Chapter 13: December 15

Not a moment after ringing the bell, little feet stampede down the hall, and there's Nina – swinging the front door open.

"Hi, Kazuya! Welcome home!"

It seems I've been expected.

"Uh, hey," I say, glancing to the driveway. Past my rental truck, dad's car is there – mother's is not. Then the girl's words register. "This isn't my house."

Nina tilts her head, reminding me of an owl. "But isn't this where your mom and dad live?"

"Yes."

"Then it's your home."

I don't have more than a second to sputter, before the conversation is already over for her. "Grandpa Shinji! Kazuya's here!" she shouts, skipping down the hall and allowing me in. Even now the form of address doesn't sound quite right, since it's difficult to imagine my father as anyone's grandpa. I wave away just the thought of it, too absurd to entertain. What kind of grandfather would he be anyway? Would I even want my child to know him?

Since when have you ever considered one of those?

The house is just the way I left it, though there's no reason it should have changed in only two weeks. The winds have picked up outside, shivering gusts cut off as I close the front door. Something rattles in the kitchen, but the hallway is still, dust particles drifting down the stairs through rays of window light.

The walls don't feel like they're closing in as I walk into the living room, and the Throne – a huge red leather chair – is in its usual place. Except Nina is tucked between its cushions, a coloring book atop her folded legs. The kingdom has been usurped. Plates clatter as my father stacks them away, the cupboard to his right open. A new smell slithers into my nose, not of musk or dry cat, but of rose and spice. He's brewing coffee, and I take another whiff – something French? Latin American? Close, but this one is distinct – light and airy like the sea.

"Your mother will be back this afternoon," he says, and I didn't realize I was staring. A thought to move tickles my muscles, but I stay where I am on the other side of the bar. He sets another plate away.

"Bourbon?" I ask.

He turns halfway, and I think that might be a slight smirk. He nods. "From Réunion."

I huff. A French island just off Madagascar. Premium coffee that I've had only once before, but will never forget. Sweet and chocolaty without all of the heavy aftertaste. I'll have to sneak a cup of it later.

"Hey, that looks like my daddy's jacket!" Nina crawls her way across the couch to where I'm standing, her fingers brushing over the silver star and bar on my shoulder. "His doesn't have the flag on it either."

It's probably the same with any other ex-JSSDF that managed to hold on to those things. I guess back then, no Jerry wanted to be caught with anything that might be considered nationalistic. There were 50 million of them in a society that didn't want them and didn't particularly know what to do with them. If they couldn't see the flags and the half-remembered festivals, then all the easier to forget about them.

"Nina, show Kazuya upstairs." my father says, his back to us. She nods and leaps off the couch, trying to climb the steps two by two.

I pause at the base of the stairs, by the baluster where my hands once steadily wore away at the paint over the years. Nina's already made it to the top and I start to ascend, the boards creaking with each step. I thought that when I came here, my nerves would be on fire, and it would feel like the mountains were rolling over me again. No such feeling comes, but neither do I feel any comfort from such a familiar place. It is empty, alien.

"They let me stay in your room whenever I have to sleep over," Nina says, the door groaning as she enters, twirling over the dark wood floors and humming a nameless tune.

I've taken a step back in time, to another boy's room, when he was nineteen and angry at the world. Dark blue curtains and bed sheets, walls unadorned but marked with a few streaks and the occasional dent. There are an array of tools on the desk by his bed, where he used to toy with old watches and their cogs, in love with the oil of their metals and how they clicked and whirled when put together just right. On my left are the bifold closet doors, within which he would hide and draw childish pictures of a happier, made up family.

"You can sleep here," Nina says, having already made it somewhat her own. She grabs a purple backpack from the bed. "Grandpa set up a place for me to sleep on the couch in the office. I don't mind. It smells like mine at home."

"Don't you have any family here in Arizona, Nina?" I ask, setting my bag down.

She shrugs. "No, they all live in different countries now. The ones in Japan don't talk to my daddy anymore."

Nina leads me back down stairs and I find myself hoping she isn't lonely, hoping she has friends at school or a mother she can talk to.

My father has finished the dishes and sits at the table. That aroma hits me again, making my mouth water. This time, an orange cat sits on the backrest of the couch, awaiting our return. Nina rubs her nose against his and he purrs, sliding his cheek along hers.

