Chapter 5: November 29 (III)
The doctor says her blood pressure is too high. Likely the root cause of her heart attack, and a much more potent trigger for cardiac arrest.
"The smoking hasn't helped. You'll have to keep a close eye on it from now on," he says, in that clipped way that is both professional and chiding at the same time. I chalk up an 'I told you so' victory point on the invisible scoreboard only I keep track of. The small win turns hollow once my brain processes the difference between a heart attack and cardiac arrest, the latter of which usually being the one that kills you outright before you can even think of getting to the hospital.
I erase my mark from the board.
Actually, I think I'll get rid of the board.
Mother doesn't put up a fuss as the doctor drolls on, nodding every so often. She tugs on the sleeves of her maroon turtleneck tunic – the worn, war-weary wisp of a woman in the hospital bed has vanished, buried under the adamant and clinical Metaphysics professor.
It chills me how utterly different they are. Even when dad was at his worst or her nightmares kept her up days on end, she was stalwart, proud – strong. The mother I've seen these past few days... I don't know her and I don't want to meet her again.
Some paperwork is signed, new medications prescribed and the doctor says he's scheduled her for a follow up appointment at the clinic down the street in ten days. After that, he scribbles on his clipboard and hurries off down the hall. A nurse directs us towards the patient discharge and soon enough we're waiting in an open lobby bustling with people. A couple wheelchairs creak by, several desk clerks dealing with a handful of agitated family members.
My father has gone off to fetch the car in the parking garage across the street, so we sit by the automatic doors and wait, an empty seat between us.
"You should come home for a while," mother says, jarring me straight. Just the mention makes my heart skip a beat.
My brain, meanwhile, starts working furiously to bullshit an excuse. "I really can't..."
She lifts an eyebrow. "What, you got a hot date?"
"Well, no..."
"Good, then you can come by the house for a bit."
The doors part for my father and she stands. "Schatzi, Kazuya will be coming home with us."
He glances at me, giving a nod before leading us out. The car outside is silver and some kind of Subaru, much older make and model than what's out there today. I'm surprised when mom lets him drive, he must've insisted. Since almost swerving us off the road while having one of his panic attacks years ago, he hasn't really been allowed behind the wheel.
I take the back seat, now thoroughly emasculated in front of my parents. Somehow, not having my own mode of transportation handy feels like a sign of weakness – incompetence. Dad flicks on the radio, but keeps it low. Christmas music fills what would have otherwise been a very uncomfortable quiet, distilling the air with the hundredth rendition of a classic song that's nearly a century old.
The singer's voice is baritone and boisterous, mimicking the old swing style of the 1950s. A happy and upbeat tune, the sort of thing another family is singing along to in their own car, out of pitch and inbetween fits of laughter.
My father keeps hard eyes on the road, mother sits straight and gazes out the window while I slouch in the back between them, waiting for this humiliating nightmare to end.
Even though it's been a while, I know all the roads. They've changed very little, save for maybe a few new layers of tar. As we ascend into the Catalina Foothills, something nameless starts to creep along the tailgate, tugging at the back of my brain. The doors and windows of the car might as well be prison bars – I'm trapped and there's no possible escape short of jumping out. The road becomes long and winding, too long, while the mountains grow larger. Rolling rock slowly closes in, rising so high they cast shadows in the deep crater they've formed.
I know that can't be possible. I know I shouldn't really be considering jumping out of the car. There's no reason for it. I can't stop feeling like the world is about to swallow me whole, no matter how much I tell myself otherwise. Just when I think I might need to empty my prescribed anxiety meds, the brakes scream as we ease into the driveway, a narrow and winding concrete path.
It's been eight years since I've seen this house. Up on the side of a hill laden with skinny, leafless trees, towering cacti and brittle shrubs. A light snow covers the grassy knolls and has turned the roof white.
I know now that it wasn't home I longed for when the smell of nicotine struck me in my mother's hospital room. Even if the panhandle held more pleasant memories for me – it wasn't any better before we moved. What filled me was simple nostalgia, a selfish wanting for rose-tinted days. I escaped this place as soon as I was legally able to – and I was determined to leave it behind forever.
A shiver spills down my back as we stop. My parents push out of the car, cementing this as reality and not another nightmare like I was hoping. The pressure doesn't stop building as I march a few paces behind them. There are six steps leading up to the front porch and each one is a mountain, taking me days to climb. My knees ache, every fiber of my being screams out – be careful, you're in danger here – as the door swings open.
Even the hall's beige wall paint is the same. Photographs decorate each length of drywall, though some are missing. At least one of them was shattered to pieces sometime before I left – by my own hand. It hasn't been put back up.
A low meow echoes into the living room as we enter, breaking the white-noise ringing spell cast over me.
