Unbreak My Heart

by Lauren Blakely

  The words from the website echo in my mind—very healing cure.

  I stare at the teahouse as if secret hatches will open or hidden doors will invite us in. “All right, teahouse, what have you got?”

  “There’s a legend that the tea leaves are not ordinary tea leaves. That they have mystical powers.”

  Mystical powers. Is that what Ian believed? Was he going for broke and defying all logic . . . fighting like hell to live, no matter what?

  “Tell me everything,” I say, sounding desperate to know, because I am.

  Kana straightens, spreads her arms as if summoning an ancient spirit, and then begins. “There’s a legend that one of the Japanese emperors a long time ago had a young and beautiful wife, who had suddenly taken ill. He loved her madly and searched far and wide for the best doctors to treat her. But with each successive doctor, she grew more ill. She was hallucinating, talking to people who didn’t exist. But the emperor loved her so, and when she muttered something about the tea leaves in the nearby fields, he went himself to search. And there in the fields near his palace, where only rice had grown before, there was one single row of tea plants sprouting up from the soil.”

  Kana gestures slowly, gently, as if she’s drawing up a tea leaf from the ground. She continues in her hushed tone, and for a second I feel as if I’m in a house of worship.

  “He gathered the leaves himself.” She demonstrates, as if she’s plucking leaf after leaf off a bush. “And he commanded the royal tea master to brew tea with these leaves. He brought the steaming teapot on a tray to his wife, and he poured the cup. She took a sip, then another, and then she looked at him and said”—Kana reaches out her hand as if to place it on a cheek, like she’s playing the part of the young wife—“my love.”

  No wonder Ian was taken with her.

  It’s in her eyes, her hands, in the way she recounts her city’s folklore. She’s enchanting, and in this moment, I see her through his eyes: warm, upbeat, outgoing. But also, full of hope and life.

  I can see so clearly why Ian was drawn to her.

  And to here.

  This city is perfectly paired with this woman, even if I don’t believe in the power of a drink to heal. I’m not a practitioner of legends.

  She continues, “Every day she drank more, and every day she grew stronger. And then she was cured.”

  Cured. Such a gorgeous word, such a painful word. The word I begged for, bargained for, hoped for. The only word in the English language that mattered.

  “They were together for many years. They had five healthy children and lived long and prosperous lives. And the wife gave thanks every day for the Tatsuma tea leaves that had grown in the fields when she most needed them.”

  I want to laugh. I want to scoff. I want to blow this all off. But something about the way she tells the story makes me want to challenge myself—so I can believe in the tea too. It wouldn’t kill me to believe in something for once. Ian was the happy one, and lately my heart’s been a black hole.

  But it’s filling in, little by little.

  Not every second, not every day. But here and there—like at the fish market with Holland, like texting with Jeremy, and now.

  “Did Ian believe in that story? Because he was the most rational person I knew.”

  Kana looks into the distance, a tear welling in her eye. She wipes it away. “For a long time, yes. He believed in the possibility with all his heart.”

  Why didn’t he tell me, then? Why didn’t he share that story with me?

  I knew he was a fighter. And sure, I know he wanted to live. But I was never privy to these deeper hopes.

  Maybe he figured I’d never believe them. That I’d laugh. I want to tell him I didn’t laugh—I listened.

  “Can we go in?” I ask instead.

  “Yes,” she says and pulls the heavy red door open.

  It’s like walking into a shrine. The room is lit only by candlelight. Five low tables are arranged on the stone floor, with only cushions as seats, no chairs.

  I slip off my flip-flops and place them in a wooden cubby. Kana removes her red Mary Janes. A woman wearing a green kimono emerges from behind a wood door, and they speak in Japanese. She gestures to a table and we sit.

  Soon, the woman returns with a steaming teapot and two mugs. She raises the pot several inches in the air and tilts the spout down, filling the cups.

