I can’t imagine doing it again, says Mitsuko.
I couldn’t either, says my mother, laughing. And I really don’t know how I ever did it at all.
I’m sure you’re doing the best you can.
Everyone’s doing the best they can, says my mother. It’s what we have to tell ourselves.
Well, says Mitsuko, pointing at me, you did all right with this one.
He took care of me, she says.
I made it hard for Benson, Mitsuko says, but he didn’t complain.
My father looks up. My mother makes a face I haven’t seen in a very long time. For once, everyone in the room is looking at me.
Except for Mike.
He’s got that look of consideration again.
Or at least he didn’t complain too much, says Mitsuko. Only a reasonable amount.
It’s the least Benson could do, says my mother. Trust me.
I wish he could say the same for me, says my father.
But what are the odds, he says. Two good boys finding each other.
My father nods at Mike, and, for the first time, my partner, who I’ve never seen flustered, looks a full crimson sheen.
Who would’ve thought, says my father.
Wait, says Lydia, I’m the one who fucking told you about him.
And everyone groans.
* * *
The sky gels into a hazy amber. I walk my family to their cars.
My mother squeezes my hand before she slips into her van.
My father says, I’ll see you whenever, slamming Lydia’s car door.
Beside me, Lydia lingers over our patio.
She says, We should make this a regular thing.
I smile.
I say, I hope you enjoyed this, because it’ll never happen again.
And Lydia starts to laugh, until she sees my face, and that laugh disappears. But her teeth resurface, slowly, with a grin. She puts her palm on my cheek.
Lydia says, Little brother, you really never learn.
* * *
And now: Mike and I stand in the kitchen. He’s washing dishes, and I’m kicking at the counter. Mitsuko’s in the living room, flipping through channels. Eventually, her snores settle over the television’s drone.
Just ask him, says Mike. Don’t be scared.
Scared has nothing to do with it, I say. It’s fucking awkward.
Nah, says Mike.
Is this something you really want to argue about?
No, says Mike. So ask him. Come on.
I tell Mike that I’ll do no such thing, and he just grunts.
Sorry, I say.
Stop being so fucking sorry, says Mike, scrubbing intently, racking the plates.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, I text Omar. On a whim. That morning, he’d reached out and I’d left his message unread.
Honestly, we weren’t anything yet. Nothing had been decided. But we’d fucked, again, at his place, and then another time after that, and afterward, once we both came a second time, I’d asked Omar what he wanted, and Omar told me he wasn’t sure.
My fingers drummed on the flat of his back. We were in Omar’s bed. I couldn’t see his face, just his hands as he played with a pillow.
You tell me, he said.
I asked you.
I know, said Omar. But I also know you’ve got certain, uh, restrictions that I don’t have.
That’s one thing to call my boyfriend, I said.
Sorry, said Omar, and I squeezed a chunk of his ass.
Don’t be, I said. I’m the one that’s here. I’m the one complicating things.
Well, said Omar. You said it. Not me.
Hey!
You said it!
But look, said Omar.
He shifted on the mattress, looking me in the face. We were both naked, both soft against the sheets.
This can be as serious as you want it to be, he said. Or not. I’m not saying we’ll adopt a puppy or anything.
I know, I said.
Good, said Omar. It’s low pressure. This’ll go however you want this to go.
But I like you, said Omar. And I think I could keep liking you. So I guess I just want you to know that.
* * *
And things had been low pressure since then.
I stare at my phone, despite myself, willing a text to emerge.
When Mike steps into the bedroom, he says, Young love, and I tell him to fuck off.
Shouldn’t you be packing? I say.
Don’t look so excited to see me go, he says, grinning, but not really.
Mike sits on the floor, rearranging his clothes. It’s been months since we sat in the same room without speaking. And I know I should follow that up with an apology, some declaration of affection and appreciation.
But I don’t.
I don’t know why.
So the moment passes.
* * *
And a few hours later, Omar replies. The text is littered with emojis.
It says: Should be fun!!!!
6.
The eighth I love you came after a fight, our last big one before Mike left.
I’d thrown a candle at the wall. Mike picked it up and threw it right back at me. He shoved my shoulder, and then I grabbed his arm, which brought us to the floor, where he latched on to me as I slapped at his face. Eventually, I stopped squirming, and Mike stopped squeezing, and I tugged at his shirt, and he pulled at my shorts. He slid down my body, grabbing at my hair, and afterward, we stayed on the wood, sweaty and stinking, not talking, falling asleep.
I woke up to Mike sweeping at the candle’s cracked remains. He was bare except for boxers, hunched over the broom. I watched him sweep in silence, with the moon against his back, and I knew, right then, I think, clear as day, that eventually our moment would end.
I also realized I didn’t want it to.
And it was okay for me not to want it to.
And maybe okay for it not to end right now.
But it had to.
Probably.
