Swimming to Tokyo

by Brenda St John Brown

I squirm a little in the chair and my hip brushes Finn’s. He hasn’t said anything since I sat down, and from the look on his face, he isn’t planning to. But it feels really inane to talk to his father about my possible college major. And I have nothing to lose.

  “Why did you ask to meet me?” I blurt it out and take another sip of coffee to cover the way my face flushes.

  Finn’s leg tenses against mine, but his eyes stay on John and I think he doesn’t know either. The corner of John’s mouth goes up. “Yer important to my…to Finn. I doubt he’s been generous in what he’s told ya. I wouldn’t be. I’m not sure I expected ya to agree.”

  I wait for him to elaborate, but we just sit there staring at each other until I turn my attention to my coffee like that’s what I came in here for.

  The silence stretches from seconds into minutes.

  I stare at my coffee, pushing my tiny teaspoon around and around the delicate china cup. I don’t know what to say, although I’m pretty sure if anyone’s going to break the silence, it’s going to be me.

  Finally John clatters his cup and clears his throat. “I should probably let ya get on with yer day.”

  What?

  Finn nods. “Sure. Yeah.” He squeezes my fingers. “I, um, need the bathroom and I’ll be right back, okay?”

  He rises before I can protest, and my eyes follow him until he closes the door behind him.

  “Thanks for coming.” John’s voice is soft.

  “I…I…”

  “You two take good care of each other.” He puts his hands on the table and pushes himself up.

  “Wait. Where are you going? What are you doing?” I stand, too, splashing my coffee all over the table.

  “Like I said, I’ll let ya get on with yer day.” If I didn’t know him—or about him, anyway—I’d feel sorry for him. For the way he looks so sad and lost.

  “He’ll be back in a minute.” I point to the bathroom door. “Don’t you want to wait?”

  “No.” John shakes his head really slowly, and my God, his eyes practically swallow me whole. “No, I don’t.”

  This is the moment where I’m supposed to say something that will make him open up to me. That will make him tell me everything so that, when Finn comes back from the bathroom, there will be this big emotional outpouring between the two of them. All the things they can’t say. Hearts laid bare. Etcetera. Etcetera.

  But I just watch him walk away.

  I’m still standing there when Finn comes out of the bathroom. His glance skitters across my face to the empty chairs at the table.

  “He, um, left.” I half-wait for him to blame me for John leaving. To ask me what I said. Or didn’t.

  He just nods and points to my cup. “Do you want to finish your coffee?”

  “No.” I expect him to say something else, but he doesn’t.

  We gather up our stuff and leave the coffee shop. Outside I blurt out, “I don’t know why he just left. I’m sorry. He should’ve stayed to say goodbye.”

  “He said goodbye a long time ago. Besides, he got what he came for. He said his piece and looked me in the eye when he did it.” Finn doesn’t sound sad. Or annoyed. Or much of anything.

  “What about you? Did you get what you came for?” I say it really softly, in case he can’t answer.

  He doesn’t answer for two minutes. I know because I count to sixty twice. “Maybe.”

  I let out a long, slow breath. “Good.”

  This was a test. His test. Entirely self-imposed. Does that mean he passed? I literally bite my tongue so I won’t ask. I want to. I want to hear it. See his face. Look into those eyes. But I won’t.

  Won’t. Won’t. Won’t.

  “Where are you headed now?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. You?” I literally have not thought beyond this moment. At all.

  “I just…I really want to go home.” For a fraction of a second, his shoulders drop.

  Which is what finally makes me put my arms around him. One around his back, another around his waist. As tight as I can.

  He sinks into me. His arm circles my shoulder, and he inches closer, kissing my hair before letting go. “I can’t do this, Zosia.”

  At first I don’t understand. All I hear is, “I can’t.” My throat closes up.

  “Finn…”

  “Let’s go home. I need to go home.”

  chapter twenty-two

  Home.

  Home turns out to be Finn’s. His room. His futon.

