Lavender and Parsley

by Lisa K Nakamura

  “My father and mother held very different views of the world. I lived most of my life thinking that my father had the right way of engaging the world. But lately, I see my mother understood what was really important.

  “I know this because she led me to you, Miss Elizabeth. She helped me when I asked for it.” With this, I kiss her hair, and hand her another tissue.

  Eventually her sobs quiet, and she falls asleep. Dido hops up onto the bed with us, sniffs at me once, and then curls up at Elizabeth’s feet. I debate whether to leave, but am loathe to disturb Elizabeth, who now has her arm curled across my chest. I pull her closer to me and fall asleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Darcy

  Calla Lilies

  It’s six in the morning. I wake when I feel Dido shifting on the bed. She greets me with a thump of her tail, and then hops off to stand patiently by the door. I ease myself out of bed, find the leash and clip it onto her collar. Her name-tag reads Dido, Queen of Carnage. “Well, Queen Dido, shall we go for our morning walkies?” The pooch wags her tail rapidly. We slip quietly out the door and into the damp morning air.

  When we return, Elizabeth is up and making coffee in the kitchen. She doesn’t seem surprised to see me. She bends down to scratch Dido behind the ears, whispering that it’s breakfast time. She then hands me a cup of coffee, and thanks me for bringing her home safely and for comforting her last night.

  I usher Elizabeth into the living room, making her sit on the couch. After asking her where she keeps her bread, I pull a loaf from the freezer and proceed to prepare two slices of toast for her. I ask if she wants butter, but no, she prefers peanut butter. I slather an ungodly amount of the creamy nutty stuff on the toast, then set it on a plate in front of her, gently admonishing her to eat.

  She makes a valiant attempt, but swallows only a few mouthfuls. I tell her I will go home to shower, and then will be back at nine to pick her up and drive her to see her father. She nods, then her face crumples and she starts sobbing. She drops to the floor, crushing Dido into her arms. Dido whimpers in sympathy. I fall to my knees to embrace both of them. The three of us remain there on the floor. Elizabeth keens mournfully as Dido tries to comfort her by licking her face. I just stay there, my arms wrapped around her. Words are useless right now; all I can do is be there.

  I finally manage to encourage Elizabeth to stand, and then guide her to the bathroom. “I’ll wait here for you. When you’re ready, I’ll drive you to see your father.”

  I hear the water in the shower run for a long time. Wisps of steam escape the partially closed bathroom door and begin to fog up the apartment’s front window. I smell the mint fragrance of Elizabeth’s shampoo and the lavender scent of her soap.

  Finally, she turns off the water, and emerges a few minutes later. Clad in black leggings and a baggy plaid flannel shirt, she roughly towel-dries her hair. She pulls a brush through her stubborn tangles, imprisons her tresses in a clip, and then tells me she’s ready to go.

  I pick up my keys along with hers as we head out the door. It’s too early to visit her father, so I drive around to Pike Place Market. The red brick cobblestones rumble under the tires, the only sound breaking our silence. As I navigate around the early morning delivery trucks, a small hand reaches out to touch mine on the steering wheel. I look over at Elizabeth. She meets my gaze and whispers, “Thank you.”

  As I drive, I look up and see the colorful murals painted by Aki Sogabe on the wall above Rachel the Pig, the Market’s mascot, and the fishmonger’s stand of flying fish fame.

  “I wonder how many visitors to the Market ever look up and see these paintings? I think most visitors never look, never learn the story of how Japanese immigrants produced such a bounty of fruits and vegetables for this area,” I surmise aloud.

  “That’s the story of my family, of my grandfather. He came to America to make his fortune, and instead was imprisoned as an enemy because of Executive Order 9066 at the beginning of World War II. My father spent four years of his childhood in those internment camps. His family was lucky. Their landlord held onto their farm for them, made sure it was properly tended to while they were detained. Most families lost everything; businesses, farms, and most damaging, their pride. All they had was what they were able to carry away in suitcases when they were rounded up.