And that’s when Mike stepped on broken glass. He yelped, hopping around.
Stop, I said, you’re only gonna make it worse.
You can’t be fucking serious, said Mike.
So I told him to sit. We kept some gauze in the bathroom. I wiped the area around his instep with alcohol and grabbed a knife from the kitchen. It was the sharpest one I saw, and Mike’s eyes glowed when I fondled it, so I told him to relax, and Mike said he wouldn’t blame me if I cut him.
I’d blame myself, I said.
When my palms shook, I took breaks. I moved the blade slowly, incrementally. It took ten minutes, but the shards came out.
Afterward, I wiped down Mike’s foot with antiseptic, wrapping it with the gauze, and when I looked up, my partner had literally, totally, fallen asleep.
I don’t know if he heard me say it, but his body tensed, loosened, settled.
7.
Two mornings before Mitsuko leaves America, I find her washing rice in the kitchen. She nods my way, sifting her hands through the pot, and I sit down on a stool across from her, and she’s looking down at her hands again.
Mike’s out making arrangements with his coworkers. He hasn’t told me what he’s going to tell them, but I know it’s not going to go well.
When Mitsuko’s finished washing the grains, she sets her pot on the stove. She crosses her arms, keeping her eyes on the ceiling.
So Mike’s going home, I say, and Mitsuko looks my way.
You could also say he’s leaving it, she says.
You’ll be happy to have him closer though?
I’m always happy to see the child that I made.
For fifteen minutes, neither of us moves. I watch Mitsuko transfer her rice from the pot to the eggs in the
frying pan. She’s crowded it around sweet potatoes, cheddar, a radish, and garlic, and Mitsuko folds the omelette until it encases everything. The omurice simmers gently, until we’re staring at what looks like the beginnings of a meal.
She asks, Were you waiting for something else?
No, I say, I’m leaving.
But you haven’t eaten, says Mitsuko, grabbing a bowl.
She sets one across the table for me.
I couldn’t, I say.
You could, says Mitsuko. You don’t have many of these left to look forward to.
I could always cook one myself.
If you say so, Benson.
I sit across from Mitsuko, and she settles across from me.
I’m sorry, I say.
About?
You know, I say, and that’s when it starts—and the crying floods my cheeks. I don’t know where the tears are falling from until they finally leave my face. I’m shaking, a little bit, and then a lot. The chair dances underneath me. Sounds leave my mouth, animal noises I don’t recognize, and as I try to choke them down, they turn into something else. My hands sit on the table. Ten fingers form two fists. My thumb digs into the pit of my palm, rooting for blood, and then Mitsuko’s hand is on top of mine, slowly pulling it out.
Benson, says Mitsuko. Look at me.
Look at me, she says, a second time, and I cover my face.
I know, says Mitsuko.
You don’t, I say.
I do. You did nothing wrong. Nothing.
That’s what Mike says his dad told him, I say, wiping my face.
I’m sure he did, says Mitsuko. That is a thing that my husband would have said.
At some point, the shaking stops. My breathing settles. I am looking at Mitsuko, again, and now she’s watching me watch her.
She picks up her spoon, smearing ketchup over my omelette.
Eventually, I pick up my spoon.
We eat.
You should talk to my son, says Mitsuko, chewing.
We talked about it, I say.
He’s always been a little funny, says Mitsuko. Since he was a boy. He’d tell me one thing, start in on it, and decide on another. Or he’d get tunnel vision.
Mitsuko stares into her bowl, stirring the eggs with her spoon. She scoops the ketchup again, gradually, piling it on one end of the plate, before she picks it back up, redistributing everything.
How old were you when you started tying your shoes, says Mitsuko.
What, I say, wiping my eyes.
You asked me to tell you a story. How old were you?
I don’t know, I say. Shit. Six?
It took Michael eleven years, says Mitsuko. It took that long for my son to get it through his head. He just didn’t believe he could do it. The laces fell right out of his hands. I would show him, and his father would show him, and he’d try to do it on his own, but then he’d just give up. Nearly four thousand days of life. He had to wear Velcro sneakers until middle school.
I watched Mitsuko play with her food. She kept not watching me.
So what happened, I say.
What always happens with my son, says Mitsuko, smiling a little. He figured it out. He made the decision to do it at one point, and then he did it. The same way my son figures that he needs to run this bar, or whatever it is, in Osaka. The same way he figured that he needed to see his father through the end.
But you didn’t even want him to leave, I say.
Correct, says Mitsuko. I didn’t. That was not the decision I wanted my son to make.
But he needed to, she says. And he knew that he needed to. So, from time to time, Michael can see past the front of his nose. He’s gotten better about that, apparently. And even if I never tell him this—and you will never tell him that I told you—I’m proud of him for it. Seeing him make decisions, big decisions, makes me proud. But I don’t think that this is one of those times.