  She looks at Kana, and more words rain down. The woman chatters for a minute, then another, Kana nodding and smiling the whole time. The only words I understand are the last ones that she says to me: “Domo arigato.”

  “Domo arigato,” I repeat, wondering what I’m thanking her for.

  Kana laughs softly.

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  She shakes her head. “No. She just said how much you look like Ian.”

  “That seems to be the theme lately.”

  “But then she also said she was honored to take care of your brother,” Kana says.

  “Take care of him?”

  “Yes. She served him tea.”

  “But how is that taking care of him?”

  Kana shushes me and urges me to drink.

  I take a sip. It tastes like hot barley. What’s so special about this healing tea?

  “How was she taking care of him if he died? There was no cure. The tea wasn’t mystical. He’s gone. Done. Sayonara. The jig is up.” My voice is caustic, the words corrosive, because it’s hard for me to believe when the evidence says this tea does nothing.

  Kana bites her lip, and I watch her throat move, as if she’s swallowing roughly, holding in tears.

  “Shit. I’m sorry,” I say, my head hanging low. “I know you loved him too.”

  “I did.”

  “I know it’s hard for you,” I say. Her eyes are wet, but she’s holding strong. Like I should be doing. I breathe in deeply then ask the question others ask of me. “How are you holding up?”

  Once I say it, I sit straighter. Asking someone else does something meaningful to me. It changes the score. Makes me feel not so alone at all. This woman I hardly know has more in common with me than I ever expected.

  “It is hard,” she says, but she manages to smile. “But I try to remember the good times and let them fuel me. Fortunately, Ian and I truly only had good times.”

  That’s why he didn’t want her to see him dying. Maybe that was his parting gift to her. The gift of only good memories.

  It seems to have worked too.

  Her smile is infectious. I can’t help but grin, because part of me is thinking of the conversation with Holland from the other day. Endorphins, natural painkillers—those are made during good times. I don’t really want to be thinking of my brother getting it on, and I’m not—but I also understand. Sometimes, you just need a good woman.

  In the worst of times.

  In the best of times.

  In all the times.

  “Tell me about some of your good times with him.” I shake my head and hold up a hand. “Wait. Nothing inappropriate.”

  She laughs and winks. “Don’t worry. I keep those for myself.” She dives into story time. “We loved music. We loved a lot of the same music.”

  I smack my forehead. “Wait. Don’t tell me. He won you over with the piano?”

  She laughs and shrugs happily. “What can I say? When a man plays John Legend for me, I go all swoony. A man like Ian? I had no choice.” She looks away for a second, maybe more, as if she’s remembering. “Our first date was at a piano bar. And he did take me to a John Legend concert.”

  The ticket stub. He went to see the show with her. He must have saved it as a memento.

  I learn that my brother was a total romantic. He pulled out all the stops for Kana. He went full repertoire at the piano bar—John Legend, Ed Sheeran, and Matt Nathanson.

  “Did he tell you he met Matt Nathanson?” I ask, leaning forward.

  “Oh God, he did?” she asks, her pitch rising in excitement.

  “Th
at’s one of the perks of living in Los Angeles. We run into celebrities sometimes. Once, when we were eating at a café in Santa Monica, he saw the singer and walked right up to him.” Kana’s eyes widen as I tell the story. “Ian held out a hand and said, ‘Thank you. Your music has done so much for me. Well, for my love life, that is.’”

  “He said that? That devil,” she says, but her smile is radiant.

  “Matt Nathanson clapped him on the back and said, ‘Happy to help a brother out.’”

  “I’ll never listen to ‘Still’ and not think that.” The spark in her eyes says the song is another good time. Another good memory.

  And I gave her a new piece of it. A new twist on a story. For one of the first times since my brother died, I didn’t take from someone—I gave. It feels . . . cathartic, and it feels amazing.

  As if another patch in the hole in my heart is filling in.

