After the Bloom

by Leslie Shimotakahara

  “You sure you’re all right in there?”

  “I’m fine. Really.”

  The feet creaked away. Lily stared at the wall for a long time, afraid to let her eyes wander. It was terrifying, this rush of sensation, emotion. Her skin prickled, blood coursed through her limbs, right to the extremities of her fingers, toes, lips. She swept a stray lock off her cheekbone, fingertips tracing her scar. At last, she could remember its origin.

  The living room smelled bready and stale; muted whispers called out to her from its dim reaches. Her old self barely audible now, cast to the periphery, the other side. Her eyes fell upon a figurine of the Virgin Mary that Aunt Haruko had put above the fireplace. Now Mary’s face appeared empty of emotion — bored, almost — glossy waves around her shoulders heightened with sensuality. Lily shivered, looked away.

  Where was Kaz? Where had he spent the night? She thought about his thin body curled up under a dirty awning, indistinguishable from any other derelict lying around the neighbourhood.

  The din of last night: harsh, cruel voices. The doctor and Kaz had been fighting, she could remember that much. A cloud of hot, oppressive energy had filled the room. Cheeks florid and taut, the whites of their eyes like full moons. Fear and confusion swept over her, as she looked from father to son: each face but a wavering reflection of the other. Time was pulling away from her in every choked-up breath of every second she failed to distinguish the original face that had laid claim to her heart…. Vile words were flying from the doctor’s lips and in one swift move, he’d grabbed Kaz by the collar and thrown him up against the wall. After the initial shock had passed, Kaz smiled tolerantly, as though he were amused by this show of force and had all the time in the world. Sure, Dad, slap me around a little. They all knew it wouldn’t take much for him to overpower his father.

  The doctor tried to banish him, and Lily started crying, begging him to stay. But Kaz was much too proud for any of that.

  Mr. Dobson’s eyes shone with a new interest. This woman has a lot more to her than I gave her credit for, his eyes said.

  “Did Kaz come back last night?” she asked.

  “No. His bag’s still here, though. The doctor put it in the hall.”

  It was a rough canvas satchel, barely more than a gunny sack, stained and coming apart at the edges. Maybe it would hold some clue to what Kaz had been doing all these years, why he hadn’t come to find her sooner.

  A comb. A razor, dull to the touch. A scruffy toothbrush. A bar of soap, cracked and yellowed. A couple of shirts. A pair of grey trousers, crumpled as dust rags. When she buried her nose in the fabric, she inhaled a hint of wide-open skies and the sun’s hot breath.

  Something rocklike at the bottom. A clunky black camera, scratched up as though it had been dropped many times. She ran her fingertips over the matte silver dial, wondering how all its intricate parts worked. Strange to think that this little box was capable of making pictures, capturing life as it really was, or how the photographer so ardently wanted it to be…. But this camera had no film in it; the hatch was empty.

  Her fingers searched the bottom of the bag, so sure they’d find a photograph. An image of herself, as she’d been back then. As she still was.

  There was nothing.

  The skirt felt wrong, all wrong. Too loose, too frumpy — it bunched up at the waist in elephant wrinkles, making her feel like an old woman. Funny how she’d never noticed that before. Now, all Lily could think was she needed to change out of it. Yet everything in her closet was equally schoolmarmish, hideous.

  The next thing she knew, she was walking down the street, the cool, spring air invigorating her senses. She had a faint sense she was supposed to be headed to the supermarket, but her feet pulled in another direction. Her heart thrummed with images of silk lingerie and crystal bottles, full of the most heavenly fragrances.

  She got on the eastbound streetcar. Getting off at Yonge, she walked south a few blocks, until she could see Eaton’s rising majestically above all the little shop awnings. She lingered in front of the massive display windows, entranced by the unblinking eyes and self-satisfied smiles of the mannequins, their willowy limbs frozen in poses no ordinary woman would assume.

