When You Were Here

life when you’redying? I have a hard time finding it, and I’m the one still living.
    “Let’s go outside and see if there is a lilac bush,” Kana says.
    “I don’t think lilacs grow in June.”
    “No, but that’s the point. Maybe there is a lilac bush even if there isn’t supposed to be one. You know what I mean?”
    I don’t laugh or snort or scoff. Because I do know what she means. And even though we don’t find a lilac bush on the grounds of the temple, I have to admit I do smell something like lilacs in the air. Maybe my mom has been reincarnated here. Maybe this is her first reincarnation, as the scent of her favorite flowers.
    She would like that. I would like that. And somewhere, deep inside me, I believe it too.
    I believe.

Chapter Nineteen
    June melts into July, and a sticky heat sinks down on the city. It is hot beyond words here, the sweltering-city kind of heat. The streets radiate fire, and the sun throws it right back down again, like it’s casting bolts of heat, pelting endless blankets of scorching air. Cities are the worst places to be in hot weather.
    I miss my pool. I miss the shaded sections of my backyard. I miss sitting under a tree and stretching out in the shade and reading a book and feeling the breezes from the nearby ocean drifting by. I miss the ocean. I miss throwing tennis balls to my dog as she fetches them in the waves.
    I miss my dog.
    June was a temptress, a tantalizing geisha with a come-hither wave and a dance and a sway of the hips. But July,with this heat, is her cruel stepmother. On a particularly hot Saturday morning, I stay inside where it’s cool. I Skype with Kate. She reviews several outstanding estate matters with me. Things about accounts and money and time periods when I can access certain funds.
    Then she takes off her glasses, and it’s strange, this all-too-familiar gesture of hers viewed through a computer screen. “What did you decide to do about the apartment?”
    The question jars me for a moment. It’s what I thought I came to Tokyo for. To see this apartment again, to decide if I should keep it. But I’ve barely had to think about the decision because there’s no way I’d sell it.
    “Keep it,” I say, and Kate tells me about the paperwork and details we’ll need to work it out. I nod and say yes to it all, knowing I’ll do whatever I need to do to keep this home as my own.
    “And at some point, maybe not today or tomorrow, but at some point, you should think about what to do with the house over here.”
    It’s so weird to think this is my decision. That at age eighteen, when I haven’t even set foot in a college classroom, let alone an office for a job, I’m being asked to make this choice.
    “I don’t know yet,” I say, but I know where I’m leaning on this.
    “What about your mom’s things, Danny?”
    I close my eyes for a second. My chest feels tight.
    “Her clothes. Her wigs. Her books,” Kate continues.
    “Donate them,” I answer quickly, so I don’t have to think about it. Then I have a better idea. “Everything except the wigs. Can you send the wigs here?”
    She laughs. “For you? Something you want to tell me?”
    “Yeah. I started a drag show in Roppongi. No, they’re for Kana. She’ll love them.”
    “I’ll send them along with my rug. I have an antique rug traveling to Tokyo next week by private jet. This client of mine owns property in both LA and Tokyo, and her own private jet!”
    “That’s the only way to travel. Or so I’m told.”
    I’m about to say good-bye when I remember I picked up something for Kate. I hold up a plastic mackerel for her sushi collection. “And I’ll send this along to you. But not by private jet. Just regular mail.”
    After I turn off the computer, my cell phone rings.
    It’s a local number, but it’s not Kana, and there’s only one other person I’ve been hoping to hear from in Tokyo.
    I nearly pounce on the Talk button to take the call from the doctor’s office. It’s not even the receptionist. It’s Dr. Takahashi himself. My pulse is rocketing, and I’m all raw nerves as he says words like doctor-patient confidentiality and I don’t typically do this .
    Then the next words come, and they’re fucking beautiful. “But I understand this is important, and for you I can step outside the bounds.”
    “Thank you, Doctor. Thank you so much,” I say, and I’m overjoyed that he’s taking pity on me. Funny, how pitywas the thing I never wanted from Holland, but