  I lift the cup of tea, and a new piece of understanding slides into place. “Sometimes healing isn’t about our bodies,” I say, and it feels that way for me right now.

  “I believe that’s true.”

  I take another drink. It’s not mystical tea. It doesn’t bring eyesight to the blind. It doesn’t even taste that good. But sipping again makes me turn over a new possibility: maybe what my brother was searching for wasn’t healing from the disease, but healing from the way it could hollow your heart.

  Maybe Kana was part of that healing. I still don’t know what she meant to him entirely. But this much is clear: she was so much more than I thought.

  Maybe she was everything to him.

  Now that—that I understand.

  * * *

  As I walk home to the apartment that evening, my phone pings with an email.

  It’s from my sister.

  21

  Andrew

  Laini is going to be in Kyoto in four days. She has business there, meeting with a design studio her film company contracts with. We make lunch plans, and I plan to spend the next few days with Holland. Three days of unstructured time, with hours spilling before us. It feels like the summer we were together, but it also feels entirely new because we go places neither one of us have ever been.

  We visit a tranquil fish pond where we give nicknames to many of the fish.

  “That orange one? He’s Fred,” I say.

  “The yellow one is Carl.”

  I point to a blue fish. “She’s definitely a Jen.”

  “Fish should always have standard human names,” she agrees.

  “But telling them apart remains the challenge.”

  “Do you think the fish can tell each other apart though?”

  I consider this, furrowing my brow as I study the creatures zipping through the placid water. “Probably. I bet Jen says to herself, ‘Oh I have a lunch appointment with Carl at noon. We’re going to eat some . . .’” I trail off, trying to remember if fish eat plants, algae, or something else.

  Her eyes glint playfully. “Smaller fish. They’re cannibals.”

  “I believe that makes them carnivores.”

  “Tomorrow, let’s be herbivores. I have an idea for a lunch place.”

  The next day we try to find a ramen shop that’s been lauded on food blogs, but we wind up so twisted and turned around we figure it was never meant to be. Especially since we stumble across a lunch spot that serves ice-cream-stuffed bread.

  I point to my empty plate. “Now this was meant to be.”

  “This is last meal–worthy.”

  As I settle the check, my phone rings. I grab it to hit ignore, since I don’t want to be rude and answer it in a quiet restaurant, but it’s the doctor’s office.

  I mouth Dr. Takahashi to Holland, and she shoos me out.

  “Hello?” My voice doesn’t sound like my own.

  I expect the receptionist, but it’s the man himself. “Good afternoon. This is Dr. Takahashi.”

  I straighten my spine when I hear the deep timbre of his voice. “Good afternoon, sir.” He’s definitely a sir.

  My pulse is rocketing, and I’m all raw nerves as he says things like doctor-patient confidentiality and I don’t typically do this.

  Then the next words come, and they’re beautiful. “But I understand this is important, and for you I can step outside the bounds. I return at the end of next week. Can you meet me the next Monday at one? The first Monday in July.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. Thank you so much,” I say, and I’m overjoyed that he’s bending for me. “I’ll see you then.”

  The why—the very thing I came for. He’s the star witness in the case I’m trying to crack, and I hope he can finally tell me the answer to clue number three.

  When Holland leaves the restaurant, she looks at me expectantly.

  I hold my arms out wide, smiling. “I’ve been granted an audience a week from Monday with the good doctor.”

  She squeals and claps then throws her arms around me.

  I don’t know that this is hug-worthy, but for the chance to get a little closer, I’ll deem it so.

  * * *

  At night, we go our separate ways.

  That’s always hard. Watching her fade into the crowd. I want to reach out and yank her back to me.

  But I’m starting to understand she’s not leaving each night—she’s waiting for me.

  Maybe she’s waiting for me to see my sister. The doctor. Or maybe to find all the answers.

  It’s possible she’s waiting for something of her own.

  Perhaps these days together—from the first day at the market, to the next along the canal, to the fishpond and ramen adventures—are part of what she needs too.

