How to Be an American Housewife

by Margaret Dilloway

I felt heat rising from my neck. Yasuo had warned us.

  “Why would we come all the way to Japan for money?” Helena crossed her arms. “Do you know how expensive plane tickets are?”

  Taro’s eyes flickered with amusement. “Ah, true. You are here for another reason.”

  I collected myself. “May we sit down and talk?”

  Taro did not hesitate. “Tell me so I can decide whether to have you here or not.”

  “Aren’t you the least bit glad to see us, Uncle?” Helena spread her arms out dejectedly.

  Sumiko put one arm around her. “Ojı̄chan, they came to reunite. It is wonderful.”

  Taro grunted. It reminded me of Mike.

  Everyone was a stranger to me. The family I had grown up with. The family I had just found. I knew them, yet they were no closer to me than a casual acquaintance. Only Helena was mine, and even she became, by turns, a stranger as she neared her teens. My lip trembled and I made it stop. “Shoko’s sick, Uncle.”

  Momentary concern passed over Taro’s face before he controlled it. “Caught some American disease, eh? I am not surprised.”

  Sumiko covered her mouth with her tiny hand. “Ojı̄chan!” she said. “Sit down, Cousins, please. Let us have tea.”

  “No!” he said. “I will not have these traitors in my home.” He ranted in Japanese until even little Taro was agog.

  Helena was near tears. I drew myself up and looked him square in the face. What I saw there was not anger, but fear and exhaustion. He knew this was silly. He knew, but his pride wouldn’t let him admit it.

  I bowed. “Of course we will leave if you wish, Uncle. But my mother wanted us to give you a message. It’s in my bag. Would you like it?”

  He bowed back. “Do as you wish. I must be leaving.” He glanced at Sumiko.

  “This is my house, my husband’s house,” Sumiko said. “They stay.”

  “I will see you at a later time, it seems,” Taro said stiffly. He put Tarochan’s clothes down on the mat, put on his shoes, and left.

  “He’s going to the church.” Sumiko dressed her son. “I am sorry for his outburst. I knew he had difficulties with your mother, but I did not know he would act so.” She bowed. “Forgive me.”

  Helena lay on her stomach and rolled a red race car toward Taro-chan. “It’s not your fault.”

  “One can be sorry without it being one’s fault.” Sumiko gestured to me. “Please, sit. I will bring out food.” She went into the other room.

  “Mom, what is going on?” Helena asked. “How can he just throw us away after we came all this way to see him?”

  “He was surprised. Maybe he needs time to recover.” I wanted to believe this.

  Sumiko returned with a tray of sliced persimmons, coffee, and cakes. “This is all we have,” she said, handing us hot, moist towels. “I apologize again for my grandfather. Even though he is priest and Konkokyo says that all mankind gets along, he is still like that.” She picked up the persimmon. “It’s from being principal. He had to be strict with the students.” Taro would have been at home in South Central. “Where do you stay now?”

  I brought up my shoulders. “Where’s the nearest hotel?”

  Sumiko clasped my hand. “I would like you to stay here. You are welcome. My husband is a fisherman, out to sea most times. Ojı̄chan lives with us. His wife died a couple years ago.”

  I bit into a persimmon. It tasted like a juicy date. “He won’t like it, Sumiko.”

  “This is my house, not his.” She stood. “You are my family, too.”

  I smiled at her. Only once had anyone from Dad’s family come out to see us from the East Coast—my grandma Millie, when I was about ten years old. Mom had spent two weeks getting ready for her visit. She fixed up a mattress on the floor of the spare room for me, giving Grandma my bed. “More comfortable,” she had said.

  Then, after Grandma arrived, Mom wouldn’t let her do anything. Mom made elaborate meals and catered to every small need Grandma might have. “Let me do the dishes, Shoko,” Grandma would offer every night, looking concerned at the amount of energy my mother was displaying. Grandma Millie was in her sixties, gray-haired, and had commenced living a nomadic life in which she spent a couple of months with each of her children on the East Coast. Not us—we lived too far away, she said. She had Dad’s same blue eyes. I thought she was fascinating because she removed her teeth every night.