  Inside, so many mirrors and bright lights. Trying to act casual, like she’d been here countless times before, Lily made her way to the ladies’ apparel section.

  Disembodied heads sat on a glass table sporting the latest hats. How deliciously soft the fine wool felt against the back of her hand, the tickle of a sapphire feather. She almost expected the concoction to spring to life and rub itself against her palm.

  Dinner was a solemn, strained affair. Mr. Dobson and Mr. Sugimori were quiet and attentive, like audience members watching actors on stage. The doctor dealt with the situation by eating more heartily and noisily than usual, lavishing praise on Lily’s casserole and salad.

  “So how was your day at school, Tom?”

  “All right, I guess.”

  “You look pale. Are you feeling all right, honey?” Lily placed a hand on his forehead.

  “That man came back again. He spoke to me at recess.”

  “What’s that, Tom?” the doctor said.

  The boy’s gaze remained fastened on his hands, folded tightly in his lap like little birds; he looked afraid they might fly away at any second.

  “Kaz came around the school again. Oh, God.” Lily lowered her voice, with an anxious glance at the boarders. Family business was private business. A car rushed by outside, the sound of a seashell held up to the ear. “We have to reach out to him. We have to let him know he still has a home here.”

  “He does? As far as I’m concerned, he gave up that right a long time ago.”

  “He’s your son. We can’t let him sleep on the street.”

  “So it’s true?” Tom looked up. “That man’s my father?”

  The doctor’s fork had frozen mid-air. A blob landed on the table like a splat of dung.

  “What’s wrong, Mommy?”

  “Nothing, baby.” Her face cold, wet.

  “Your mother’s just been under some stress,” the doctor said. “Maybe she should go upstairs and pull herself together.”

  A hint of the old affection — Lil’s pedantic voice — wrestled with her conscience. The doctor was being so stiff around her, chewing his food mechanically, barely looking up. But he’d come around, surely, wouldn’t he?

  Everything was exactly as it should be. There was no other way.

  After everyone had gone inside, Lily lingered in the schoolyard. She watched the little yellow and purple crocuses peek up, tentative and new. Unsure whether they wanted to bloom at all.

  A little girl was still playing on the swing set. Wasn’t she going to get into trouble? A bright red dot bobbing up and down, higher and higher. I ought to go over and make her slow down, Lily thought, but she couldn’t bring herself to break out of this stillness, entranced by the dabs of colour and flickering sunlight and bright white splotches of unmelted snow.

  After a while she could feel his gaze. Just as the crocuses could feel her watching them, willing them to bloom, she sensed him willing her to turn around.

  There he was, on the other side of the fence. He looked gentler than she remembered, his expression rising, falling, constantly changing: humble one moment, yet mocking the next. Like the men who’d call out to her from the doorways of boarded-up storefronts — “Pretty lady, can’t you spare me a nickel?” — and sometimes she’d give it to them simply because it was reassuring to know there were people worse off than she was.

  Yet Kaz wasn’t one of those folks. As their eyes met, she felt the old warmth and excitement light up her skin. “I thought you might come here….”

  “Did you.”

  “You have to come back to us. You belong with your family.”

  He stepped around to the other side of the fence. A frown ha
d emerged between his eyebrows, two deep lines that might have been cut with a scalpel.

  “Tom knows you’re his father. We can be a real family, at last.”

  “Family. That’s an interesting word for it.”

  The little girl on the swing kept arcing through the air, brown pigtails streaming behind. Lily’s heart rose and plunged in tandem. “Because of your father? He’s taken care of Tom and me. That’s it.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass what my father’s done.”

  Now she’d planted suspicion in his mind — the very suspicion she’d hoped to allay. Her hands sprung to her burning cheeks. But there was nothing to allay…. There’d never been anything between the doctor and her. Truly, at that moment, she thought she believed it. So the future was wide open, wasn’t it?

  “Why can’t we start over, Kaz?”