  He leads me through the empty apartment, closing the door to his bedroom firmly behind us before he sinks down on the futon, drawing me down with him. Our legs thread together, his jeans rough against my bare legs. The shell button of his shirt digs into my cheek when I rest my head against his chest. It’s not comfortable. Usually we’re skin-on-skin, at least from the knees down, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen Finn in anything other than shorts and a T-shirt. Nine times out of ten he ends up losing at least his shirt at my prodding.

  But not today. Today I don’t say anything about his shirt or otherwise. I haven’t said much at all since we left Ueno. An occasional comment on the train and that’s pretty much it. It takes all my effort not to fill the silence between us. The only thing that makes it even possible is the way he holds my hand. Tight. Like a lifeline.

  Which is why I don’t squirm or move away. My leg falls asleep, but I still don’t move. Finn’s breathing slows and deepens, and I wonder when he last slept. If he’s known about this since last week, I’d guess it’s gotten less and less as today approached.

  I remember when Mom had to go in for a biopsy of a lump in her breast. It was after the first round of radiation. It was supposed to be taking the tumor away, not growing new ones. But one day she found a bump. The biopsy was four days from when she first told the doctor. The night before I didn’t sleep at all. I lay awake in bed staring at the ceiling and crossing my fingers like that really worked. Like wishing would make it so.

  I’m emotionally drained, so it’s no surprise I fall asleep caught somewhere between missing Mom and aching for Finn. It makes for a restless sleep, and I wake up sweating, with my shirt twisted around my ribs. When I open my eyes, Finn’s propped up on one elbow looking at me. It’s dark, but the light from the streetlamp outside the window reflects in his eyes. Stars in the night sky.

  “Hey.” His voice is soft.

  “Hey.”

  “My mom texted. She’s on her way home.”

  “That’s…fine.” I shrug against the pillow. “Is my dad with her?”

  “Probably.” Finn clears his throat. “I can’t imagine he’ll be thrilled to find you here.”

  No, I can’t imagine that either. But I shake the thought from my head and shift so I face Finn. “How are you?”

  “Yeah.” He closes his eyes for a beat. “Thanks for coming with me today.”

  “Anytime.”

  His smile is sad. “I’m pretty sure that was a one-shot deal.”

  I’m pretty sure it was, too. Finn won’t be seeing John again. If either of them wanted that, they would have said goodbye. “I’m—”

  “Don’t. Please.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek so I won’t. There is no right thing to say.

  Finn starts tracing circles on my ribcage, sending tiny shivers rippling through me. It’s partly his touch, pure and physical. But it’s partly relief. His fingers on my skin after days of missing him. I could either cry or kiss him.

  So I kiss him.

  It’s explosive, full of every pent-up longing and fear and need of the past five days. And not just mine. Both of us tear clothes away. Buttons popping onto the wooden floor sound like rain against the window pane, muted and far away. We’re on fire, white-hot and getting hotter.

  So it takes a while before Dad’s low murmur creeps into the edges of my consciousness, alternating with Eloise’s lilting voice and the clatter of pots and lids. Finn hears him a second after I do, his lips still on my throat
.

  “Oh, hell,” I whisper, the heat in my stomach morphing into dread. I’m pretty sure those were my buttons popping off earlier. Never mind the closed door. And the fact that Dad thinks Finn and I are over.

  Finn brings his lips back to mine, and the way he kisses me makes me forget for ten seconds Dad is even in the same country. But then he stops. “I’ll talk.”

  “No.” My voice is normal. Firm. I lower it a little and shake my head. “No.”

  I sit up and look down. My bra is undone, and those are my buttons on the floor. “I’m, um, just going to need to borrow a shirt.”

  Finn gets up and rifles through a drawer in the dark. He comes back with a top and slips mine off, doing up my bra before handing me the shirt in his hand. As soon as I thread my arms through, I realize it’s one of mine and am flooded with relief. Thank God I’ve left a few things here over the past few weeks, discards from my gym bag. This is going to be bad enough without me walking out there in Finn’s clothes.