"Why don't you take Myshka out hunting?" father asks. Her pigtails bounce as she nods, hefting Myshka up in her arms. She lets the tabby rest over her shoulder as they venture outside. I know she doesn't mind being by herself on occasion and even prefers that from time to time. At least all the cat asks of her is scratches under his chin.

"He brought me a cardinal yesterday," dad says, the sun-glare on his glasses hiding an eye. I wasn't sure what I would do once I got here. I also hadn't considered that I might be alone with my father for more than five minutes. Or perhaps I did and just didn't want to think about it. So I contemplate going outside to watch Nina, or returning upstairs and keeping to my old room. That's when I spot a cup of swirling coffee ringed in gold at the seat across from him, a glazed doughnut sitting beside it. Quite the bribe.

Isn't this what you came here to do anyway?

I sit and try to sip at the bourbon coffee like it's something I have everyday, and not like just the taste of it brings back a thousand bright memories that warm me from head to toe. We sit quietly, while my father watches Nina and Myshka play in his garden, the sunset reflecting off his glasses. A hand fingers the ends of an envelope, squished beneath a brown leather bound book, unmarked and frayed at the edges. Then I realize – I've seen it before. It's the same one from the hospital, when I came down to visit mom.

"What's that?" I ask, making a lazy gesture.

He looks confused, and then a little embarrassed. Hesitating, he takes the envelope and stows it away under the table, before leaning forward on his elbows. "A journal I used to keep. Just started writing in it again the past few years."

"Can I read it?" I ask before I can fully think it through, expecting him to say no and to get defensive. Another tripwire snagged.

He stares at it for a time. A tension knots itself in the polished wood. His hand settles over the cover, brushing with something intimate. After a rough, bloated pause, he nods. "Yeah... sure."

He pushes it across to me and there's a strange sort of reverence when I take it, keeping it close to me on the table. I'm tempted to open the ancient tome and read its scriptures now, but that would be impolite, and a private sort of thing I imagine neither of us would like to be in the same room to share. So what should I talk about? Should I ask some more about the war? It's different now that I'm sitting here with him. I was at a much safer distance while in Washington.

I drum my fingers on the table. Stop – hold them in a fist. Then a glance at the envelope in his lap. "I can help you write your book, you know."

At first, he is little more than surprised, and even seems to consider it for a minute. "I have to take a look at my old journals. You've got one of them. There's only a few pages left."

The windows rattle as we fall into silence again, dead leaves skittering over the house. I have emptied my mug and finished half of my doughnut when the front door creaks open, and my mother steps in.

"Hey, welcome home," I say and she stops, eyes wide. Her expression falls away to something unreadable and I shift when she only stares at me. Didn't she know I was coming today? Then, the spell broken, she looks away and wipes a sleeve over her mouth and sniffs, muttering something about changing before walking off to her room without a second glance.

I look to my father for explanation and he only smiles.

When she comes back, her arms enclose me from behind, hair tickling the back of my neck. She sighs, more content than I've ever known her to be, and I think of reaching up and grabbing her arms to keep her there.

She steps away before I can and the moment is gone. As she moves aside, I see that she hasn't actually changed at all and takes the chair between us, stealing a few sips from my dad's mug. She tells me she was sorry to hear about me and Marina. I shrug, pretending not to be annoyed.

"We just weren't right for each other," I say.

Mom crosses her legs. "I knew you could do better anyway," she says and I'm not sure whether to be happy or offended. I decide on both. My father chuckles and shakes his head, as if to say, that's not what he wants to hear.

She bristles a bit at this and ripostes by drinking the last of his coffee.

The light in our kitchen is not amiable like in Harry's bar, nor is it unpleasant like my dreary apartment up north. It's new and somewhere in-between. As it starts to get dark out, a red-cheeked Nina returns with Myshka, who leaves a dead baby snake at my feet. You are so skinny boy, surely you must be stupid and cannot hunt for yourself. Eat, stupid boy.

Conversation is strained, but as dinner is being made, Nina talks plenty for all of us. She's learning about elephants at school. Unstoppable when set on a path, with large ears for them to hear more than speak. I ask her who told her elephants could speak.

"Not with their mouths, silly," she pokes her nose, "but with their trunks." she goes on to tell us they make other sounds people can't hear, some that can only be detected by other elephants from miles and miles away.

With dinner finished, Nina and I clean the dishes. I wash, she dries.

Exhaustion weighs on my ribs and pulls at my eyes, even though I've done nothing but sit at a table with my parents and indulge in strangled small talk. Except now I'm feeling the tremors of a queasy stomach. I decide to head to bed early.