  Whatever it is she’s waiting for, I love her more for it.

  Don’t get me wrong—if she invited me up to her place, I’d be there in a nanosecond or less.

  But she doesn’t invite me to stay the night.

  I don’t invite her either. I also don’t take any more painkillers. I find I’m not craving them as much.

  Maybe that’s because I know I’ll see her in the morning.

  * * *

  The next day we visit a clone factory that makes life-size dolls of yourself. “For only seventeen hundred and fifty dollars, you too can make a three-D version of your head perched atop a veritable android body,” I say, as we try not to crack up or freak out while surveying the replicas.

  “I feel like that’s a little, how shall we say, self-indulgent?”

  That afternoon, we take the subway to Ginza to check out the capsule apartments.

  “Could you do it? Live in one of those?” Holland points to one of the hundred or so box-like rooms protruding from a tower, like Tetris blocks haphazardly arranged.

  “You mean if we were in a post-apocalyptic society and that was the only option?”

  She laughs. “Sure. Or if you were relocated to the moon, like in that sci-fi book, and you had to live in a prison-cell-sized room.”

  “I suppose if I had to, I would. But generally, I try to avoid situations where I need to live in a capsule,” I say, as we turn away from the odd building. “I kind of like space, and sun, and beaches.”

  I like, too, that we’ve fallen into this rhythm—checking out the city together as if we’re on a vacation. It sure seems like one. Her new job hasn’t started yet, and I’m taking time off. I called Don Jansen yesterday. He was kind, but quick—“All is well,” he’d told me. Of course all is well.

  She scoffs. “If you like space, you’re in the wrong city.”

  Am I? In the wrong city? Maybe I’m merely playing pretend with her, experiencing a slice of life for a few days, or weeks, before we have to say goodbye again.

  I know there’s an end date. But now I feel it, even more powerfully than I did a few days ago. I want to ask what happens when I return to California, but I don’t want to crush whatever this tender new thing is between us. Nor do I want to ignore what seems to be building.

  I choose an easier way into the topic of us. “It’s been fun—these
last few days,” I say as we pass a shoe store selling high-top Converse shoes decorated with superheroes.

  “It has been. It’s funny because I thought it would feel all mission, mission, mission. But it doesn’t.”

  “What does it feel like?” I ask, a little nervous, a little hopeful.

  She stops and shrugs. “I don’t know how to label it.”

  That’s the problem. We’re living between countries, between jobs. I desperately want to define us, but maybe what we are is in-between—straddling the past and the present, being in love and being friends, wanting and resisting.

  It’s not easy for me to accept. I like black-and-white. But you have to play the hand you’re dealt.

  If my brother had to learn to live between sickness and health, I ought to learn to embrace this time for what it is—time.

  I don’t know where Holland and I are going, or if we’re going anywhere, but maybe that’s the point.

  To not know, and to keep stepping forward anyway.

  And to enjoy the good times, like fish ponds, ice-cream-stuffed bread, and checking out capsule apartments. These random moments remind me why we fell for each other in the first place. We can talk about anything—what is in front of us, what is next, all the what-ifs.

  During the summer we were together, we went to the Santa Monica Pier one evening. She stared with horror at the Ferris wheel, and I asked if she was afraid of heights.

  “No, I’m afraid of Ferris wheels. They’re terrifying. Let’s do the roller-coaster instead.”

  We sped around the bends and steel curves, screaming into the night. Once we were off that ride, I asked what else she was afraid of.

  She’d tapped her lip and hummed. “I’m definitely afraid of getting locked in a gas station bathroom. Also, clowns.”

  I shuddered. “It’s impossible to be unafraid of clowns.”

  “There’s one more thing,” she’d added, looking at me.

  “What is it?”

  She took her time before she spoke, meeting my gaze. “Being far away from you,” she said, then grabbed my shirt collar. “I’m going to miss you so much.”