  I comb my fingers through my hair. It’s wild, I’m sure. My lips are swollen because there’s no way that kissing was gentle, and I wonder how red my chin is from Finn’s stubble. Not that there’s anything I can do about it, but wow, this isn’t the way I pictured this happening. At all. In fact, if I pictured a worse-case scenario, this might be it. Walking out of Finn’s bedroom looking like we were doing exactly what we were doing. And then some. Because I’m pretty sure if Dad and Eloise hadn’t walked in, we wouldn’t have stopped. Couldn’t have stopped.

  “I should, um, probably just get this over with.” I put one hand on the doorknob, the other on Finn’s chest.

  “Zosia.” He pushes my hair away from my face. “You shouldn’t—”

  I kiss him because I don’t want him to say it and open the door.

  Dad and Eloise both turn at the sound. It’s clear from the looks on their faces Dad thought they were alone and Eloise knew they weren’t, although she seems surprised to see me, I’ll give her that. I guess she thought we were over, too.

  “Hey, Dad.” My voice sounds normal. I feel Finn come up behind me, but I don’t look at him.

  “Zosia? What are you doing here?” For a split second, he looks confused. Then his eyes rake over me, Finn, the bedroom door, and his tone hardens. “What are you doing here?”

  “Greg.” Eloise’s hand is on Dad’s arm, and her voice is tentative. For the first time since I’ve met her, I remember John took his temper out on her long before he got to Finn. The look in her eyes reminds me. That dread edged with fear.

  “Eloise, don’t. This is between me and my daughter.” Dad sounds like a grade-A asshole.

  Finn’s voice behind me is even but hard as nails. “Your daughter is more than I deserve, Mr. Easton. I get that. And I get you don’t like me and that’s fine. But please don’t talk to my mother that way. Or your daughter.”

  Eloise and I both take a sharp breath in, and my dad pales, then reddens in the span of less than five seconds.

  “I don’t think my conversation with my daughter—” Dad makes a point to enunciate those two words. “—is your concern.” His eyes burn into Finn’s and land on me. “What are you doing here, Zosia?”

  Finn answers before I can. “My father was in town today.”

  Eloise’s takes a sharp breath in. Wow, so Finn didn’t tell her either.

  “He wanted to make amends, he said.” Finn continues. “He might even really be sorry. It’s hard to tell with him.”

  “I…I didn’t realize…” Dad’s tone softens a little. This trumps his anger at me, at least temporarily.

  Finn shrugs. “Zosia showed up as I was leaving. I didn’t mean for her come with me.”

  Ouch.

  Dad’s eyes shift back to me now, a little harder. “You went with him?”

  I nod because Finn’s still talking. “She said she’d fight for me. She came here after everything. After all the shit I’ve done and not done, and that’s what she said. Do you have any idea what it feels like to hear that? I mean, who does that? Who says things like that? To me? Jesus…”

  His voice breaks at the end. I’ve only been looking at him out of the corner of my eye, but I turn to him now. He bites his lip and his eyes shine. He’s going to cry. He twists his mouth like he can stop it. Like he can ride the wave instead of going under.

  He can’t. I know that better than anyone.

  Eloise’s hand rests on one arm and mine reaches for the other when the tears start. Finn yanks away, veering back toward his bedroom. Eloise lets go.

  I don’t.

  His sobs are noisy. Gut-wrenching. Heavy with hurt.

  Finn reels against the wall and looks at my hand on his arm, as if just realizing I’m in here with him. My breath catches at the expression on his face. It’s the same as the one he had that day in the temple when he first started telling me the truth about his father. This—now—is the rest of it.

  The whole truth.

  So help me God.

  “Nigdy odszukują wiatr w terenie. To jest bezużyteczne próbować odkrycie co już jest nieobecny.” I whisper it like a prayer and let go of his arm.

  Finn sinks down against the wall like I was the one thing holding him up. I study the back of his head buried in his arms. His shoulders still shake, although he’s quieter now.

  More than anything I want to wrap my arms around him. But I remember how I felt the first time I cried for Mom, washing that green paint off my hands, my heart in three hundred pieces. I was afraid I would shatter, too.

  I kneel down next him instead. I’m right inside the doorway of his bedroom, and Eloise and Dad stand in the living room exactly where we left them, like maybe only seconds have passed. It feels like forever.

