How to Be an American Housewife

by Margaret Dilloway

  I wished that my knee was the only thing hurting me. “That ’cause you got two hundred extra pounds on it,” I said. Charlie huffed and puffed and left the room. His idea of a walk was down four houses, up three houses.

  I went into the living room. Charlie turned up Rush Limbaugh so loud you could hear it from outside. Sometimes I listened, too. Charlie nodded along, and I asked questions. “Why these feminazis love hate everybody so much? Why Rush got yell all time?”

  Today, wanting quiet, I went in the backyard with my Sanka. Charlie had built a patio of old bricks; it was the best thing he had ever made, because he had done it properly, on a sand bed with a wooden border holding it in place. Overhead, I grew Chinese wisteria on the porch roof, the wild vines shooting up onto the house’s roof, too. Purple flowers would be hanging down soon.

  I fretted again about my trip to Japan. About my hesokuri, my hidden stash of money, and how I would have to ask Sue to buy the airline tickets on the computer. I sat down and formulated a plan for finding my brother at his last known place of employment, the high school where he had been principal. I had so much to tell him.

  Taro was the only person left in my family, the only one who knew me, the real Shoko. We had our differences. What brother and sister didn’t? But sometimes I swore he could read my mind.

  That was all gone now. Taro had not spoken to me since I married Charlie, even though my father had endorsed the marriage. My brother hated Americans, and me as well, both for marrying an American and for other reasons I had long preferred not to think about. But fifty years was a long time to hold a grudge, even for someone who thought forgiveness was a weakness.

  Japanese culture is different from American. We do not forgive readily. Sometimes we accept, which is different from forgiveness. In cases like this, where I’d done something Taro thought was evil, the taint would cling to me forever.

  After the war, my father and I accepted the reality of the new Japan. Even after the way it ended.

  I remembered the afternoon in 1945, jumping rope outside my house with Taro and Suki nearby. A cloudy, muggy summer day. Suddenly a bright light, then a shaking rumbling unlike any earthquake.

  I dropped the jump rope and instinctively reached for my brother and sister, holding them tight. We didn’t know what it was, but the sinking dread and nausea in my stomach told me everything I needed to know. I rocked my younger siblings until my mother came and brought us inside.

  Nagasaki, fifty miles away.

  We were spared for the most part. Except that many got sick, or died too young, like my parents. Mysterious blood ailments, hair falling out. Suki’s heart and mine were likely sickened by this poison. And for all I knew, Taro’s was, too. Perhaps that was why he could not accept the way things had changed.

  It seemed to me that the Japanese should have surrendered sooner. We were out of food, our people were dying, and thousands more died in Hiroshima. It seemed that the Emperor would have every last man, woman, and child die in Japan before he would give up his holy throne. The price was too high, too high either way.

  I DRANK THE LAST of my bitter Sanka and went back inside the house. The floors were torn up, the carpeting halfway pulled back. Charlie had gotten a discount on hardwood flooring and had been trying to install it. Only half the room was floored, with jagged edges too far from the wall.

  My husband fancied himself a great handyman. He would watch a home-improvement show on television and say, “That looks easy. I’ll try it.” But he always managed to leave out a step. As when he put in our sod—he put it over dead grass, then forgot to water it.

  So this was why our house was crumbling. If we had money for supplies, we never had it for professionals to do the work.

  I knew not to say anything about his flooring. It would only make him angry—angry that I had noticed—and frustrated with himself. “Charlie,” I said instead, over the radio, “how ’bout you and me go on trip?”

  He groaned, massaging his knee. I sat beside him and motioned for him to put his foot on my lap so I could massage it. “We’ve already been everywhere. Where do you want to go?”

  “Different now. Back then, work all time. When we live Hawaii, we never leave Honolulu even.”

  “There was no reason to.” Charlie didn’t want to see the other islands, not even the volcanoes or rain forests, no matter how much Mike and I begged. “Oahu had everything we needed. It was too expensive to go all over the place.”

  I took my hand off of him. “I want go Japan.”