  “You guest. No help,” Mom said, even as the strain made her lie down for longer periods.

  “I’m family, Shoko. Family helps out.” Millie would watch her anxiously, then whisper to me, “Help your mama out, Sue. I can’t stand watching her do that.”

  I watched Sumiko start clearing away the remnants of our snack and stood to help. “Sit, sit, you guest.” She brushed me aside.

  “Tomorrow I’m family, and I help. Okay?”

  She looked taken aback. “If you would like.”

  WE SPENT THE REST of the afternoon and early evening looking at the family we didn’t know we had: pictures of Taro’s two sons and daughter getting married; the birth of Sumiko; Taro celebrating anniversaries with his late wife, Keiko; photos of Taro as school principal; and all the other milestones families always have pictures of. Sumiko had her own photos in neat albums; Taro’s were stuffed into three shoe boxes.

  Taro looked entirely unlike the man we saw earlier: in these he was smiling, his arms always hugging those around him. There were a few of their grandparents and some of Suki and her husband and her children.

  “Where are Taro’s children?” I picked up a photo of Taro holding a baby, many years ago.

  “My parents live in Kumamoto City. My aunt went to Tokyo to be a singer—a jazz singer.”

  “Really?” Helena was trying to put Taro’s photos into chronological order. “Can we go see her?”

  “You can hear her.” Sumiko went to the tansu and put a CD into the player. “God Bless the Child” came on, sung by a sweet, high, thin voice, backed by a piano.

  “Wow.” Helena’s eyes widened. “Mom, you never told me we’re related to a professional singer.”

  “I didn’t know myself.” I smiled. “What I don’t know about this family, Helena, could fill two books.”

  “And my brother is a judo champion,” Sumiko added, returning to us and flipping an album to a photo of a diminutive, yet very solid, man on an Olympic podium, gold medal around his neck.

  “We’re related to a celebrity!” Helena shrieked. “That is so cool.”

  Taro-chan, lying on the floor and watching cartoons, stirred. Sumiko kissed Taro-chan on the cheek. “He is tired.”

  Would Sumiko and the rest of the family be as pleased to see pictures of us? Did they ever think about Mike and me, and my mother and Helena, out in America? Or were we gladly forgotten?

  Mom had rarely spoken of Taro. From his actions, I guessed that Taro had spoken of her even more rarely. Maybe talking about it hurt too much. Maybe he simply didn’t care any longer.

  We had no singers or athletes in our little section of family in San Diego, or even on the East Coast, as far as I knew. Perhaps our Japanese relatives would be ashamed of our mediocrity, of my parents’ falling-down house and my own ramshackle one. Or maybe they would want to visit, just because we were not too far from Disneyland.

  Helena yawned, and I did, too. More had happened in the past day than it had for the last half-decade of my life.

  “Mom?” Helena stretched out beside Taro-chan. “I’m having a great time. Thanks.”

  I smiled at her. “You’re welcome.”

  It was seven now. Taro had not returned. Possibly he would not for as long as we stayed. The letter sat in my bag. I could leave it for him, but Mom wanted a reply. I did, too.

  Sumiko smiled. “Bed?” She pointed toward the tatami room. “I will unroll your futons.”

  One thing Americans and Japanese have in common is their can-do spirit. In America, you will find your hard work rewarded as it is in Japan. How fitting that Ame
rica should have been the only one who could defeat Japan.

  —from the chapter “Turning American,”

  How to Be an American Housewife

  Nine

  I awoke to a sharp pain in my back. Taro-chan’s small foot was planted in my spine, his mouth open and drooling. Helena was on my other side. Sumiko slept on another futon across the room. Light filtered in brightly through the sheer blinds. The room was bare except for some shelves on the walls. Uncluttered. How different from my bedroom in San Diego, with old overflowing dressers and light-blocking dusty drapes.

  From the other side of the shoji, I smelled breakfast. Eggs. I got up to use the bathroom, then went into the living area.