"Hallo, Myshka!" mother cries, suddenly full of delight. She bends her knees and slides a hand over an orange tabby cat's back. The thin feline sidles up next to her, purring as he – she? – rubs his face against a knee.
"When did you get a cat?" I ask, hiding a flinch as dad sets down his keys in the open kitchen.
"About six years ago," she says. "His name is Myshka."
"It's a silly name," dad growls. I can't tell if that's just the way his voice sounds or if he really isn't pleased. He organizes some papers on the counter, shrugging his jacket off to leave only his black long-sleeved shirt to keep the cold at bay.
Mom smiles to herself, glancing up at me. "Your father didn't want me to get him. Said we didn't need a cat."
"I've had a cat for thirty-four years," he grumbles, this time with a ghost of a smirk.
She sticks her tongue out and he huffs, pushing through the back door. She scratches behind Myshka's ears and he leans into her hand appreciatively.
"I've caught them playing together. Mean old dad is just a sucker for redheads, isn't he, Myshka?"
Myshka purrs in apparent agreement.
I slide my jacket – dad's jacket – off and fold it over the backrest of the couch. Mom is whispering sweet nothings to Myshka as I meander towards the porch, barred by tall and wide windows. A garden stretches up the side of the hill at our backyard, a sprawl of trellises and boxed mazes of soil. Branching out from the foot of the porch are growths of shriveled vines that go on for at least fifty feet. My father navigates the paths between them, meeting a man who is busy watering the crops, dressed in khakis and a sleeveless white shirt. He's bald, just a bit younger and wears a big grin as he and my father shake hands.
"Who's that?" I ask.
"Hm?" mom's face scrunches, perplexed as she comes to investigate. "Oh, that's Yoshiya. He took care of the cat while we were gone. A... friend from your dad's therapy group."
"You don't sound too happy about that."
She shrugs, turning away from the windows. "Doesn't matter what I think of him. The sessions help your father and that's what counts."
Yoshiya heads around the side of the house, while dad starts to tend to his garden. I can't imagine there's much to do for the brittle plants in winter, but he's got a pair of shears and plucks at weeds and other imperfections I can't perceive.
On the way to the kitchen table, I stumble as Myshka darts between my legs, squeezing through the slightly ajar back door. He pads into the garden and follows my father about, hiding in the brush and chasing after lizards.
The aroma of dark-roasted Jamaican coffee beans comes to greet me, accompanied by the click of a coffee pot. Mom is fixing up a fresh brew, taking from one of the many jars of ground beans stored in the cabinet. Masking tape marked with sharpie labels each type and where it's imported from. If there's one thing my father and I share – it's a love for coffee. He used to take me down to the fresh market every Sunday by a stall stacked seven feet high with tan jute bags, where an Indian man sold beans by the pound. We'd spend the morning there while he taught me about how they harvest the seeds from the coffea plants and peal the skins so they can be roasted. Sometimes he'd make me close my eyes and sniff handfuls of beans to see if I could guess where they were from. I'd often day dream about growing my own coffee crops with him.
"Cream and sugar?" mom asks, holding an empty black and white mug that says "Hollywood". One of the few remaining relics from an age without Impacts.
I shake my head. "Black."
On her left, hanging over the stove, is a picture of the three of us on the beach back when we lived in Panama. I have to be at least five years old, before the war. My mother has a red and white striped bathing suit, a pair of aviators atop her head. She's looking at me, in the middle of saying something while I'm covered in sand from the half-built castle between my legs. Dad is standing behind us with his hand on her back, the light of the sun casting a glare that hides his face.
When I was young, my mother took family pictures obsessively. We had at least five full-to-bursting photo albums that covered the day I was born 'till I was seven. I'm sure they're still around somewhere, stuffed in a closet or collecting dust up in the attic. When her nightmares became more prevalent and dad's episodes got worse, I recognized what all of the picture taking and false grins were really for.
If she captured enough moments of us smiling, doing something mundane, she could bury all the awful memories she didn't want under an ever growing pile of happier ones. She could pretend that we weren't such a broken family if we appeared normal on the outside.
The high-pitched whine of a small aircraft echoes over the hills, eliciting ripples of anxiety down my skin.
Mother peers past me, and I don't have to wonder at what for long.
The back door creaks, my father standing in the threshold. His shears clatter to the floor and his eyes are ablaze, livid – it runs ice through my veins. Mother stiffens, watching as he shuffles in and sits down at their red armchair, slowly, staring at nothing, working his jaw back and forth. He bends to untie his shoes. The laces stutter in his shaking hands, fingers scratching the leather as he tries to undo them. He can't quite piece it together: how exactly to unravel the knot, and curses under his breath.
My back touches the counter before I realize I've taken several steps back, while my mother sits on her haunches in front of him, touching his knees. I see their lips moving, but the words are so soft I couldn't possibly discern what's being said.
