Drafts of a Suicide Note

by Wong, Mandy-Suzanne

  E’s voice was full of feeling. Not intense enough to be like K’s but just enough to make me think of Kenji’s voice & how this HELL that he is going thru is just DESTROYING IT. It hurt so bad to think about it, what with Baby spewing his guts out & nobody in his family even noticing he was gone.

  So yeah I know this was a big moment for E & all. Ripping off the Kiki costume that fooled even me & K. Going public with his “love” for fish-demons. Getting suspended & learning from his momma even the “golden boy” can mess things up big-time. Not to mention finding out that she’d been watching superspy-style to the point that she knew the Kiki costume was a costume… And yeah all this prbly said a lot about K’s momma. (She said to E: “All your posturing & caricaturing demonstrates a disgustingly veiled disrespect for sexual difference. This despite the trouble I took to have you somewhat liberally educated.”) Real instructive & all that, sure.

  But at that point all I heard was Erik not saying a word when his father lashed out over our picture. I said, “All that pretending just to tell that blankety-blank that she can love whoever, & she in’t even here to help you take the heat. But you want me to feel ashamed for loving Kenji, enough to let her so-so picture ruin our lifelong—”

  “Quiet.” Mrs C. I went quiet.

  But I have never been so angry. I felt like something huge that’s caught on fire. Like a building. Something you want to get out of the way of when it’s caught on fire & only defiance is keeping it upright. I prbly looked like a strangled chicken, I sounded like a strangled chicken, that’s why they all looked at me. Erik looked disoriented & sort of compressed. I think he would’ve said something or maybe thought of saying something, but his momma said, “Go sit in the car.”

  E & Mr C went to sit in the car. They didn’t look at me, didn’t say nothing. E looked miserable & shocked. Mr C, I have to say he looked relieved. Mrs C said a word in Japanese, & I guess Mr Motomura went to sit in the car too.

  To be honest, I didn’t see them leave the flat, I assumed they did cuz Mrs C is Mrs C & I stood aside to let them leave the kitchen. But as soon as they’d done that, ya girl was at the bathroom door, “Baby let me in,” burning cuz of all that he’d endured all for me, words that nobody’s baby should ever have to endure. I had my forehead & my shaky hands pressing the door. Kenji was still being frighteningly sick. I tried to melt the door with tears. Then I felt something beside me.

  Mrs C slid up without making a sound. She didn’t touch the doorknob, I was squeezing the doorknob, but she lifted her hand. She put her hand on the door.

  So it was me & Masami Okada-Caines, a closed door, & the sounds of suffering.

  I forgave her a little. For a sec. There was pain in the way she held her mouth, fear in the shiver of her forehead. When Kenji retched, she blinked & it was like a wince.

  I said, “You & Mr C gotta give Kenji a chance. Take some time, try to understand.”

  “If he would allow us, I’m certain we’d understand.”

  “But see, it’s complicated.”

  “Yes. He’s fortunate to have you as a friend.”

  Much good was it doing him, I thought. Mrs C dropped her hand & turned to me.

  “Nabilah, how much do you know about this business with Char Richards, these so-called documents…”

  “Aetna Simmons,” I said, feeling sapped.

  “You must understand. It puts me in a difficult situation. It wouldn’t do for the scheme to continue. Especially in the event that he (she meant Kenji) went somewhere with his accusations. But I cannot simply go to my contact at Clocktower & claim that one of his VPs is defrauding their clients & embezzling on the company’s behalf. I cannot accuse his people of trying to use my firm as a so-called laundromat for ill-gotten gains. As my husband would point out, people are already too eager to believe that Bermudians are capable of nothing else.”

  “That’s beside the point now, Mrs C.”

  “Indeed. My concern is different. If I emulated his finger-pointing tactics, Clocktower would have no choice but to mount an internal investigation or hire a firm like BRMS to do so, in which case the inquiry would doubtlessly be successful. Char would never work again, CAM would lose Clocktower’s portfolio. If he went public with this, the same results would issue.”

  (She never said, not once, but she meant Kenji.)

  “In neither case could I appear to condone fraud because of nepotism. I’d have to fire Katsuo.”