  Taro sat at the table, reading a newspaper and drinking tea. He gave the barest nod, terrifying me. I couldn’t help thinking he had a weapon stashed in his kimono, even if his only weapon was an insult.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, ready to return to the sleeping room.

  “Sit. Have some tea. If you prefer coffee,” he added, “I’m afraid you will have to wait for Sumiko. She is the coffee drinker.”

  “Your English is excellent.” Of course his English was good. He went to college, unlike my mother. An education for which she had largely paid.

  His eyebrows went up. “Yes. I have studied it.”

  “Why? Don’t you hate Americans?”

  “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” he quoted, amused.

  I sat down. The remains of a plate of scrambled eggs sat in front of him, along with an untouched platter of chocolate croissants. My stomach growled.

  I wanted to act like my mother would, but I couldn’t think of what she would have done. Yelled? Thrown something? Hugged him? I squared my jaw.

  I had to give him the letter, stuck in the pocket of my bag, Mom’s elegant chicken scratch so close together, it looked like a pattern.

  I waited.

  “I have been in meditation all night.” Taro put down the paper and folded his hands.

  He examined my face, probably seeing my mother in me somewhere, in the longish shape, the jaw, the unruly eyebrows. And he saw my father, too, disgusting Taro, no doubt. His expression revealed nothing and his eyes were impassive.

  He pushed the pastry plate at me and I took one. “I have decided that this is not your fault. Especially your young one.” He bowed his whole upper body. “I apologize for my outburst.”

  I frowned. “Why couldn’t you have given Mom a chance thirty or forty years ago?”

  His face darkened again. “Some things are not easy to forgive. For instance, what your country did to us. How could I embrace a man from our enemy country as my brother-in-law?” Taro pointed his finger into the air. “It’s all about karma. Your mother’s karma is bad, unfortunately. Perhaps this is why her heart is now failing. The United States has bad karma from using the A-bombs. This is why you were attacked by terrorists.” He took a bite of cold egg. “But, by forgiving her now, I am improving my own karma, and perhaps hers.”

  Anger built in my gut. Must everything have a payback, a reward or punishment? I knew I should accept that he wanted to give us a chance, however unreasonable his logic, but I couldn’t help myself. “What about those sarin gas attacks on Tokyo subways? Those were terrorist acts by your own people. What is that repayment for? The Rape of Nanking?”

  “Fictional propaganda,” he said flatly.

  “If my mother’s heart is her karma, then what about your other sister, Suki? What did she ever do?”

  He shut his eyes ever so briefly. “My little sister. Who knows? Perhaps it is karma for our whole family.” His face paled and his hands shook a little as he took a sip of tea.

  “Shoko left because she was in love with my father, Uncle Taro, not to hurt you.”

  His voice rose and his color returned. “Your mother left to get what she could out of your father, because she could not stay here. She only hurt herself.”

  “She’s had a better life than she would have in Japan.” But for a moment I doubted that. Would she not have been better off here, with her siblings who raised singers and teachers and sports champions?

  Taro put his arms on his head and chuckled. “You are like your mother. Never give up. Your face looks exactly like hers when she got mad.” He touched my cheek. “I thought you would be an ugly gaijin. But I can see her face in yours.” He dropped his hand. “I would not be telling the truth if I said I had closed my heart to Shoko-chan. Every day”—his voice choked—“every day I have remembered her.”

  Sumiko appeared. “Ojı̄chan! Thank you for feeding our guest. I am glad you are back.”

  He acknowledged her with a wave. “If you will excuse me, it is my day at the temple.” He left the room.

  “He is not always so gruff,” Sumiko said. “He is a very kind man. But in this one way, it seems he is stuck, you see?” She smiled. “We go to church this morning. It is Mitama service. You would like to come?”

  A FEW PEOPLE MINGLED outside Taro’s church, waiting for services to begin. Sumiko got her son out of the car. “Do what I do, if you are comfortable.”

  We washed our hands in a basin near the door. One wall was covered with notes—prayer requests. I looked up at the dark wood beams of the roof. A platform spanned the entire front of the church. There were three altar areas; the one to the left had photos of people in white priests’ robes and offerings of fruits and vegetables on pillars in front of it; the middle looked like a larger version of Mom’s miniature altar; and on the right was a windowed booth, where a man in white robes sat with his face in profile to them.