After a while he takes in this big breath of air, in and out through his nose, doing everything he can to avoid my eyes. His hands are still trembling when mom helps him up and walks with him down the hall to their room. Right out of the hospital and here she is taking care of him again. My stomach flips and a sharp pain bites into my palms, where I've nearly broken the skin from squeezing my fingers so tight.
A cold breeze flutters in through the still open back door, which clacks against the outside wall. I pull it close and pick up the shears, unsure of where they belong, and sit them on the bartop by a pair of peppermint candles.
Mother's heels click along the floorboards when she comes back into the living room, fixing her hair some and evading my gaze.
"I thought you said he was getting better."
"Stop it," she sighs, trying to put some bite in her voice. She comes to stand by the coffee pot, a hand touching her forehead, before it slides some renegade hair from her face. "I told you he's–"
"I didn't want to come here," the words rush out before I can stop. My nerves are digging their claws into my muscles and I know the medication isn't working like it's supposed to.
She barks something between a sigh and a laugh, shaking her head. "Yeah, it's just too much asking my own son to come home after I get out of the hospital."
"Don't start that," I snap, voice rising, "I came to see you because I was worried. I didn't plan on turning this into some reunion."
"Then why bother? Because you felt guilty?"
"Of course I did – I haven't seen you in years. But I left so I wouldn't have to deal with his insanity anymore!"
I earn a scathing glare for that and she crosses her arms. "It must have been so hard having two parents that ever gave a damn about you."
"You know what he was like!" I throw a hand towards the hall. "Why the hell would I want to be back in this house?"
"Because we're your family!" she shouts, incredulous. "This is your home!"
"Since when?!" I laugh, shaking my head, eyes wide because I can't believe what I'm hearing. "Dad made us miserable! He wasn't a father! When are you going to wake up and realize he's never going to change?!"
A slap rings out, a sharp sting warming my left cheek. I don't even remember her coming so close or raising her hand. Something festering and putrid sits in my lungs and weighs them down, boiling hot. I stop a hand from rising to touch the angry red mark on my face, trying to stand tall and calm despite how hard my heart is hammering.
She steps back, holding her hand at the wrist as the blindfold of rage falls. In a moment, she looks scared and there's that hurt in her eyes too. To my right there's a picture of us smiling on the wall, mocking me.
She sits on the couch, defeated. "'Why can't you just get over it?' they'd say," she croaks, finding her voice. "'Just put it behind you'," she shakes her head, summoning old reserves of resentment. "Like we could just forget everything if we wished hard enough."
Like that she steals my anger away, bringing clarity to my reeling thoughts. She doesn't say anything more for a while and eventually I sit down next to her. There's no acknowledgment, not from her bright blue eyes that can't look up from the floor – and it kills me. Myshka has found his way inside again, rubbing himself against my mother's legs. She doesn't smile this time, indulging his silent request for scratches.
"You were eight by the time we were able to get him evaluated," she says, bringing the cat up to her lap. "The psychiatrist diagnosed him as bipolar, prescribed medication and called it a day. It was bullshit and I knew it – he didn't have any of the symptoms. I told them so, but if he ever got worse, they'd just double the dosage. During one of his visits to the unit, I was arranging to get him assigned to another specialist, but while they had him all doped up, the physician we already had made him sign an AMA release form. Then they tell me since he signed it, he can't be reevaluated until he admits himself under the same physician's care."
I'm hanging onto every word, latched to the bitterness I hear in her voice. The same kind of frustration I'm all too acquainted with.
"It was the same crap with every other doctor we tried to go to. If you complained they'd scream 'if you don't like it, leave!'... even when he was diagnosed with PTSD, we had to fight for years just to get the VA to cover him. They didn't count him as a veteran since he never signed any enlistment papers with NERV. There was a group here in Arizona that helped us out though, vouched for him. A bunch of ex-JSSDF, First Airborne Brigade."
Special Operations Group. I think, recognizing the name from back when I still had top-secret security clearance. Ranger-qualified Japanese troops trained by Delta Force way back in 2003 after Old Tokyo was nuked. I recall the bald gentleman Yoshiya and how genuine his grin was. I try to imagine him as a soldier garbed in black with an assault rifle in hand. I imagine he and a brigade armed to the teeth storm into NERV to combat giant machines called Evas. I can't quite see it, only ever hearing the battle mentioned in fifth grade with any level of detail. Officially, it's referred to as the Siege of Tokyo-3, unofficially, most people know it as the New Year's Eve Massacre. I've heard all the associated horror stories. They must be true for him to earn such long-standing and unfiltered disdain from my mother.
"Everything seemed to be going okay," she goes on. Myshka has settled in her lap, quickly falling asleep under her nimble fingers. "Then your dad... he had a really bad one five years ago and... god, he took so many pills. He was admitted to Saint Luke's and had to stay there for four months. I wasn't even allowed to see him for the first two weeks he was on suicide watch. Even after, visiting hours were only on the weekends. He's going regularly now for check ups."