  “That’s kinda how it should be, isn’t it?”

  “Is it? Well, you’re not a mother. If you tried to think as though you were, would you be able to punish your son for wooing Clocktower in order to please you & propel his father’s ambitions? Would you alienate your child for that? If it meant not just destroying his career but also turning him out of your house, publicly denouncing him, & distancing yourself from him, could you bring yourself to do it? My clientele would expect no less of me. Do you understand?”

  “Not really.” (Couldn’t tell if Baby was coughing or sobbing.)

  “Although Katsuo’s actions were deleterious to some, his intentions were noble. & I must think of CAM. It’s a private company, & it’s going to stay that way. Someone has to carry on. I’ve been preparing Katsuo for years. There’s no one else. Our colleagues need not learn the reason for his sudden absence. The other thing must simply be forgotten.”

  “But that’s not fair.”

  “Katsuo must endure his suspension. As I will have to endure it. At first I considered excising both sons from the family register in Tokyo. Both of them set out to ruin me. Perhaps it would be best if history believed I never produced children. I changed my mind however.”

  “You’re still a mother.”

  “Exactly. It would be too much. But he (still Kenji) obviously desires that his family should be excised from his life. Far be it from me to dishonor such impassioned arguments as those he made tonight.”

  She had a little frown, that’s it.

  “Do you understand, Nabilah?”

  I was too shocked to say anything, I just shook my head. What with everything else, I can’t remember what she said next, maybe nothing. I keep seeing her walk away, her perfect haircut & gray suit getting smaller & smaller.

  Courage, acegirl. Baby’s got a fat lotta nobody on his side.

  All these “visitations” were HORRIBLE for K. He unlocked the door but couldn’t get up from the floor. He sat opposite the toilet, his head against the wall. The instant I barged in I threw myself down & hugged him, Kenji gasped cuz of how hard I hugged, & I know I’m the most pathetic female on this earth, but I hung onto whatever I could reach of him. He was burning up with fever, my head felt like I was ready for a straitjacket. “Baby, let’s call the hospital. I’ll go with you, it’ll be OK. You’re not alone, Kenji, OK?”

  “Go home. It doesn’t matter.” His voice was almost gone. It made me think how easy it could be to lose him, how I almost did lose him to Aetna & Char, other people’s ambitions, & The Last Loss that means lost forever!

  “What’re you talking about, ‘doesn’t matter’? Kenji, listen. Don’t leave me. You dragged yourself out to get me cuz you know I can’t make it without you.”

  Never thought of Kenji all drastic like that before. He started pushing me away, he wouldn’t let me kiss him! Then his hand was a claw at the back of my head, pushing my head against his chest where his hectic breaths went in. & isn’t this how it’s been forever, us 2 clinging to each other despite ourselves?

  “I can’t go on like this, Nabi. (Oh, Baby.) I keep telling you it won’t make a bit of difference.”

  “Everyone’s just scared. Your family didn’t mean those hurtful things. But whatever. I’m gonna take care of you.”

  “Yeah, you say that, but you…”

  “You think I don’t mean it, Kenji??!!”

  “You’re better off without me. A j
unkie weighing you down.”

  This is what the man says while he’s passing his fingers nice & gentle thru my hair. Then doing it again & again so I’d feel like I matter. I couldn’t understand how he could just not believe me! I could only think about terror of being without him. I cried, “Forget the junk. You know what I learned out there, Baby? I am not no ‘courageous & decisive spirit turning terror into courage.’ Yes, Baby, I read it all. But you didn’t write it all. You remember once we couldn’t help it even though it was Thursday? I called you to come get me & we watched that scary movie but I was a fraidy cat & hid behind your hand, & you laughed real soft, remember? You asked should we turn it off & I said no cuz all the screaming & chainsawing & carrying on was raining down on us & it was totally OK for me to be the silly fraidy cat I really am instead of Managing Partner, lead soprano, steady wife, computer guru, whatever else. It was OK cuz you were with me, Kenji. You remember? Well, I am nothing but that fraidy cat. Those other things, they’re just ‘crumbling facades,’ all I’ve been doing for however long is running from one to the other to the next & back. Except when I’m with you. Kenji, I’m nothing except with you.”

