You know what I’m saying.
Mike waves his hands at the apartment. I watch them glow, taking everything in.
I think we ride it out, he says.
Yeah?
Yeah.
And then Mike and I don’t say anything else.
The air from the heater is aggressively warm. We’re sweating, both of us, on his bed, and our bodies aren’t touching. Then I reach for Mike’s hand, again, and it takes him a minute to squeeze. But eventually he does. We don’t wrap our fingers around each other’s. We just fucking hold on.
* * *
And then.
And then.
And then slowly, suddenly, I’m asleep and when I wake up, it’s six in the morning.
Mike is snoring. The sound mingles with his mother’s murmurs, wafting in from the living room. She’s speaking on the phone in Japanese, warmly, decisively. She pauses every now and again, and I can practically hear her nodding. If you really squeeze your ears, the two noises suction in harmony, with Mitsuko and her son rising and falling in tandem, conducting their own tiny orchestra.
2.
I can count the times we’ve said we love each other on two hands. I wouldn’t even have to use all my fingers.
The second time, we were out driving. The traffic around us mellowed. We were lodged between SUVs, and I don’t remember where we were going, just that we weren’t headed anywhere in particular. Then the car started blowing hot air, and then hotter air, and then no air at all.
When I started to roll down the window, the button wouldn’t budge.
Mike tried from his end, and that button was stuck, too.
Is this just how it’s gonna be now, I said.
Guess so, said Mike.
Hope it’s not a sign or anything.
Hopefully, said Mike.
And then he said it.
We rode on in silence. Soaked in sweat. The traffic getting worse and worse.
That thing happened where you hear the words leave someone’s mouth, and they rebound through your ears, again and again, coming and going.
The truck in front of us wouldn’t move. Mike’s windows wouldn’t open. He put the car in park, reclined his seat, and closed his eyes.
* * *
The next time was over a nothing dinner in the middle of the night. I’d gotten hungry, and Mike was snoring in bed, and I stumbled over his thigh to make something in the kitchen. Our fridge was always loaded, but that means nothing when you don’t know what to do with what’s in there. I slapped a pan on the stove, cracked an egg on the counter, and it wasn’t five minutes before the fire alarm popped off.
I didn’t notice Mike until he’d started fanning the smoke behind me. Then he wordlessly, silently, set a wok on the stove. He fried me two eggs, and another pair for himself and we ate them on the counter, swinging our legs against the wood.
It came out under his breath, between chews, under the alarm.
It was entirely too loud, but he enunciated everything.
* * *
The fourth time, he was fucking me. Said it right before he came.
3.
A few hours later, it’s the knocking that wakes me up. Or I’m up, and Mike isn’t beside me. Doesn’t answer when I call out.
Suddenly, totally, I get this fucking chill.
There’s a text on my phone from Omar. It’s only a smiley face.
There’s another text from Mike: he and Mitsuko have gone for a walk. They’ll be back soon.
And then there’s a phone call from my sister, and then another phone call, and then a third.
The text message below that says: Heads up, otw.
* * *
Right after Lydia moved out of the house, and I was still living with my father, I spent the night at her place on Sul Ross. We walked to the Shell for beer and got fucked up in the parking lot, stumbling back toward her apartment. We passed some teens kicking a soccer ball by the park, calling after one another in Spanish, so we sat in the grass to watch them, and, at some point, the most confident one skipped over to Lydia.
He asked for her number, just like that.
She asked to join their game.
I told my sister that wasn’t wise. Lydia told me it wasn’t a problem. And the boys were hands-off with her, at first, but after she’d scored two goals, they made a point to rough her up. The one who’d been hitting on my sister kicked at her ankles. When she made him fall on his hands, he spat in the dirt. And then she scored again.
Afterward Lydia still gave him her number. He held it up like a trophy, jigging between his friends. And at the end of that match, my sister’s shorts were filthy with mud, and her sneakers, too, and she was still a little groggy, and she couldn’t have smiled any wider.
* * *
I guess what I’m saying is: She really does try her best.
* * *
And then they’re at the door.
My sister, my father, my mother.
My family.
Lydia scrunches her nose, and my mother purses her lips. She asks if my guests are around.
It doesn’t matter, says my father. It’s too fucking humid, let us in.
* * *
The last time we’d all sat in the same room, we were still together in the old house, picking at a meal my mother cooked. A few days earlier, she’d told us she was leaving. Dinner felt like a consolation prize. She’d made beef patties and ackee. So we all took a bite, and we did our best not to enjoy it, but we found ourselves filing back to the kitchen for thirds and fourths.
At one point, the three of us stood with a patty in each hand. For a beat, we waited for someone else to snatch the last one. But the palm that finally swooped in belonged to my mother, sweeping her fingers over the entire bowl.
