“Trinity, it’s time.”
My eyes rise to his. “For what?”
“You need to forgive yourself.”
My spine stiffens as I slide back across the couch away from him. “I can’t. I don’t want to talk about it. I’m fine.”
“Trinity, how do you expect anyone to remain close to you when all you do is shroud yourself in grief and pretence? Do your best friends know how much you hide from them?”
“Don’t try to get into my head. You will never understand.”
“You wonder why I was miserable on the phone? Because my only daughter couldn’t stop blaming herself for something that was out of her control. Instead, she’d rather live a life punishing herself.”
“BECAUSE I DESERVE IT!” I jump off the couch, the guilt crawling across my skin like a disease. “I feel how I should be feeling. You think I’ve forgotten that day? There’s no way I can, and no way I should.”
“I remember that day too, Trinity. Not once have I ever, ever made you feel accountable. I knew you would do that all on your own when you should never have had to.” He pushes both hands behind his head and sighs. “You need to forgive yourself. Be happy. Be with Theo and have a future.”
His words trigger a lightning bolt shooting into my spine, causing me to wince in pain.
“I kept her illness from him …,” my voice cracks, “… as I was a jealous bitch when he started dating Claire. I will never hurt him like that again, by punishing him. He deserves someone better than me. My feelings are irrelevant. I’m irrelevant.” Slamming my hand against the wall, I yell, “How can I expect him to forgive me? I will never deserve a second chance, and you’re a fuckwit if you think I do.” I turn and rush to the mantelpiece, and snatch the photo of mum and I on the beach. I bolt down the corridor, clutching the frame to my chest, my cheeks stained with endless tears. I barrel through my door and slam it shut, locking it behind me.
Throwing myself onto the bed, I wail on top of the covers as the misery takes over. Turning the frame over in my hands, I stare at the photo as the grief strikes me once more. I miss you, Mum. Help me. I don’t know what to do anymore. How could I snap at my father like that?
As the tears continue to roll, I ignore the constant knocking at my door. Instead, I push the frame to the side of me and clutch my pillow, burying my face in the pool of tears that begin to leak every painful memory.
The man stands within the panel, his clenched fists at his sides as the cloud looms closer to him. “When will you ever learn?”
TTE
THEO
I slip my shoes off in the foyer and look down to find the last pair of slippers I wore in this house on the shelf to the left. I still for a moment, surprised that my father kept them after all these years.
Shifting my shoes to that shelf, I grab my slippers and place them in front of my feet, sliding into them. The shuffling of my father’s footsteps echoes along the hall as I follow him silently down the passage towards the living room.
As a child, I never wore proper shoes in the house. Even visitors had token slippers to wear. If I wore other shoes, it would be to stir up the wrath of my oba-chan. She could wield a Frisbee like a ninja and whack it against my back for showing disrespect. The one time I rebelled by wearing my sneakers, she managed to clip me at the back of the head with a shoe from the distance of two rooms away. She might’ve been a daughter of a Samurai from the precision of her moves.
Maintaining my family’s native traditions was as important to them as it was necessary for my father. At the restaurant, my grandparents were one thing. My Japanese grandparents cooked Chinese for the country folk who, sadly, wouldn’t have known the difference between cultures. In this case, ignorance hadn’t been bliss; it had been fucking insulting. If they had tasted some of my oba-chan’s Kombu soups, maybe they would have appreciated them more. Sadly, they just wanted their Number 13 with fried rice.
However, as time progressed, my grandparents modified their ways to blend with the Australian lifestyle –-to a point. Importing furniture was expensive, so a part of who they were was sacrificed due to financial constraints. Some tokens were slowly shipped over, but mostly large parts of their furniture were bought here. They didn’t sleep on the traditional tatami mats that I saw in photos or in the movies on the floor; instead, they compromised with lush mattresses for their ailing joints.
The Batsudan, however, was something that they didn’t compromise on. As I enter the living room, the sweet scent of incense lures me to look over towards the family shrine. The dark wooden cabinet with opened folded doors sits at the back of the room. Inside, it holds a Buddha statue, whilst the candles that sit at the edge of the cabinet cast a soft glow against the gold carvings that line the wooden sides. The names of our family ancestors are carved there, and I can see small offerings of fruit and tea my father has put there on the Tamadana in front of it.
This cabinet is meant to remember the ancestors and family members that passed before us and, traditionally, it was meant to be passed to the first grandson of every family—me. Sadly, after the painful discovery of my real ancestry, I was never going to have this. Being distant from my father didn’t mean that I was closed off to what I had grown up in. There were some binds that I couldn’t break. A link to my grandparents was one of them.
When he revealed the secret of me being his ainoko—a half- breed—his shame was paramount. I was a son that was never his. I was a reminder of my mother’s infidelity. The only woman he ever loved, who’d deceived him. The woman I was never allowed to speak of and whose betrayal had put me in an emotional impasse with my father.