  I was too loud, Kenji wouldn’t let me look at him, I didn’t mean to compare the O-C family to a slasher movie, it just bumbled out.

  “I’ve got to get out of your way, that’s all, Nabi.”

  “Kenji, I’m telling you I can’t lose you.”

  “It was just a movie, Nabi!”

  “Kenji. Kenji, why won’t you hear me?”

  “Let me go. You have to.”

  But he buried his face in my hair, & I felt him fighting exhaustion & how hard it was, for the first time I understood how hard, how much I never understood even though it happened in my arms & kept on happening. I kept hearing the way Kenji said “Martin” in front of everyone, I felt Kenji’s hands clinging to my back & faltering, Kenji too afraid to hear my voice. I kept seeing him backed up against the wall, fighting to stand still & not collapse in his own kitchen. & all this time, that’s what it was like for him, holding us together by deferring & deferring, like his own feelings didn’t matter just cuz Martin’s family. The labor of being there for me.

  We gave up trying to leave the bathroom. Something like 11 p.m., poor K was almost screaming with the stomach cramps, & the doorbell yet again! I wasn’t planning on answering, but the so-&-so kept ringing. I ran out to scream at whoever.

  Didn’t think of Martin. Figured he was still vexed. I threw open the door & we looked at each other. The night, the outdoor sconce above his head, dark kitchen behind me, the horror of my hair, my terrified look…Martin’s terrified look, I must’ve given him a fright. I thought I whispered, Honey save us! Then I figured out I hadn’t, I was relieved that I hadn’t, I realized I was losing more marbles by the minute, & I sort of “fell into his arms.”

  Martin said, “Lord forgive us.” & kissed me, a big kiss. A passionate kiss. I needed this. Yes. I kissed him back.

  It shouldn’t be wrong to love any other living thing. But it is sometimes.

  “Come in,” I said softly.

  Martin wanted to kiss me again. There in Kenji’s kitchen. I don’t know what I thought I wanted. I made him sit on a stool, I mean Martin. He looked stunned.

  Martin in the car, Martin in the church, Martin opening the oven, Martin at a harbor-side table in the sun, Martin on the beach under the stars, Martin in our bed asleep…

  I checked the bathroom. Kenji sprawled in the empty jacuzzi with his eyes closed, breathing quick & shallow. I left the door open.

  I offered to make my husband a cup of tea. It seemed like a sane-ish thing to do. Poor Honey still looked stunned, his tie was balled up in his pocket. “Any improvement?”

  The naked hope in his face had nothing to do with K. I felt mixed up & messed up, I fiddled with the kettle & asked why he wasn’t home in bed (I mean Martin). Honey’d left his blazer someplace, he looked at his shoes, & I knew that rigid-shouldered pose. He was thinking of a prayer.

  He took a breath. He looked at me. My Martin. He said he’d found Doreen Trimm-Eastbridge (PhD). He’d left her a message & she’d flown to Bermuda. Like, the same day. This evening, 8:30, she’s tapping on his door.

  I imagine this small frumpy white lady with the puffy face in the buzzing offices of Martin’s team. It’s after hours, they’re going strong. Cheap suit, too tight on her. It’s wrinkled cause she’s just stepped off the plane. If Martin is a kiskadee, sleek & shrewd & courageous, then Dr Eastbridge is a sparrow. I bet she’s trying to sound English & forget that she’s Bermudian. She says something stiff & formal such as: I am here pursuant to your inquiry concerning Aetna Simmons, but she’s actually freaking out. Martin offers her a chair & a look that says: competence, reliability.

  Here’s what she told Martin.

  Even before Martin got in touch with her, Dr E heard from her cousin, Neil Ingham (Private Constable), that “somebody” was asking questions about Aetna Simmons. “Somebody” said he was writing a book, but cousin Neil had doubts about this “book” cuz this “certain somebody” was the son of a CEO & potential MP. Few weeks later, a certain corporate investigator emailed Dr E about the same thing, & she got even more suspicious. She decided to come home & find out what her momma had gotten herself into.