  I meet Dad’s eyes. He shakes his head really slowly, his hands on his hips. He looks like he has a million things to say, and I won’t want to hear a single one of them. He holds my gaze as he takes two steps toward Finn’s room, stopping on the other side of the threshold.

  I know our earlier argument isn’t over. Hell, it’s hardly started. I clench my hands at my sides, and Dad’s eyes flicker over them before they rest on that space between Finn’s shoulder blades that usually looks so strong. He stands there for a really long time, staring at the back of Finn’s neck. A really long time.

  I gnaw at my lip so I won’t say anything when Dad’s eyes meet mine again. I swear in the past three minutes they’ve sunk far back into his face, and his voice rumbles when he says, “You’re her daughter, Zo. Through and through.”

  He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something else and shuts it again. Then he reaches over and closes the door between us.

  Me and Finn on one side, Dad on the other.

  I stare at the back of the door for ten seconds, trying to understand what just happened. Dad murmurs to Eloise, and although I can’t hear his words, I think maybe he’s apologizing. Then the door closes. The front door.

  “I told you that you were like her.” Finn’s face is still buried in his arms, his voice muffled.

  I am?

  I glance again at Finn’s shoulders, his dark hair against his skin. In my mind’s eye, I see my mom kneeling beside me the day she told me about the doctor’s appointment. C-Day, I called it. The day they confirmed the cancer.

  She’d been in the kitchen when I came home from school, and I asked her about the appointment. The look on her face told me everything, and I’d sat down on the floor against the kitchen cabinets, crying. She’d knelt down beside me and run her hand through my hair, which had only made me cry harder.

  I’d apologized, telling her I’d be okay in a minute.

  She’d pulled me close and said, “Oh, Zosia. I don’t need you to be okay. You never need to be okay with this.”

  I reach for Finn’s arm but stop my hand in mid-air as he looks up. His eyes are bleary and swollen, but he sees my hand hovering and attempts a smile that doesn’t quite take. “I’ll be fine in a few minutes.”

/>   The pain shoots through my chest, jagged and deep.

  “No, Finn. No, you won’t.” My voice drops to a whisper as I let my hand rest on his arm.

  It takes eight seconds for his hand to go over mine, and when it does, I climb into his lap and tighten my arms around his chest.

  He draws me closer, his lips against my hair, and I sit there listening to Finn’s heart, a steady thrum in my ear.

  chapter twenty-three

  “If there’s a spider in my hair, I’m going to scream.” “There is not a damn spider in your hair. Relax.” Mindy pushes another dusty box toward me across the floor of the attic. “What about this one?”

  I pick at the tape with my nail and open the cardboard flaps. “Oh my God. It’s my old dress-up stuff.” I hold up a pair of Mickey Mouse ears. They remind me of Meriko. “Remember these?”

  “Third grade?”

  I put them on my head. “You think they still suit me?”

  “No.” Mindy shoves another box across the floor. “We’re supposed to be sorting stuff to give away. Salvation Army’s coming tomorrow.”

  “I know.” I pick up a feathery boa from the costume box and put it around my neck. “The rest can go.”

  “Two boxes down. Twenty-five to go.” Mindy points to the box in front of me. “Yes? No?”

  The smell at least warns me. Lavender wafts up into the stale, hot air even before I rip the tape off. “It’s my mom’s.” I open the box like it holds a bomb.

  I’ve barely come up to the attic the past three years, but the Realtor called Dad a week ago. Our renters had to move. The husband had gotten his dream job in Pittsburgh, of all places. Great for him. Less great for us. But another family had just come on the radar. They loved the house but would prefer it unfurnished. Would it be possible to move in sooner rather than later? They have small children and want to get them started in school. She said a lot of other stuff. She must have because the phone call lasted forty-five minutes. And then Dad sort of hung his head in his hands and said we needed to come up with a plan so they could move in before Labor Day.

  The plan mostly involved me leaving Tokyo two days after that and coming back to sort stuff out. Never mind how I felt about it. It was the last thing I wanted to do. There wasn’t really a better option with how frantic Dad’s work is. He’ll be back to tie up loose ends, but anything I could do in the meantime…