  He was quiet, like he didn’t hear. Then he said, “Why do you want to go there?” like I had said I wanted to go to Iraq in the middle of the war.

  “You promise me we go back. I no go back. Now we almost too old to move. My sister dead. I see Taro, before too late.”

  Still he said nothing. Maybe he was hoping I’d shut up if he ignored me. “How ’bout it?” I asked.

  “Maybe next year,” he said. “We don’t have the money now.”

  “I do.” I plumped the brown floral couch cushion. We didn’t have money for furniture for fifteen years after we moved in here. Charlie had put a redwood patio chair set in this room. It had two seats, vinyl cushions, and a table in the middle with a hole for an umbrella. Mike was too embarrassed to have his friends over. He moved out as soon as he could. Sue was little and didn’t know any better. “I save little bit here and there.”

  “Your brother won’t even see you,” he said. “All these years, you hardly talked about him. You said you’re dead to him.”

  “He see me if I’m there. We both old now.” I wanted to believe this. Taro may have softened with age.

  Charlie shook his head. “I’m not coming.”

  “Because your knee?” He still said nothing. “You too proud. Not use cane. Not tell doctor you need new knee. Always wearing slippery shoes, falling all over place.” Charlie liked to wear Italian dress shoes, too narrow for his feet. “Baka-tare!” Stubborn fool.

  “Your doctor won’t let you go,” Charlie said. “You’re too sick, Shoko.”

  “Maybe I no live through surgery,” I said, saying what everyone was afraid to say. “I want go.” I thought of something. “If Dr. Cunningham say okay, you say okay, too? You go with me?”

  Charlie nodded, looking relieved. “But he’s not going to say okay, Shoko.”

  “Deal,” I said, sticking my hand out and shaking my husband’s.

  When you marry and integrate with Americans, it is only natural not to have friends. Most American women will dislike you. Perhaps looking for other Japanese women will be possible, but probably not. Expect to be alone much of the time. Children help relieve this melancholy.

  —from the chapter “Culture for Women,”

  How to Be an American Housewife

  Five

  In the afternoon, Charlie drove us home from Dr. Cunningham. He had said no to Japan, just as Charlie said he would.

  “You’ll need oxygen by the time you get off the plane.” Dr. Cunningham crossed his arms and spoke as to a child. He was even more handsome when he looked stern.

  “I do fine,” I said.

  He and Charlie exchanged looks. “If you put this off, you will die,” Dr. Cunningham said quietly. “I’m afraid there’s no other way to say it.”

  “I know that. But I always this way. No different.” I spoke softly, but I wanted to yell. “I need go.”

  “He said no,” Charlie said.

  “Next year, when you recover,” Dr. Cunningham said, touching my arm.

  I grabbed my purse and stood up. Didn’t they know I didn’t care if there was a next year anymore? I felt dizzy and had to sit down again. “Take me home.”

  WE ALWAYS TOOK SURFACE STREETS, all the way from Balboa Park to San Carlos, through the terrible neighborhoods and potholes bigger than the Grand Canyon. “Take too long,” I said every time. Charlie hated driving on the freeway.

  “Less traffic this way,” he said. Or he said nothing. Often I thought he di
dn’t hear me. I knew he never listened to me.

  Despite this, Charlie was a better husband than some other American men. He had a steady Navy job that was enough money, especially when we lived in Japan. He bought books for me and tried to learn Japanese. Another Japanese Navy wife I met in Guam had a husband who made her sit behind him in the car, like they did in Japan. But if Charlie had asked me to, I would have.

  I would have done almost anything for Charlie to keep him happy. My friend Toyoko had shown me that. Back when Mike was a baby in Norfolk, I knew no Japanese Navy wives. There weren’t many around in the early days. But one evening shortly after Mike turned two, Charlie arrived home with a broad smile and two extra people for dinner. “Shokochan, I have a surprise.”

  I got up from where Mike and I were playing blocks, already thinking about how I could stretch two chops into more and planning to tell him off later for bringing guests without telling me.

  Then I saw who was following him inside. A Japanese woman about my age, maybe younger, and a black sailor. Her hair was cut short and permed into soft curls all over her head.