My eyes move to the far end of the room, where a new small dining setting fills the space where the piano used to be. I had spent hours upon hours there. The piano my father worked hard to get, and that in an instant was smashed to smithereens by my hands and a handmade bat. Shame surrounds me as I remember how violently I attacked it all those years ago. As shit as it was to discover the lies from my past, I destroyed something that had always been a part of me. Even if it hurt to play. It was the only way I knew how to make Ko take a vested interest in me.
Ironically, I used the bat he had made so that we could blend in. As my mother’s infidelity was revealed and my emotions torn up, I’d taken to that piano in the same way he’d controlled my entire life. I’d taken to smashing away the hurt from my youth. The broken anguish for a mother, whose memory was taken away from my childhood. How could I feel for her, when I was never given the chance to? Being told that her infidelity led to his poor treatment of me became my rage. In that instant, he became a spectator. Afterwards, I’d stepped over the broken pieces, vowing never to play the piano again.
A cold sense of dread layers my shoulders, and I roll them back to shake the memory away. Behaving that way in front of the Batsudan is one of the most disrespectful things I could have ever done. It is the equivalent of behaving badly on an altar or shitting on the carpet.
Ko clears his throat, and I turn to face him. Do I call him Father? Dad? I’ve never called him that. He stands to the side of the Batsudan, the smoke from his cigarette floating up beside him as he shuffles on his feet slightly. The photos of me as a child no longer sit across the wooden edge of the mantelpiece. They, too, became casualties that day.
The tension thickens as the silence continues to permeate the room. There is nothing in this room to connect it to me. To my pseudo identity.
I fold my arms across my chest, not wanting to appear intimi
dated or frightened when every cell in my body tells me to leave this house and close the door behind me. I can’t be made to feel like I did all those years ago. I am not afraid. I am not the angry teenager they left here. I will wait for him to speak and show him that, despite my loathing and my ineptitude, when it comes to staying away forever, manners are still ingrained in me. I will not be made a fool of now. Like the imaginary bad children, he would compare me to when I got things wrong. The taunts, the criticisms … no. I will not dishonour my grandparents as much I would like to dishonour him.
He takes another drag of his cigarette and squints as the end of the butt cinders. Blowing out the puff of smoke, his hand rises to the ashtray as his fingers twist the butt out.
“Theo.” He puffs the remaining smoke through his lips. “Come, sit. I will bring us some tea.” He gestures to the couch that separates us.
My feet remain planted. The couch is for comfort, and I don’t want to be too close to him. I tilt my head towards the new table and say, “I’d prefer the window. It would be a shame to waste that new setting.”
He bristles from my tone, but quickly moves towards the kitchen’s entrance as I move the chair back and take a seat. He returns soon after carrying a tray with a teapot and two traditional teacups, and then sits across from me. As he pours our tea, I can’t help but compare him to my oji-chan. He was my distinguished grandfather who held himself well. His broad chest would puff out as he vividly told stories, his hands poignantly building tension. It was not common to experience this as he was not naturally warm in nature, but we valued each other. He was quite unlike my father, who preferred the passive-aggressive treatment to going for Father of the Year.
I prefer the civil approach as opposed to affection. I don’t want the hugs and kisses. But like fuck am I going to be made to feel worthless again.
The warmth from the cup that I rotated between my fingertips did little to calm the chilled nerves that shivered below the surface.
“You’ve been well?” Ko asks, taking a sip of his tea before calmly placing it down on the table’s surface.
“Yes.” I nod, also placing my cup down to stop my fidgeting. Another ingrained habit from when I was a child. “Busy, but well. You?”
“Fine.” He lifts his cup to sip his tea again. I awkwardly mimic his actions by raising my cup to sip my tea, ignoring the silence as the awkward tension continues to simmer. I feel trapped in a prison of robotic servitude. What is it about this house?
I take a moment and stare at him. The edge of his dark hairline is now grey, and he has more wrinkles around the edges of his eyes than he had eight years ago. Age has been kind to him, even if the lines make his grimaces more defined. A faint twitch of his right eye catches my attention for a moment before he turns his face away to blink quickly, his mouth flinching. He stiffens in his seat—anymore, and I wonder if his back will snap. I pick up my cup to drain it and almost chuckle at the thought. Almost. As riveting as this is, I’d rather be back with Trinity than sit in silence. I miss the peace that her noise gives me.
“Theo.” He sighs as he clasps his hands together in front of him at the table. “Thank you for coming to visit me. I have thought about what I would say to you many times, when you would finally return home.”
My pulse begins to quicken at the change in the air.
He presses his lips together before he continues, “There were so many times that I wanted to talk to you, but I knew you would not answer me.”
What the hell did he expect? I push my shoulders back to sit straighter, taller.
“I have many things to talk about. To tell you.”
“I’m here now. What is it that you want to say?” I gesture with my hand for him to go on.
“To be honest, I don’t know where to start. There is a long history that you aren’t aware of. It is my fault. All of it. That day when I told you …,” he clears his throat, “… that you weren’t my son, I didn’t stop to think.”
My skin tightens from that memory. I stand from my seat abruptly, my father flinching in the process. I am too close to him. I don’t want to be reminded of that day. I thought he had other things to talk about. Not this.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” My voice weakens and I clear my throat. I shake my head and curse myself for looking so vulnerable, hoping my chest doesn’t cave in.
