Ding dong.
Hisao was so nervous he thought he would shit himself. Doped up on painkillers in the hospital it hadn't seemed so bad. Like something he could fix. Something to laugh about down the line. Like the time you thought I was cheating but in reality I was living in a fake marriage with my gay wife whose insurance I have been mooching off to stay alive? They would all laugh and have a giant orgy together with his wifes lesbian friends. And then live happily ever after. With cake. Like that.
Then reality had come crashing down around him. Back at school Emi had resigned her job. She didn't return his phone calls. And he couldn't find her address listed anywhere. In one fell stroke she had effectively cut him out of her life. He had even begged Ellen to call her and explain. His ex wife had been less than amused by this but had in the end agreed. Emi had apparently hung up as soon as she had introduced herself.
Ding dong.
So that left Hisao with but one option. If Emi would not talk to him directly he would have to talk to someone who could. Thus he once again found himself outside Emi's mother's house, praying that she hadn't moved. If so whoever lived here had the same loved of flowers that she had. The roses in the garden was in full bloom. Why did that make him so sad? It was as if beauty and sadness had been linked in his mind. The door in front of him creaked open.
Meiko Ibarazaki hadn't changed much in the last ten years. She still wore loose clothes that looked like a relic from the days when "Flower Power" was the coolest thing on earth. Right now, in addition, she was wearing an apron and was wielding a ladle in her free hand. It wasn't hard to guess what she was up to.
"Uhmm...hi Mrs. Ibarazaki. I am sorry if this is bad time, I don't know if you remember..." Hisao started.
"Hisao! Don't worry! Of course I remember you! Come in!" Meiko waved him in with a smile.
Hisao bowed his head, stepped over the threshold and took of his shoes. The house hadn't changed that much in the last ten years either. Meiko has already disappeared back into the kitchen.
"You will have to excuse me, I just have to finish up here first" she called.
"That's allright. Thank you for taking the time to see me" Hisao called back. He strode down the hallway where his eyes fell on a big board full of newspaper cuttings. Below them stood a pair of running legs. Dust had started to collect on them. He looked up again at the newspaper clippings.
Local talent wins bronze in paralympics. And a picture of an overjoyed Emi along with several other beaming girls. Picture was taken one and a half years ago. Hisao's jaw dropped. At that moment Meiko walked back out into the hall, drying her hands on a cloth.
"Now! What can I do..." she stopped, noticing Hisao was staring at the newspaper clippings.
"Emi won an olympic medal?" he stammered, eyes wide in amazement. This was not what he had expected.
"Yes...well. Yes she did. In relay. That is her with the team." Meiko responded in a oddly subdued voice.
Hisao couldn't think of what to say. He looked up at the beaming girl in the picture and remembered the self loathing girl in the shed. This puzzle didn't add up.
"What...happened?" he sputtered out, regretting the words as soon as they left his mouth. Not only was it a much too personal question he knew he would never get an answer to. But is also tattled on the fact that he had seen Emi at her worst recently.
Meiko's smile wavered and she sighed.
"Well it's not for me to say. You know Emi, she would kill me." Her voice turned businesslike. "Now what can I help you with?"
"I...I am actually trying to get in touch with her. I was wondering if you could help me."
Meiko first opened her mouth as if to speak but then raised her eyebrow and frowned. Emi's mother might look a little flaky, like a slightly aging hippie, but she was actually one of sharpest knives in the drawer.
"You don't have her phone number?" she inquired carefully.
"I was actually hoping for her address" Hisao tried. Meiko looked searchingly at him. There was a moment of silence.
"Not responding to your phone calls is she?" Meiko guessed. All the lies and made up reasons in the world raced through Hisao's mind. He rejected them all and shook his head. Meiko sighed.
"If she doesn't want to talk to you ambushing her at her apartment won't help Hisao, you should know that" she continued with a hint of a reprimand in her voice.
"But she has got it all wrong. And she won't let me explain! She thinks I cheated on her!" Hisao blurted out. Meiko was obviously shocked at this.
"Did you?" The previous friendliness disappeared from Emis mother's voice in an instant.
"No!" Hisao tried to find the words. "It's complicated. But no."
"Explain" Meiko's voice was icy, pronouncing each letter with excruciating clarity as she folded her arms across her chest.
"I am divorced since two years back. But I am still using my wife's insurance for my heart medicine. Thus legally we are still married. However we don't live together and she...she has met someone new."
"Continue" Emi's mother's face was unreadable. Hisao started to understand where Emi got the ability to hide her emotions from.
"Emi and I, well we kind of went on a date. Long story short there was an accident and I ended up in the hospital. Emi and Ellen, my wife, met there. From what Ellen told me the meeting didn't go that well."
Meiko raised her brow as if to say:'Is that it?'.
"Ellen... she said Emi was in a wheelchair." Hisao finished. At this Emi's mother face twitched. They shared a moment of worry for the girl they both loved.
"And now she won't talk to you anymore?" she finally responded.
"No. She..." Hisao sighed. "She saved my life". A stab of guilt seared through him as he uettered the words.
"What?" Meiko sounded amazed.
"She single handedly dragged me out of a river. I don't know how. I would have drowned otherwise." Hisao looked down into the ground, not daring to meet Emi's mother gaze. For the first time he reflected on how much danger that must have put Emi in. She could have been hurt. Perhaps she had been. Shame and worry turned his face crimson.
"That is quite a story. I can tell you Emi is ok, I talked to her this morning. But she failed to mention any of this." Meiko's voice was full of repressed anger. But Hisao never considered for a second that perhaps he wasn't the one she was angry with. He just swallowed and turned to leave.
"Wait. Do you have your wife's phone number?" she asked in a softer tone of voice, taking out her own phone.
"Yes! Of course." Hisao answered desperately. Thinking back his misery probably spoke volumes for his case. "Ellen even tried to call her but she wouldn't talk to her either. Please I don't know what to do. I have to..." Meiko took the number, with a gesture of her finger silencing him and walked into the other room closing the door behind her. Hisao waited in the hallway in agony, trying to listen what the Meiko's muffled voice was saying. At last she came back out. She looked slightly exhausted.
"It seems you are not lying. Your wife...Ellen, she is...very direct." she said at last. Hisao's hopes soared. But then Meiko shook her head. "But I am sorry Hisao. Emi obviously doesn't want you to have her address and thus I won't give it to you." When Hisao opened his mouth to argue she added. "That is final."
"I understand. Thank you anyway." Hisao felt miserable. Another chance at happiness. Gone. Somehow he knew he would not get another.
"However." Meiko had that Ibarazaki smile on her face, her eyes twinkling. She shook her shoulders in an attempt to chase away the tension of their previous conversation. "You could...stay for dinner." Hisao frowned, at first not understanding where she was going. Meiko just laughed at his confusion. Teasing most certainly ran in the family.
"Let me put it this way: who knows who else might show up?"