  “I wonder how different my life would be right now if President Roosevelt had never signed that order. I think about all the people it affected, not just Japanese and Japanese-Americans. I think everybody had to make hard decisions back then, and I’m sure it had lasting effects. Not many people had the fortitude to do what was morally correct in the face of such a gross but legal injustice.”

  “Perhaps, Miss Elizabeth, this is a story you can tell. Now since you have time to write, maybe this is what you should do?”

  Elizabeth sighs. “I tried to get Bachan and Jichan to tell me their stories, but they never would. Then, I asked Dad, but he always avoided the subject. They always told me shikataganai and that it was best to move on. I don’t really know what happened to them in the camps, how they endured. Now it’s too late.”

  I see an empty parking spot and ease my car into it. I ask Elizabeth if she would like to join me, but she declines, saying she would rather sit in the car. I find a flower vendor, and convince her to sell me a bouquet, even though she is not yet officially open for business. When I return to the car, I hand the flowers to Elizabeth; they are yellow calla lilies.

  We head off to visit her father, finding him awake with a clear mind. His face brightens when he sees Elizabeth and his eyes twinkle when I am introduced. Then he sees the calla lilies, and his face falls. He looks up at his daughter, and she can only nod yes, that it’s true. His wife of thirty years is gone.

  I watch Mr. Murasaki go from an adult to a child in a blink of an eye. His lucidity flees like quicksilver. He starts sobbing quietly, and Elizabeth reaches out to hold him. For the next hour, she whispers to him as though she is the parent and he is the child. She smooths his hands, entwines her fingers with his, and tells him over and over how much she loves him.

  Jane shows up at eleven with Charles in tow. She is too late. Their father has slipped into a world where he recognizes nothing. Adding a new poignant sadness to their meeting, he greets her as if he has never seen her before. He is floating on the River Lethe, wrapped in the balm of forgetfulness.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Elizabeth

  My Chivalrous Knight

  It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, to tell my father his beloved wife has died. Nothing compares to this, not the screaming chefs I’ve faced down, not the pressure of the yammering ticket machine, not the loneliness of cooking in a foreign country, or even the threat of a monstrous hurricane bearing down on the city where I lived. Being humiliated publicly by Mr. Darcy’s review of our family restaurant is child’s play next to this pain.

  Through it all, Mr. Darcy has been a consummate gentleman. I was surprised when I woke today to see the impression of his body still outlined on my bed. I am touched he took Dido out for her morning walk. I recall how gently he held me last night, how he was a true friend when I needed him to be one. I think about what he told me, about his beloved mother Anne Darcy’s kind nature, and how he thinks she brought him here to meet me. I remember what he said about Mom watching over me, and I look upward, hoping to see her smiling down at me.

  As we three sisters try to make sense of what has happened, he remains in the background, but ready to help in any way he can. His steady presence is such a comfort to me.

  I have to admit, my opinion of him and judgment of his character have undergone a seismic shift. His stilted ways have become chivalrous. His awkward way of talking takes on the tune of a caring thoughtful voice. His formal manners I now recognize as his way of being respectful of my body and space.

  I am in love, but I couldn’t tell you when it happened. I suspect I was in the middle before I ever knew I had begun. My ad
mission of my feelings makes me giddy, and then I feel guilty for feeling such joy at such a sombre time.

  On the amusing side, this man can’t text worth a damn. He seems to live in a world two hundred years ago, when horse and carriage ruled, and gentlemen fought duels over besmirched honor. He lives in an era with a strict code of conduct and a clear delineation of how women and men should behave.

  All this no longer matters to me. I find him to be the best of men, to be goodness alive, while so many of the guys I’ve dated only offer the appearance of it. He may be an oddity, but he’s my oddity. One day, I’ll actually tell him this.

  Mama’s funeral is a quiet one, with her family and close friends in attendance. Yellow calla lilies and white chrysanthemums grace her coffin as the priest chants monotone sutras to Buddha asking for peace. Wisps of smoke from the burning incense coil slowly heavenward. I wonder if Mama’s spirit is following those swirls? She asked to be cremated, and, one day soon, her ashes will be interred in the graveyard by the sea near the Ocean Breeze.