"I didn't know." it's a weak excuse and not the apology she deserves. My cheek still stings a little.
"It's taken a long time, but he has – he is getting better. We both are."
I don't want to believe her, at least about my father. The idea that, after all these years, he might finally be able to operate under some normalcy makes me feel... cheated. Like his recovery invalidates everything we had to go through before.
"Do you still have nightmares?" I ask.
Instead of answering, she moves Myshka and gets up to stick her cold mug of coffee in the microwave. I hold back a grimace and join her in the kitchen, where she pours me a cup of scalding caffeine.
She casts a glance my way, flashing a forced smirk. "Are you and that Marina girl still together?"
"Yes, why?" I ask, sliding into a chair. Misato must have been keeping her up to date. Still, the shift in mood and subject is jarring, unsettling. I'm surprised that our fight didn't escalate to me being kicked out again. She must really want me to stay. It just brings my guilt barreling down tenfold, and I'm more than willing to forget we ever fought today if she is.
"Just asking – getting married?" metal clinks against ceramic as she mixes her coffee and I don't like her coy tone at all.
My eyebrows twitch with a glower. "Not anytime soon, no."
"So grouchy," she pouts, setting my mug down and sitting across from me. Both hands wrap around her cup and she takes a sip. "The whole ceremony is overrated anyway. Why waste the money when you can just sign some papers and be done with it?"
"So what about your ring?" I chuckle, gesturing.
Her tongue clicks. "I told your dad I didn't need one. Sentimental fool bought us a pair anyway," she says, but I can see the glint in her eyes. She'll never admit she loves having the ring. They've been married for thirty-four years, couldn't say where or when or how. It hits home that I don't know much of anything about my parents at all. They're complete strangers to me. Who were they before they had me? What did they do before they met? How did they meet? All I have is a handful of moments, glimpses into a larger life marred with black memories that aren't talked about.
I look at the pictures that surround us. If not for them, I wouldn't believe my parents were ever those people from before – people that were able to smile and laugh.
We talk for a while longer, doing our best to forget the fight and tip toe around other subjects. Dad is growing watermelons outside and tries to keep track of the flight schedules from the Airbase so he isn't caught off guard when they pass over. He can't predict all of them. Just a year ago he also made a trip up to Chicago-2 to visit the Aida's. Mom couldn't take part, still busy with her work at the lab in Mesa. She complains a bit about her staff, but it's just good to hear she's finally decided to delegate some of the work.
The sun has set and it's only seven o'clock. I make up some excuse about having to catch the bus back to my hotel soon. She doesn't offer me a room to stay in for the night, knowing what my answer will be.
Fingers playing around her mug, she asks, "Will you stay for dinner?"
I pause at the sink, setting my empty coffee cup on the adjacent counter. "Some other time," I say, moving to take my jacket from the couch. "My flight leaves at nine tomorrow."
Her lips purse. "We'll give you a ride to the airport, then."
Her tone makes it sound like a suggestion, as if she's asking permission this time. I don't object. A short walk down the hall, we pause at the threshold as I step outside. Now that I'm about to leave, there's suddenly so much more I want to say. I couldn't wait to get out of here earlier, and now I don't know if I want to go.
"Be safe," mom says.
"I will."
The door hesitates for a moment before closing and my feet are stuck to the spot, the words I didn't know I wanted to hear lost behind it. I've left them here for eight years. I ran as far and as fast as I could at the first opportunity and never looked back. I used to be proud of that. I'd made the great escape, against all odds. I'd broken out of that prison and made a life for myself in the north.
When I take a step back and really look, I haven't done much of anything since then, have I?
At the hotel, I call Marina. She fills our conversation with all of the trivialities of her past couple of days, updates me on all the latest drama between her friends. I spend an hour feigning interest, until I manage to convince her I need to sleep. What Jessica said behind Amber's back is the farthest thing from my mind after today.
"I love you," she says and I hope my response doesn't sound hollow.
"I love you, too."
I hang up, set my phone down on the nightstand. The AC clicks on, pooling cold air down to the floor and around my feet, still set to 68 like I left it this morning. I think to turn it up, but my legs can't seem to move. Even the notion of getting up is too exhausting to entertain.
I'll be going back to D.C. tomorrow. The thought of it doesn't sit quite right in my mind, reliving my father trying to untie his shoes and my mother desperately grasping for something normal.
Home.
Author's Notes:
Not the greatest, but not terrible considering it was written in two days.
Schatzi: from the German word Schatz, which translates to 'treasure', usually a term of endearment used in the same way we say 'darling' or 'sweetheart'. Adding the 'i' at the end turns it into more of a pet name and is meant to show affection.
Myshka: Russian for 'little mouse'.