  Ripples of emotion broke through. “Frank Isaka. Do you know what’s become of him? Do you know where he is now?”

  All she knew was that he’d been all right. The hiding place she’d found for him had done the trick.

  “He’s at law school. Frank’s going to be a big-time lawyer. Thanks to all his friends in high places. Meanwhile, Kenny’s rotting in jail.” His voice dripped with bitterness. “You were always on Frank’s side. My father’s side.”

  Was that true? She began shaking her head. Yet it was hard for her to say what she’d felt, back then. One thing was for certain, though: she’d done wrong by Kenny. He’d tried to save her, and she’d repaid him with her betrayal. Oh, God. Poor Kenny. His name sent shivers of regret through her soul, like the rustle of mice scurrying through dead leaves.

  “It’s over, Kaz. The war’s over. We all have to move forward.”

  “Do we.”

  “What choice do we have?”

  “Plenty of choice.” Something quivered in his face. Then he got a hold of himself, trying to preserve a veneer of calmness, casualness. “My pictures. What did you do with them, Lily?”

  “Your pictures? What pictures?”

  “The pictures we hid under your bed for safekeeping. Don’t you remember? You must’ve taken them with you when you left camp.”

  That little space under the floorboards. She’d buried a piece of her soul in that coffin. Why did Kaz have to bring up that business, now of all times? Just when they were being offered a second chance. Were those miserable pictures the whole reason he’d come looking for her? A wave of resentment, thick and suffocating. He had stepped closer to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. As he looked at her, she felt herself melt a little, but then she noticed how his lips had aged, lost their colour. For a second, they reminded her of her father’s lips, the way his mouth collapsed in on itself at night after he’d removed his dentures, the skin greyish pink, reminiscent of dead worms.

  “What on earth do you want those pictures for?”

  “I need them because they can still do some good. Don’t you see?”

  The tremor in his voice filled her with a strange rush. She wasn’t used to having power over him. “The war’s over, Kaz. Those pictures aren’t worth a hill of beans.”

  “That’s not true! I’m still in touch with people who are interested in what I documented. Emily Archer, my WRA friends.”

  Flash of apricot hair, sheen of the sun. Cyclops eye of a camera never blinking, never flinching at anything. Was that where he’d been all these months and years? Living it up in San Fran, amid hakujin girls fawning all over him. “Fabulous pictures, Kaz. A true record of the internment.” Glasses clinking. Endless babble about revolution and the struggles of the underclass. It made no difference which face they used: a Mexican peasant on the side of a dirt road, a little Oriental girl raking mud.

  She didn’t want that record to follow them around forever, casting a stain on their new life together. This new life that for a brittle, fragile moment, she wasn’t even sure she wanted. Yet what choice did she have? What had she been struggling for, all these years, if not this?

  “I don’t have those pictures anymore, Kaz. I got rid of them a long time ago, I’m afraid.”

  “Really. I’m not sure I believe you, Lily.”

  She liked the proximity of his heaving chest and imploring eyes, fastened upon her so intently you’d think she alone had the power to give his life meaning once more. “Come home to us, won’t you?”

  His lips yielded to her kiss, reluctantly at first, but soon full of the old urgency. As though he were kissing her in hopes of sucking the information right from her tongue. She didn’t even care. Soon he’d be so happy he’d forget all about those damn pictures.

  Return Trips

  Twenty-Seven

  Sugar kept burning on the pan, sticky brown goo. Rita was trying to make French toast with caramelized apple slices. How was it that some women made this whole cordon bleu mother thing look so frigging easy?

  Kristen was perched on a stool by the counter, quiet and watchful. She’d been like that ever since last night when they’d left the nursing home. On the long drive back, Rita had sensed that her attempts to act normal and cheerful were failing miserably. Kristen knew that Mommy was upset, thanks to something Aunt Haruko had told her. Something that Rita couldn’t even begin to process. All she knew was that she felt numb, shell-shocked, but it wasn’t the time to fall apart, not with her daughter in the passenger seat beside her.