We watched her chew through the flakiness, slowly, and then she stood up and she left us.
* * *
Now my family sits on the sofa. Crammed like donuts in a basket.
Your father has something he wants to share with everyone, says my mother.
It’s not a big fucking deal, says my father.
I’m in therapy, he says. Surprise.
My mother wipes her face. My father sneezes. In the dim light of the apartment, we all look filtered. Sickly.
I squint at my parents, and it doesn’t look like they’re joking.
What, says my father to me.
When I don’t respond, my mother says, It is a surprise.
Dad’s making an effort, says Lydia. That’s good.
Right, Benson? says my mother.
It’s great, I say. Lovely. Wonderful. Fine.
But, I say, what the fuck does that have to do with me? Why the fuck did you have to come here to tell me this?
Everyone shifts in their seats. My father flexes his toes.
Are you going to say it? says my mother, nudging my father.
He obviously doesn’t want to hear it, says my father.
That’s a part of the process, says my mother. Remember?
When I make a face, my father says, Guillermo thinks it’s important to share.
Guillermo, I say.
The therapist, says my father. He says that my successes are my family’s successes. Your successes are my successes.
And Guillermo is correct, says my mother.
Albeit nine or ten years too late, says Lydia.
Guillermo sounds like a fucking grifter, I say.
The three of them look at me. But, really, they’re taking in the apartment. They’re looking for something to explain me, clues to my life, I think—except there’s nothing to find.
I still don’t understand why this couldn’t have been a text message, I say.
Really, says Lydia.
For fucking real. You could’ve called.
And anyways, she adds, you wouldn’t have answered.
The light in the room shifts from a dingy blue to a muddy red. We all turn a shade darker. My mother crosses her legs.
We came here to see your world, says my father.
You just wanted to take the pressure off yourself, I say.
Benson, says Lydia.
It’s the truth, I say. He knows it’s true. Things get hot on your end for once, and you’re trying to deflect.
You aren’t being fair, says my father.
It’s all you fucking do. Has Guillermo told you that yet?
And you’re no better, I say to my mother. Why do you even care? Don’t you have somewhere to be? Isn’t there a whole other family out there you should be taking care of?
Ben, says Lydia, don’t be a dick.
How about you don’t be fucking complicit, I say. I’m here taking all of this heat, and what are you doing? Chilling? Going with the flow?
The air behind my eyes feels warmer and warmer. It’s a little like gravity—I know I should decelerate, but the words just keep coming.
Do you know how it felt when you didn’t say shit once I came up positive? I say. When you guys left me? When you fucking shit me out on the street? And I had to deal with that fucking shit on my own? It felt like the worst thing. I can’t even fucking tell you. And now you really drive up here looking for some sympathy heart-to-heart bullshit? From me?
All Lydia and my mother do is stare. They don’t look upset. Or even exhausted, really. But my father’s got this look on his face, like he’s got some big secret in his chest. It slips a bit, and a grin cracks his face.
Say it! I yell. Fucking speak up!
Son, says my father, that’s the most I’ve heard you talk in who knows how long.
This Mike must really be doing a number on you, he says.
You sound like a little boy in love, he says.
Lydia bites down a laugh. My mother chews her cheeks. It feels like the four of us are caught in a loop, like we’ve already lived through this moment before. And before I can curse my father, before I can really unload, the door unlocks behind me, and it’s Mike and his mother standing in the doorway.
* * *
Mitsuko speaks first.
She says, Not again.
* * *
My mother says, Hello.
Lydia says, Hey, Mike.
My father just sits there with this blank look on his face. He makes a noise with his throat.
Mitsuko stands with her arms crossed and a satchel on her shoulder. She’s dressed in Mike’s clothes, a too-big SUPREME sweater and basketball shorts. They both smell like cigarettes, and Mike’s in a tank top, and he’s got a sack of groceries in his arms, and his face is entirely unreadable, and I don’t know if it’s on me to speak up or what.
But I don’t know what I could possibly say.
So I don’t say anything at all.
And then I open my mouth.
And what comes out is, Well.
That’s when Mitsuko steps across the room. She sits on the sofa across from my parents. My father’s eyes widen, and Mitsuko doesn’t flinch, and my father says, I’ve heard a lot about you from my daughter.
You’re pretty infamous, too, says Mitsuko.
I hear Mike migrate toward the kitchen with the bags, and it’s clear that he’s left me afloat. But a few seconds later, he’s back in the living room. He’s right beside me.
He squeezes my mother’s hand and says, Ma’am, it’s nice to finally meet you.
He leans over to hug Lydia, whispering something in her ear.
He stands in front of my father, a little wider, a little shorter.
And my father, for no reason in particular, stands up to face him, nearly towering over him.
Mitsuko sighs. Lydia laughs. My mother elbows her ribs.