  Martin said something like: Forgive me, Dr E, but you don’t seem too surprised. You really think your mother had it in her to be part of something “underhanded”?

  I think Dr E was thinking that’s for true & take her that. But she didn’t say so. She got a frumpy white lady’s version of the look that Kenji gets when anybody points out something that’s been obvious to him for donkey’s. She said, “Why do you think I became a criminal psychologist? To try to understand her.”

  At first this seemed extreme to Martin cuz poor old Mrs Trimm was never formally accused of any crime. But soon he understood where Dr E was coming from. Since she felt like she could trust him, Dr E told him things her momma said over the years.

  From the beginning, Mrs T sensed something strange about the tenant in the cottage. A sort of oddness stank out of the place that the tenant rarely left & nobody visited. Mrs T told Dr E: Czarina didn’t like it. Dr E is sensible & ignored this. She told her momma to leave the tenant be. That might be why Mrs T became a thief: she resented Dr E trying to tell her what to do (Dr E’s opinion). Mrs T went fishing & bragged when she hooked something (talk about poky snobers): the woman poked underneath her tenant’s mattress! Martin said Dr E said her momma told her that she found enough paper under that mattress to stuff a couch. Prbly exaggerating, I mean Dr E never got to see it for herself, but the papers, the documents, were neatly laid out between the mattress & box spring, one beside the other & plenty of them too. If a couple walked away (thought Mrs T), nobody would notice. She stole 10. 10 papers. 10 suicide notes.

  Now, in Dr E’s professional opinion, somebody who sleeps on a bed of suicide notes prbly needs help. In fact years before, when Mrs T described the guy who brought the tenant to the cottage for the first time (Erik), Dr E guessed he got stuck with a “balmy relative” & chose the cottage in St G as “discreet storage” for this person (Martin’s words). Mrs T thought there was more to it than that, but Dr E didn’t want to hear it. She thought it wasn’t a landlady’s place to do or say nothing one way or the other.

  So when her momma invaded the tenant’s privacy & made off with her stuff, Dr E hit the ceiling. She reminded Mrs T of the time the cops came: Mrs T decked (!!) a garbage man who tried to take the dead stuffed cat off her doorstep. She got off with a warning cuz she’s old & Dr E called in. But this time, Dr E said, you get caught with stolen property, I’ma let de man deal wif you (man meaning cops). Actually she said (I mean Dr E told Martin) that she couldn’t lie & pretend her momma hadn’t told her what she’d done. She’d confessed to a crime, & Dr E had a professional reputation to consider.

&nbs
p; So Aetna vanished, Mrs T got scared. She thought Aetna was hiding from something way worse than embarrassment. She called the police but feared that they or “other people” might find the documents she stole & start asking questions. So she took the suicide notes back to the cottage.

  Why didn’t she put them right back where she found them? Cuz when she looked under the mattress (which was neatly made up), the rest of the papers were gone. Mrs T figured poor Aetna found her out & hid them someplace else. She searched the cottage but didn’t find nothing. She called the phone number Erik gave her but could only leave a vmail, tried going thru the CAM switchboard but could only leave a vmail for his secretary. & after that she didn’t know what to do, the cops were on their way, she was all up a tree. So she dropped the 10 on the edge of Aetna’s desk & went to meet the cruiser at the top of her driveway.

  Except for the bits that made the news, Dr E has no idea what her momma said to the police. She heard K & M were on the case & flew home. That’s how she learned someone broke into her late momma’s house & “absconded” with several “prized possessions.” (She says “prized possessions” like it’s a set of antique china she’s talking about, not a houseful of dead cats. & the woman calls herself a shrink.) Dr E’s “instincts” as a criminologist made her wonder if these “happenstances” might be connected. The taxi driver who brought her from the airport was waiting to make sure she got inside OK, so Dr E got right back in his van & rode it into town. She went to Martin for advice.

  Honey likes giving advice. He’s good at it. He also believes in justice. Not the better-build-an-ark kind of justice but the kind that goes with kindness & humility. He’s not a policeman, which means he can be free with the second kind.