When You Were Here

going to do everything I can to fight it. I promise.”
    If she was so honest about all that, why then would she hide this ?
    I leave her room and slam the door. I like the sound of it, so I slam it again and again, the sound echoing through the apartment, the noise splintering in my ears.
    I return to the living room, to the lilac seeds on the coffee table where I tossed them my first day here. Lilac seeds from Holland. Then the note Holland sent my mom on lavender paper that I’ve been keeping in my wallet. Three clues in the Personal pile, and this last one is now abundantly clear. I read the note again, looking at it in a new way. I never would have guessed what it really meant—a makeshift memorial for my mom’s only grandchild.
I ordered these online for you, but they are from the Japanese lilac tree. As you know, they take a few years to bloom, but they will produce the most fragrant and aromatic flowers. It’s nice, in a way, to think about flowers to be remembered by, isn’t it? And that in a few years, these lilacs will delight people with their scent. Maybe you can find a place to plant them in Tokyo?
    How could they have this little secret and keep it from me? A coldness settles into my chest, a deep black coldness, like the dark of space. I am floating out there, on the edge of it all, about to be sucked into the black hole. The only thing keeping me here is this anger that I am encased in, all icy and frozen, as I spend another vacant night in a lonely home, far away from everyone.

    When daylight mercifully comes, I ask Kana to go to the movies with me, and we spend the afternoon in a darkened theater, eating popcorn and gummy bears, and the only thing not lost in translation is the food and the comfort.
    But it’s still not enough to right this capsized life of mine. We leave, and as we near the Hachikmosaic, as we stand under the baking afternoon heat, I ask her if my mom ever mentioned Sarah to her.
    “Yes,” Kana says with a nod.
    “What did she say?”
    “She said Holland had a baby. And Holland lost a baby.”
    “You knew.”
    “Yes. I knew.”
    “Did you ever want to tell me?”
    She doesn’t answer right away, just tilts her head to consider. Then she speaks. “I didn’t really think about telling you, Danny. I didn’t know, one way or the other, if you’d ever known. And it never came up in all our conversations, and to be honest, Holland hasn’t come up much either.” She looks straight at me when she says that, and I nod, because it’s true. Kana and I haven’t talked much about Holland, and the omission hasn’t been deliberate, it’s just happened naturally. “So I never felt as if Sarah was something to be told, do you know what I mean?”
    “I guess. But I just don’t understand how everyone knew, but no one told me. My mom, Holland, Kate. They all knew, and my mom told you instead. And don’t get me wrong, Kana. I think you’re awesome, but you’re not the father of the—”
    I can’t even finish the sentence.
    “Sometimes it is easier for us to tell hard things to people who are far away. That’s how we test out saying things.”
    “But my mom never told me. I can almost understand Holland not saying anything. She was eighteen and pregnant. But my mom? What’s her excuse?”
    “She didn’t want to hurt you. That’s what she told me.”
    “Did she show you the picture?”
    “Yes. Sarah was a beautiful baby.” I don’t know what tosay to that. I don’t think babies are beautiful. I don’t think babies are anything. “She showed it to me at the teahouse one day after your sister came to visit.”
    I close my eyes and reach for the dog mosaic, holding on to Hachik’s white ears for a second. Kana reaches out and places a hand on my arm. I open my eyes. “What is wrong with my life? Why is everything so fucked up?”
    “What is so messed up?” Kana asks as she shifts her words from my curses to her softer ones.
    I don’t tell her that my grasp on truth, on words, on people, has slipped. I was getting close, so close to normal again, and that’s been snatched away. I’m not even back where I started. I’m somewhere else entirely, so far off the map I don’t know where to turn next. I look away, at the jumbo screen on the building across the street. A Chihuahua walks across a tightrope. “How could my mom know and not say anything? She was supposed to be on my side. She was my mom. Why was she on Holland’s side?”
    “Is this a war