Then, inexplicably, my father extends his hand.
I’m Ben’s father.
I know, says Mike.
Good.
And I’m your son’s boyfriend.
So I’ve heard, says my father.
My father says, It’s nice to meet you, and Mike lets go of his hand.
Mike looks at the whole of us. He looks at me.
Mike asks if anyone’s hungry. He says, I was just about to start dinner.
4.
The fifth I love you came in the middle of the night. I’d started living at Mike’s place. There was a banging at the door, a frantic sort of slamming, almost like a pleading, and it woke me up first. So I nudged Mike’s shoulder until he finally moaned, swatting at my hand, and then I squeezed the bridge of his nose.
What the fuck, he said.
And then he heard the door, too.
Mike rolled out of bed. Didn’t even bother with a shirt. As he stumbled down the hallway, I called out after him to leave it alone, but of course he didn’t listen, flipping on the hall lights and all three front door locks with his elbow.
The knockers were a pair of college kids from up the road. Brown, and sweaty, and stoned out of their minds.
When they saw Mike, they started giggling. One told him that they were cooking. They needed some butter, and paprika, and the words came out between spurts of laughter, with the two guys leaning all over each other.
But Mike gave them two sticks and a vial of spice anyway. He told the boys to get home safe.
Rolling over me on his way back to bed, he palmed my stomach, whispered the words into my ear.
* * *
The seventh time came at a party. Mike had rescued me from a conversation with a half-drunk mother. I’d been drinking, but I was lucid, and it slipped out of his mouth the way words sometimes do. And this was the first time I said it back.
5.
In the kitchen, with my family in the living room, Mike tells me that he wants to meet Omar. I don’t respond, juggling a trio of eggs, pacing around the stove. Mike has already assembled some kind of rice casserole with chicken, tofu, and carrots, simmering three slabs of cod with white onions splayed across them, prepping dashi in the pot beside them. As many times as I’ve seen him cook, I’ve never really just watched him, but his rhythms mirror his mother’s, right down to the shuffling of his feet.
I’m peeling potatoes beside him, and then I’m boiling them, sautéing onions and pork in a pan on the other end. Mike glances my way, once, and then once again. When I start folding the potatoes into the sauté, he asks what I’m making, and I tell him: potato korokke.
He blinks, once.
Korokke? he asks.
Yeah, I say.
Really? Potato croquettes?
That’s what I said, I say, stirring.
Then Mike opens his mouth a third time, but nothing comes out. He turns right back around.
At first, Mike watches me move around the kitchen, grabbing and shifting and slicing. Eventually, he joins me, taking care with his body, negotiating it around mine. We’ve never cooked together, but we move through the room like we’ve been doing it for years. There are moments when I know he could say something about how I’ve cut one thing, or stirred another, but he doesn’t. Mike just watches, doing his own thing, complementing mine.
He asks about Omar a second time, and then a third, before I tell him that it’s inappropriate, it’ll never fucking happen, and that’s when the first egg falls on the floor, followed by another pair behind it.
* * *
And now, maybe an hour later, our families sit down to eat. We chew at the casserole, sip the soup. Mike and Lydia and I laze on the floor, and my parents sit beside Mitsuko on the sofa, juggling their chopsticks and spoons. I eye Mike’s mother nibbling a croquette, and when she looks my way, she winks.
Overall, the meal is simple and filling, but I still
didn’t think it would take. I’d never even seen my father so much as sip from a bowl of tomato soup, let alone anything entirely unfamiliar.
But now he chews silently.
The six of us chew silently.
The only ones who speak are Mike and Lydia. They ask each other questions, laughing at shitty jokes. Mike doesn’t bring up his absence, or his father, but he’ll address something to my father, and Lydia will answer, and Lydia will direct something to Mitsuko, and her son’ll answer in her stead, and, at one point, Mike asks how my mother’s family is doing—her other family—and before I can kick him in the balls, she says that everyone’s fine.
Healthy and happy, says my mother.
Great, says Mike.
Comfortable.
I’m glad.
Tyler and Teju are growing out of everything.
Kids do that, says Mike. Ben talks about that all the time.
They’ll stop soon, I say. Everyone grows up eventually.
You never did, says Mitsuko, to Mike.
Except that’s the thing, says my mother. You don’t want it to stop.
You know it will, she says. Eventually. No matter what. So you try to prolong it. Every parent’s their own magician. And we just try to stall that distance for as long as we can. And the trick is to do it without messing up your kid.
As my mother says this, her voice is bright. But her face is not.
I glance at Lydia, and then at my father. My sister keeps her eyes on our mother. My father just tugs at the hair on his forearm.
It’s futile, says Mitsuko, sighing. That’s just the way it goes.
But we still have to try, says my mother.
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