Mitsuko crosses her arms, leaning onto the table. Finally looks up at me.
Do you see what I’m getting at, she says.
I’m not sure, I say.
I’m saying that if you leave Michael to his own devices, he’ll come around eventually. He will. But that might be too late for you. My son likes you.
I love him, too.
Exactly, says Mitsuko. So tell him that. Those exact words.
And then he’ll change his mind? I say.
I don’t know about that. It could look like a lot of things. But that’s when he’ll make the decision he wants to make, as opposed to the one that he thinks he should. Or the one that’s actually the easiest path forward.
You’ll be all right, says Mitsuko. It’ll be all right. I promise.
If you say so.
I say so.
You came from good stock, says Mitsuko, and before she leaves the kitchen, she sets a palm on my neck.
* * *
When I spot Ximena at the daycare, I don’t know what I’m expecting her first day back, but she’s flipping through a magazine before we’ve opened for business.
Ximena winks my way once she sees me.
Noah left the place a fucking mess this morning, she says.
Happy wife, happy life, I say.
Shut up, says Ximena. He’s a slob. Cups on the table and everything. He said he’d do better, but here he goes, fucking making problems.
It’s the little things.
My ass. I’m no fucking maid.
So much for the honeymoon period, I say. Welcome back.
That’s got nothing to do with anything, says Ximena. The wedding’s been over.
But look, she says, and Ximena shows me her tan, and her skin is a pulsing bronze from her shoulders to her fingertips.
I’m literally fucking glowing, says Ximena.
That’s the difference, she says. That’s what matters.
You could’ve done that without him, I say.
No shit, Kierkegaard. You think I don’t know that?
But here’s the thing, says Ximena, winking, I wanted to put him on, too.
* * *
The kids are restless today. When I ask Marcos and Lorraine to cool it with the running, they just puff up their cheeks, sprinting even faster. When I ask Silvia to stop with the colored pencils, she snaps a pair in half. I ask Xu and Ethan, for the fifteenth time, to do me the biggest of favors and keep their hands off each other, and the brothers blink simultaneously before doing exactly that, opting for head-butts instead.
Shit, says Barry. It really is the end of the world.
Go figure, says Ximena.
The kids just shrug. They do their thing.
But honestly, truly, we can’t blame them. It’s not their fault. We did the same thing at their age—would do it again if we could.
* * *
At the end of the day, once Barry and Ximena start vacuuming and mopping and wiping, I sit with Ahmad by the door. He’s the last kid to get picked up, and quiet, with his fingers in his lap. He spent his morning coloring in a sketchbook—the one he told me his parents bought him—and his afternoon shooting basketball on the court. First, with Barry. Then with Ethan and Xu. Then with Thomas, and Margaret, and Silvia, until Ahmad was the only one left.
Now, he’s still coloring. The pastels blend into one another, forming tiny, lucid solar systems.
I ask if he’s still on strike.
Strike’s over, says Ahmad. You’re late.
Well, I say, at least you finally got a haircut.
It looks good on me, says Ahmad.
One hundred percent, I say.
Daliah recommended it.
Daliah.
She’s this girl at my school.
Well. Five points for Daliah.
She’s the smartest person I know, says Ahmad. Mostly.
&nbs
p; Mostly? I say.
Yeah, says Ahmad, biting his lip, really thinking about it.
He adds, Ximena’s pretty smart, too.
Look, he says, and then Ahmad shows me what he’s been drawing, folding the sketchbook across my knee.
There’s a green planet on the page, strung together by a loose assortment of stars. Two men are drawn in the center of it. One of them is very obviously his brother. The other one desperately needs a haircut.
Can I ask what it is, I say.
You don’t see it?
It’s generally polite to ask.
The universe, says Ahmad, matter-of-factly.
And also, he says, waving at the two men. You know.
* * *
Omar finally comes to pick up his brother, and he’s changed out of his scrubs, into a hoodie and shorts.
We still getting dinner? he says.
Ahmad lets his brother run his hand over his head. The two of them don’t look anything alike, but they look like they fit with each other.
People said the same thing about me and my father, and my father and my sister.
The same is true for Mitsuko and Mike.
The same was true for Mike and me, too.
Yeah, I say, unless you’ve changed your mind.
Nah, says Omar, tapping my shoulder, I can take it.
* * *
On our way out, I catch sight of Ximena and Barry watching us—they’re grinding on each other, tongues out and laughing at me. I start to wave them off, but Ahmad catches my gaze, so I don’t.
The kid doesn’t say anything though. He just rolls his eyes.
* * *
Omar drives the three of us down Montrose, catapulting toward the Burger Shack’s parking lot. A slurring Beyoncé booms over the speakers, until Ahmad snatches his brother’s phone and switches the track to some sort of K-pop, something entirely too synth-heavy. He turns around to ask if I know it. I tell him that I don’t.
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