  She bowed, taking off her shoes. In her hands was a casserole dish tied up in a purple scarf. “Forgive intrusion,” she said, her voice high and polite and in English far better than my own. “I brought macaroni and cheese.”

  Toyoko and her husband, Jim, had just moved on base. They’d met as Charlie and I had, on the Iwakuni Air Base. Toyoko’s eyes met mine and we smiled big as children.

  “Welcome!” I said, wondering if we should switch to Japanese. No. It would be impolite not to include the men.

  Charlie read my mind. “Go ahead and speak Japanese. We want to learn, right, Jim? Besides, the language sounds like music.”

  Toyoko and I did everything together for the next year. We tried to learn English better. There were no classes offered, at least none that we could easily get to, so Charlie got us a couple of textbooks, and we tried to study those. Most of the time, it was gibberish.

  Our plan was to become citizens in five years. “That way, they can’t get rid of us,” Toyoko said with a sly grin, revealing a big gap between her front teeth. Most people thought that was unattractive, but on her it was good. Like a beauty mark.

  The citizenship test promised to be difficult. You had to learn the Constitution and know all kinds of history, more than the average school-kid. If I could pass that, I would be a true American.

  But the next year, Charlie got transferred to Hawaii. I embraced Toyoko and promised to write. “We can do a citizenship correspondence course,” I said.

  In Hawaii, it was much easier to blend in. There were so many darker-skinned people that no one gave me a second glance. I made many friends there. More Navy men had Japanese wives in Hawaii. Pidgin English was quicker to learn than standard, especially because Charlie was gone too much to teach me proper English.

  Toyoko and I wrote regularly for years. Jim got transferred to Yokosuka, Japan, and I thought she must be thrilled. She was not. The other Japanese wives won’t talk to me because Jim is black, she wrote. I miss you, Shoko.

  Don’t let them get the better of you! You’re too good for them anyway, I responded. It had not occurred to me that these wives would treat each other like this, but I saw it more often in Hawaii, where there were more Japanese wives. Cliques formed based on what your husband’s race was. Neither group would accept the other.

  Then I didn’t hear from Toyoko for a year. She sent me a postcard from Japan. It was too hard, she wrote. Jim left me. She was one of the lucky ones, able to return home, still childless. I wondered what had happened to those who weren’t so lucky. They probably had to find another serviceman. That’s what I would do if Charlie left me. It always nagged at the back of my mind. I tried to be the best wife I knew how.

  WE DROVE DOWN THE STEEP HILL on Florida Street, to the dip that flooded with every light rain. We went over a pothole and I clutched the door. “Careful, Charlie!”

  Charlie spoke. “Operation sounds good, doesn’t it? Wonder if it’ll help all the other things going wrong with your body.”

  “Maybe I run all over town again, huh? Then what you gonna do?” I poked at his belly. “Get you going again.”

  Charlie shifted away from me and turned up the radio. KPOP, hits from the 1940s and ’50s. One thing we had in common, we hated newer music. “I’m too old to get going again.”

  “You not too old until dead.” I chewed my lower lip in frustration. Ever since Charlie had retired from the Navy, he had acted as though he had retired an old person instead of just age forty-one.

  We ended up in San Diego, Charlie’s last station. Hawaii had been our favorite, but Hawaii, he said, was too expensive. And we didn’t want to move all the way back across the Pacific, though I wouldn’t have minded being closer to Japan.

  The first thing we did was buy a house with a no-down-payment VA loan. It was the 1970s, when Sue was a baby and Mike was already twenty-two. Charlie wanted the house on the mountain side of the street, because there would never be people behind us. Jacaranda Street was lined with the flowering trees along the parking strips, purple clouds every spring. “Look like cherry tree in Japan,” I had said when we were looking for a house. But still, there were problems. With every big rain, the water poured down the mountain into our yard, and Charlie had to dig a ditch out to the street to let it out. Sometimes brush fires broke out behind us, too.

  There was nothing built in the community. “Closest park five mile,” I said to Charlie. “No good for kids.” Developers were just beginning to push into eastern San Diego. I had no car; we could only afford one.