  “Mommy?”

  “What?”

  “I said ‘Can I have Cheerios instead?’”

  Rita had been staring at the burnt pan, lost in thought. Blinking her eyes, she tried to snap out of it. “Sure, sweetie.” She fetched a bowl and the yellow box. She dumped the ruined pan into the sink with a clatter and sizzle.

  She hadn’t slept much last night. As soon as she’d tucked Kristen into bed, she’d poured herself a mug of French Cross and flicked on the TV to a horror movie. At some point doziness took over.

  When she awoke this morning to a flurry of butterfly kisses, for one blissful second Rita forgot everything and felt like a normal mom, a mom who had it in her to get her hungover ass off the couch and cook amazing French toast.

  “We have messages,” Kristen said. The light on the answering machine was flashing.

  It was Tom. He muttered something about being sorry if he’d been a dick the other night. Unusual for her brother to apologize for anything. His voice sounded tense; he said he’d been thinking more about what they’d discussed. There were certain things about Kaz’s life that he’d pieced together over the years and maybe it was time that Rita knew, too. A long, strained pause. She almost thought the message had ended when his voice continued. Apparently, one of Kaz’s old friends had reached out to Tom a number of years ago. Emily Archer was the woman’s name. Tom left a phone number with an unfamiliar area code, which Rita jotted on the back of her hand in red marker. So he expected her to call this woman, a perfect stranger, out of the blue? And say what? God, why couldn’t he just pass on the information himself, like a normal human being? She was about to call him up, when the second message came on.

  Davis. The message had gotten cut off partway through.

  Returning the call, Rita waited on hold for several minutes.

  “Right. Well, guess what, Rita? Your mom’s finally started using her plastic. About time, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Oh my God.” Her grogginess crossed over into extreme alertness. “So she’s all right? Where the hell is she?”

  “California. Lily purchased a pair of sneakers in Sacramento a few days ago then charged a motel room in Lone Pine yesterday. Looks like she’s making her way up Highway 395. Any idea what she’d be doing out there?”

  California. Camp. Christ.

  “My mother was interned there during the war.”

  “Interned?”

  Rita lacked the energy to go through the whole spiel again. Nevertheless, she laun
ched into it.

  “So if Lily used to live out there, she might still have friends, right? Someone she’d like to visit?”

  “It’s possible, I suppose.” She didn’t think it at all likely. Did anyone still live out there, in the middle of the desert? Her head felt like muddied water, all her thoughts stagnating around islands of muck. “My mom never mentioned keeping in touch with anyone.”

  After all the miserable, wasted years she’d spent out there, what on earth could possess her to go back?

  “You never know. Maybe Lily has fond memories?”

  Fond memories? Had Davis listened to anything Rita had just said? People heard “camp” and thought of fun times. But this had been an internment camp. No one had been there by choice. There hadn’t been cookouts and beach volleyball and beer-filled coolers. Everything Mark had said about the need for redress echoed in her head with a new urgency. Maybe he was right: redress was worth fighting for. If only so they wouldn’t have to listen to blockheaded comments about their folks having fond memories of camp.

  Now wasn’t the time, though, to set Davis straight. They had more pressing matters at hand.

  Rita inquired about how the police were even sure that Lily had been the one to use her credit card. “Somebody could have stolen her purse, couldn’t they?”

  “The department store has a video camera behind the cash. That woman was definitely Lily.”

  A rush of relief, elation, still tinged with disbelief. So her mother really was out there.

  “What now? You guys are heading out to find her, right?”

  “Me go to California?” A cough that sounded more like a stifled laugh. “It’s not like your mom’s a dangerous criminal, and even if she was, we wouldn’t be flying out to Cali. I wish. Wouldn’t mind a few days on the beach. But no. We’ll be working with the local police to do whatever’s necessary.”

  “Which is what, exactly?”