  My dad sits quietly in a wheelchair like a little boy. He has no idea what is going on. He looks confused and scared. Oddly, it’s Mr. Darcy’s presence that soothes him. He reaches out and takes hold of Mr. Darcy’s hand. He clutches it to anchor himself, while Mr. Darcy holds it fast and leans down to whisper comfort to him.

  At the end of the service, Mr. Darcy offers to drive my dad and me back to the nursing home. Uncle Eddie and Aunty Madeline are hosting a reception for the funeral attendees at my uncle’s restaurant, meaning they must hurry off to prepare for the guests. Jane and Charles collect Lydia to take her with them to Uncle Eddie’s.

  We arrive at the nursing home, and when my dad is back in his room, he again reaches for Mr. Darcy’s hand. “Thank you, Peter,” he says. “I hope you will visit me soon. I would love to sit and talk with you more.” To me, he says nothing, only looking at me like he can’t place who I am or what I’m doing in his room.

  Mr. Darcy nods quietly, and then guides me back to his car.

  “All will be well, Miss Elizabeth,” he says. “Your father knows you, he does. He cannot name who you are, but deep inside, he recognizes you and loves you dearly.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Elizabeth

  Twists and Turns

  The months flow by. Mr. Darcy and I are in some sort of nebulous dating no-man’s land. He remains by my side, inviting me regularly for coffee and drinks. He shows up unexpectedly with seasonally appropriate flowers for me, plus organic doggie biscuits for Dido. But he never asks me for anything, not a kiss, not even to hold my hand. He skirts the issue of any sort of physical contact. We have not touched one another since the night my mom died.

  I find his companionship comfortable, like a favorite flannel shirt. I begin to assume he will always be there, because he always is. He is waiting for me at the end of my shift, frequently taking me to dinner. He calls me to see how I am, and relates the latest development in his story to me, or tells me lovingly about Lou-Lou’s mischief.

  We often play a game when we are together. We call it our “Word Game.” One of us thinks of a word and then toss it to the other for them to attach their own addition. We rally back and forth, like a tennis match until we mutually agree to a truce. The end result is an impromptu chain poem created by the two of us. The resulting poems are nonsensical and badly rhymed, but we laugh and love the images we create.

  “Silver,” I say, to start the game.

  “Glittery,” he replies.

  “Brighter.”

  “Cat.”

  “Wealth.”

  “Treasure.”

  We carefully record our compositions in a blank notebook, marking each one with the date, time and location. For example:

  March 1, 2019

  11 am, Alki Beach

  A glittery silver cat is a brighter treasure than wealth.

  Our notebook is filling rapidly with these works of impulse. Writing these poems with Mr. Darcy helps me understand him better, to see beneath the veneer he presents to the world. With each round we play, I see how intelligent he is, how quick he can be with words. He, in turn, admires my wit, telling me he appreciates my blatant irreverence for rules. We build our trust in each other as we construct these silly verses.

  One night he surprises me and cooks dinner for us at his house. Seeing my delight at someone else doing the cooking, he resolves to do this more often. True to his word, he and Dido often pick me up at the end of my shift at Dark Notes Café, and then we head to his home where he has dinner ready.

  Lou-Lou and Dido have become fast friends, with Lou-Lou taking to riding Dido around the house as if she’s her personal mare. We end many nights watching old movies, separated by both the dog and the cat on the sofa. Mr. Darcy never complains, and I’m beginning to wonder if he’s gay.

  But if he is gay, then why do I turn all tingly when I think about how he held me the night my mother died? Why do I long for him to take my hand again and bow over it in his stately way? Why do I wonder what it would be like to kiss him? He makes no sense, and I can’t figure him out.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Elizabeth

  Betrayal

  It’s early April and I have a rare weekday morning free to visit Dad. As I pull into the parking lot, I spot a familiar green VW Golf. I walk into Dad’s room to find Mr. Darcy, pen in hand, writing as my father is talking to him. I stop short in the doorway as Mr. Darcy looks up. Dad smiles, and then tells me that Mr. Darcy is going to write a book about our family, that he will become famous for it.