  Charlie had looked exasperated. “This is what we can afford.”

  “They got older houses by park,” I pointed out. “Can get loan on those, too.”

  “I want a new house.” That was Charlie. He had caviar wishes and champagne dreams, like Mr. Robin Leach would say.

  With us settled, Charlie went to college on the GI Bill. Originally, because he’d been a medic, he wanted to be a doctor. “But I’m too old,” he said. He was. No new doctor was in his fifties, the way he’d be by the time he finished.

  He settled on nursing. But when he graduated, no one was hiring. Not even a former corpsman he knew at a hospital who had been to Korea and Vietnam with Charlie.

  Our times got tough for a while, and Charlie withdrew more and more. I tried to get him moving. One afternoon months after he finished school, Charlie sat eating a family-size bag of Lay’s in his TV chair. A pile of old junk mail lay on the floor next to him.

  I stared at the heap. All this work I had to do, trying to save us money. I washed Sue’s diapers by hand. We never ate out. I dyed, permed, and cut my own hair. I dug up the hard clay earth and made a vegetable garden in the back, planting a fig tree and a tangerine tree to bear fruit. I saved rainwater in buckets—not that we got much rain—and used it to water the garden. Never did I think I would have to remember what my mother had taught me back in Japan.

  Charlie was sitting there, getting chip crumbs all over the place.

  I turned the TV off. “Why no apply job? What doing sit around all day?”

  “Turn that back on.” It was the days before remotes, but Charlie was too lazy to get up. “What’re you doing?”

  “All do is sit. Eat. TV. I throw TV away if you no get job soon. You no can sit ’round. You no old.” I pointed to Sue, who lay in her playpen looking at us. “You got baby girl.” I wished more than anything that I could go out into the world and conquer it for my family.

  He blinked at Sue, as though seeing her for the first time.

  I put my hands on my hips. “You apply every hospital in county? North, south, middle?”

  He shifted in his chair, not answering.

  “You apply Orange County if have to. We move. Who care?” I picked up his junk mail and tossed it high in the air. It scattered all over the floor. “Look at trash you make me.”

  Charlie pursed his lips, then
closed his eyes. He inhaled. “It’s hard, Shoko. How they look at me when I go apply. I’m so much older than everyone.”

  “Shut up. You got combat experience. What more they want?” I shook my head. Sue whimpered. I walked over and picked her up, putting my nose into her soft baby neck. She cooed. I smoothed back her hair, red at the time.

  Charlie got up and picked the trash off the floor. He threw it away. Then he got changed into a shirt and tie and went out with his black vinyl briefcase full of résumés, all without saying a word.

  Finally, Conroy Jewelers hired Charlie to work at the Mission Valley Mall one Christmas. Charlie had always liked jewelry. He learned how to do simple welding, and stayed there until his arthritis made it too hard for him to size rings for newlyweds and women whose fingers got bigger after childbirth, or to set tiny pearls some girl found in a Sea World oyster into a pendant. He made barely enough for us; with his Navy retirement, we got by.

  Over the next twenty years, off and on, I tried to prod him into nursing. The job market didn’t stay down forever. “Hospital got good benefit,” I reminded him.

  “I have Navy benefits. Besides, I can’t move patients around anymore. That’s the only reason they hire men.” But still he sang all day and night, and if he wasn’t singing, he had the radio or TV on, as though he could not bear to be with his thoughts.

  CHARLIE SANG NOW as he drove us home in the old Ford Taurus, the windows rolled down and the air-conditioning off. I tilted my seat back slightly, knowing he was in no mood to talk.

  I wished we could get a new car with freezing air-conditioning. When we got this one brand-new, years ago, I had thought it was the nicest car I’d ever seen. It had gray cloth seats and maroon paint. It even had a real stereo with a tape deck, and air-conditioning, the kind of car I always dreamed about. I thought it was as nice as our next-door neighbor Lorraine’s Buick Regal. When we bought it, I showed it to her. She told me how great it was. The next week, her husband bought her a brand-new Mercedes with license plates that said “ILUVLOR.”