“There are many things that we must discuss,” he presses, his tone heightening as a tinge of desperation lingers across his voice.
“Why? It was eight years ago. You should have told me twenty-four years ago. Instead of conditioning me to feel nothing for my mother. To only learn of her betrayal because you met Ricardo when I was sixteen. Him demanding to meet me was no reason for you to wait so long! Not now. Just be done with it.” My hand swipes out in front of me to cut him off.
“No, Theo!” His hand thumps on top of the table, shaking the teacups. “No!”
“What?” I lean towards him, staring him down, disregarding every oath of respect I was ever taught. “You want another piano? Is that it? I’ll buy one for you.” I flick my hand in the air. “I’ll buy a grand if it means you’ll stop talking, right now!” I grind my teeth before I snarl, “You want me to call Amaya a whore? Is that it? You want me to be angry for what she did to you?”
“You must hear me out.” His jaw trembles slightly. “You must.”
I stand transfixed for a moment. These past few minutes have shown more emotion from my father than I’ve seen in years combined.
I sigh. My shoulders slump in defeat. Shaking my head, I relent. It can’t be that much worse than what he laid out on me all those years ago … surely.
“Just say your piece and be done with it.” I thump the table for him to continue. “Get it over with.”
He folds his hands together and leans forward slightly. “You know, I never wanted to love you,” he tells me solemnly as I feel the weight on my chest tightening like a punch to the heart. Hearing what I always suspected he felt didn’t make me want to fist-pump the air with “I told you so!”
“Well, you didn’t have to.” I try to keep my voice calm. “It was obvious.”
He stares in front of him, his eyes lingering on the cherry blossom vase my oba-chan used to have in her house.
“I thought I was enough.”
“What?” My brow creases in confusion. “For who?”
“Your mother. I hoped that I was all Amaya needed. But I was wrong.”
“Because of me?”
“Before she betrayed me in order to get you.”
I should walk away. Walk out and never come back. But I can’t. I need to know. Part of me wants to hear exactly why I was never enough. Why Ricardo made an appearance to come and help ruin my life.
“You never told me what happened. You only told me I wasn’t your son.”
He closes his eyes for a moment and sighs. Shaking his head, his eyes open as he begins to tell me about my past. The past that I only heard snippets about, hints fed to me in daily whispers of being an ainoko, a half cast. The past that shook the foundations of the only life I’d ever known. “We married young and tried to have children for a few years. As time progressed, we had a feeling that something was wrong. Amaya went through all sorts of tests. As it turns out, the problem was with me. I was infertile.”
He sits back in his chair as he unclasps his hands to press them into the table top before continuing. “After the initial shock, I thought that was it. It was enough. But I underestimated Amaya. Her hope for a child continued to burn. She wanted to adopt, but I forbade it. We were not in a financial position to afford it at the time. She began to resent me. I could see the love that she held in her eyes for me slowly dwindling. Months flew past, and the distance began to increase. She was travelling more and more for work, and spending time with brokers in Melbourne and Sydney rather than spending time here with me, where she belonged. Instead, she was trying to build our portfolio and increase our finances.”
; He looks out the window briefly while I shift in my seat, to resume, “I was still not interested in extending our family. I no longer wanted children. They served no purpose for me.”
“What purpose could they serve?” I asked incredulously.
“I didn’t need them. She was all I needed.” He shakes his head and sighs. “Amaya began going to Melbourne frequently. It was one of the only times when she looked content. Relieved. A few months later, she confessed that she was pregnant.”
“Did she ask for a divorce?”
“No.” He grunted. “Shockingly, she threw her arms around me and said that she had ‘fixed’ us. That the affair she’d had finally gave her what she always wanted. She felt no connection to him and that the real father didn’t even know. She threw our marriage in jeopardy all for being a mother.” He shifts in his seat and frowns. “I couldn’t stand her touching me. I stepped away from her and asked her to terminate it. Told her that she’d dishonoured me. But she refused. Instead, she made me choose her and you, or nothing. I was too proud to walk away. If I was not man enough to keep my wife with me, what did that make me? I chose her when she never chose me.”
“Is this the part where I pat you on the shoulder and say, ‘there, there’?” I snigger. “Where I tell you I’m sorry that my mother lied and betrayed you to get me? I refuse to be made to feel guilty for the actions of my mother who wanted a child. I was never at fault.”
“No. But her actions were. She was not honourable.”
“No, she was not honourable.” I take a deep breath and it all begins to make sense to me. A sense of protection for a mother who fought to have me, despite her ill choices. “Yet, she was. To me. To the dream of having me. She fought for me.” I clench my fists as I’m torn about wanting to defend my mother even though she had an affair.
“Even after you were born, it was still not enough. I was criticised for not bonding with you, for not playing with you. I was not making us a family.” He huffs as he shifts in his seat. “One night, we fought and it escalated so badly that she threatened to leave with you. I held open the door and told her to go.”