  Helena grew quiet. She wore the one dress she had brought with her, a long flowered one that looked like she stole it from her grandma Kate’s wardrobe. She reached for my hand and squeezed. “How come you never take me to church?”

  I felt a guilty stab. “I didn’t know you wanted to go.”

  The only church I’d had limited access to as a child was my dad’s Mormon one; Mom made clear her feelings about that. There was no Konko church in San Diego. The closest one was in L.A. I prayed with Mom often, but Dad never prayed at home, perhaps because my mother objected to it so strenuously and because my father did not like to fight.

  The few times I did go to Dad’s church—to see a baptism or a film about its founder—I came with a healthy dose of skepticism, drilled into me by my mother. I watched a woman getting dunked, or Joseph Smith spoken to by God, and I simply didn’t believe it.

  Sumiko whispered, “The middle is the Tenchi Kane no Kami altar.” It had a framed scroll with lettering on it, and more edible offerings. A stack of papers sat on one side, and on the other, a big bag of salt. Sumiko went to the main altar, knelt, bowed once, and clapped four times. Taro-chan did the same. Then they bowed their heads.

  We copied them. Instead of praying, I watched people discreetly, trying on this religion for size but feeling no profound connection, no shooting light from above. I stood when Sumiko did. The others had already gone to a pew, and the man in the white robe was coming out.

  It was Taro. He held a tapering piece of wood, which he stuck into the fold of his robe. He wore a cap with a long plume coming out the back and curving skyward. It wasn’t a feather; it might have been carved wood, but I couldn’t tell from this distance. He faced the main altar and clapped four times, saying a prayer.

  “This is the mitama for all the priests who have died. We remember them and pray for their guidance,” Sumiko said. Taro-chan held his finger to his lips, silencing her.

  The congregation approached the altar. We were offered a tree branch with a piece of white paper attached to its branches. “Put it on the table, and pray to the priest you want,” Sumiko instructed quietly.

  I looked at the tableau of photos, stopping at a man with a small smile on his face, the expression wrinkling around his mouth and eyes. “That’s your great-grandfather,” I whispered.

  “People are praying to him? Like a god?” Helena peered closely.


  “Not exactly,” I hedged, though I suspected she was correct.

  I settled down and tried to make my mind go blank. What did I want to pray for? World peace sounded like a Miss America contestant. Mom’s health was a given, like the health of the rest of my family. I wanted to pray for something I could change. I swallowed. My throat was ash dry. For guidance. I need guidance in my life.

  Americans have several odd manners you should be aware of. When you eat with others, it is considered impolite to slurp your soup or noodles, though this improves the flavor. If you eat noodles in the company of an American, twirl them on your fork and eat as silently as you can.

  Americans are also insulted if you do not finish everything on your plate. They consider it wasteful, though overeating only leads to being fat. Your host may be openly hostile if you leave food, though in Japan, this is only politeness. Take small portions and try to finish it all to signal you are done.

  —from the chapter “Turning American,”

  How to Be an American Housewife

  Ten

  After church, Sumiko took us shopping and then to lunch for the best sushi and sashimi I had ever eaten. The fish was pulled straight from the ocean and sliced up, eyes still moving, at a little restaurant overlooking the water.

  “What do you want to do for the rest of our time?” Helena dipped deep-red tuna into the sashimi sauce. “We have a week. Are we going to do any more sightseeing? How about the monkeys in the hot spring?”

  “Those are in the north.” I took a bite of fish that melted in my mouth. “And I still haven’t given Taro the letter.”

  Helena blanched. “Come on. What’s the big deal? He’ll read it and respond, or not.”

  “Mom needs an answer, not silence.”

  “He’s not going to change just for you, you know.” Helena sounded wiser than I felt. “Will he, Sumiko?”

  Sumiko twirled some long noodles into her son’s mouth, a mother bird feeding her baby. The wind picked up and blew her hair off her face. “One never knows with Taro.”