  Everything snaps into place for me. I see red. Mr. Darcy isn’t gay; he’s just not interested in me! I was never anything for him but a source of stories. He’s gulled me into a false sense of security to mine my collection of anecdotes for his benefit. Obviously his original Magnum Opus isn't going as planned, so now he is using my family as his storyline. He just needed something to write about and I foolishly provided it.

  “You, you were using me this entire time, using my family as a source for your book!” I yell. “How dare you?! How long have you been doing this?”

  Before he can answer, I storm out of the room and jump back into my car. I leave Mr. Darcy in a shower of gravel. Now it makes so much sense, why he never wanted anything more than to be friends, why he patiently appeared all the time. He was milking me, drawing me off the path, when his true intent was using me to access and steal my father’s memories. How could I be so stupid, so blind? Our family was nothing more than a case study for him, a pre-written plot for his novel.

  My phone pings with a text from him. I erase it without reading it. He tries calling, and I send it straight to voicemail. When I leave work the next day, I walk right by him and climb onto the bus, ignoring his pleas for me to talk with him for only a minute. Something inside me tells me I’m being unreasonable and foolish, but it feels so good to let my anger burn out of control. The bright fire of my fury obscures my shadows of shame and frustration that he has succeeded where I have not.

  I’ve been attempting to have my father to tell me about his childhood in the internment camps for years and haven’t been able to. With his health declining, I gave it up it was a lost cause. I should be grateful that Mr. Darcy has been able to pierce his veil of forgetfulness, but all I can think is, “Why him, not me?”

  One night, as I arrive home and put my key in the lock, I hear Mr. Darcy behind me. “Please, Miss Elizabeth, can we not talk about why you are so angry?”

  I round on him with a ferocity that shocks even me.

  “Mister Fitzwilliam Peter Darcy,” I hiss, “what would you like me to say? Would you like me to tell you how for years, for years, I wanted my father to be serious with me just once and tell me what our family encountered during the hysteria in America following Pearl Harbor? How he brushed off my questions in his usual flippant manner? Should I relate to you the sadness and panic I felt as I watched his memory fade, taking with it all the wisdom and k
nowledge he has? Or should I share with you my futile dream of writing my father’s memoir, which is the story of too many Japanese-Americans of his generation? They avoid talking about it, and now their stories from that time are dying with them!

  “I struggled to have him to even remember my name! I felt him slipping away and had no way to stop it. It was terrifying to watch him disappear, to lose my father and a man of that era!

  “And then you, you come along! You, a stranger to him! For you, his memories are there! For you, he can connect the threads in his mind and relate them coherently! You, the person who insulted his restaurant and family, you’re the person he opened up to! Yes, I am furious! I am heartbroken you have stolen this from me, and I want nothing more to do with you!”

  Mr. Darcy starts to speak, but before he can, I spew everything I've been holding back.

  “One other thing! You wrote that you understood why women couldn’t be the best chefs in the world. Really? You have no idea of what a woman goes through in a kitchen! The sneers, the doubts and unwanted advances. I had a chef tell me publicly that he would never hire me because his cooks would be too distracted trying to get into my pants! My skills didn’t matter! He just saw me as a piece of ass!

  “I’ve been pinned down to a dirty kitchen floor! My crime? I wouldn’t shut up, I wouldn’t listen, or so he said! I’ve had to roughly push away attempts to kiss me! I’ve been grabbed by the front of my chef’s coat, all by men! Ask any female chef! She probably has a similar tale to tell, and possibly one that’s worse! But do go on, tell us how we’re too weak, too untalented and emotional to be chefs!

  “I thought you understood me, that you could see me as a person. I thought you came to respect my abilities to cook and maybe even to write. But I guess you don’t, since you’ve been sneaking around to see my father. You can’t trust me, a woman, to do anything well, can you?!”