On the way up, I argue it must be the jet-lag again, since I don't have Marina's soup to blame this time. At the second floor, I turn to see my mother at the bottom of the stairs, one hand on the railing. As with the hallway earlier, she stares, more relaxed than tense this time. A calm, breathing moment that makes me feel a toddler, even standing so high up.

"Uh, night, mom," I say.

She smiles. "Goodnight, Kazuya."

I stay up for another hour, thirty minutes of which are spent staring at the weathered journal in my hands. I decide to open to a random page to start, a few stains marring the paper.

There is no date, save for a scrawled 2035 in the upper corner –

I go to his room and open the door, watching over him for a while. Just to make sure I haven't actually strangled our son. Just to make sure I'm not the monster my dreams tell me I am. He's inherited my jaw, his mother's chin and a bit of her nose too. His eyes, though... I know somehow he's gotten those from my father.

I'm going back to bed now. Asuka is still asleep. I've gotten pretty good at not waking her. She doesn't sleep so well anymore, and I think Kazuya knows it.

He shouldn't have to live like this.

He doesn't deserve it.

The next day, mother takes a quick trip up to Mesa to approve some new procedures at the lab, while dad and I take Nina home in my rental. She doesn't live far. Her mother greets us at the door, wide hips and wavy hair.

On the way back to the house, I want to ask him about the journal. I want to ask him about the boy he dreams about strangling, or the eyes of his father he can't seem to escape. I stared at them in the mirror this morning, as if imbued with a new, sinister glint. My Grandfather commanded his son out against foreign, cosmic monstrosities and broke everything anyone ever thought they understood about the world. I have no pictures of him. Or, rather, I've never seen one of him.

I had trailed a hand down my face, wondering if somehow I'd taken more than just his eyes.

In the end, nothing comes of it and while 94.9 blurbs some disjointed 2020's pop, I resolve to read more of the journal. Just thinking about it, I realize how much stronger my father is than me – to let me in like that, even after all we've said to one another in the past. To give me his most private thoughts and let me so casually peruse them, judge them. To judge him.

I don't think I've ever thought of my father as brave up until now. I know I should be ashamed of that.

We've barely spoken all morning. He shifts, restless, and drums his fingers wherever they end up. Once home, he heads out back to the garden and I have the feeling he expects me to follow. We stand out by the azaleas and his bundles of roses, their leaves brittle and brown from the winter chill.

My father speaks first. "I've got six or seven years, at most," he says. From his jacket, he pulls out a fold of papers from the envelope I saw, holding them out to me.

I start to reach for them. "What is it?"

"An assisted death directive. If the dementia gets worse, you have power of attorney."

My hand stops and the winds may as well be daggers.

"If I start to meet certain conditions, then eventually you can take me up to Saint Luke's and a physician will hand me a loaded syringe, and that'll be that. But by then I... I wouldn't be functioning very well, if at all."

I keep my arms at my sides, heat pulsing through me despite the numbing chill. "I don't understand."

What the fuck.

"I want you to promise me that... if I really start to go, if I really start to lose it, I want you to make sure they give me that damned needle. Your mother might try and fight it, but I don't want her taking care of me, not like that. She's done that enough."

What the fuck, dad?

"Don't talk like that."

"Promise me."

Those eyes have turned hard, and it sounds more like a command than a request. Right now, I'm a soldier being given an order, not a choice.

"No, I'm not–"

He grabs my upper arm, shoving the papers into my palm. Father the soldier is gone just as suddenly, or replaced, or forgotten in place of Shinji Soryu, a man who has dementia and is so scared of losing his mind a second time he's willing to snap the little threads of a relationship he has left with his son.

"Kazuya," his gaze drops and he purses his lips, grip tightening. "Just... just promise me, alright?"

For a while, there's only the clatter of the leaves and even that falls still, until there's only the howling of Arizona's winds rushing through the mountains and valleys. I imagine, at least a dozen times over, decking him and telling him to just–

To just what? What is it I want from him? This sting, this anger, it isn't hate. I know that too well, and I know that this is something different. If the journal was a hand offered in peace, then these papers are the other holding a gun, punching a bullet through my gut.

I tear my arm free, papers crumpling in a fist. "Fine. But I'm not going to lie to mom. Sure as hell not for you." his shoulders slump, and I'm the one who looks away this time. "You've got to tell her, sooner or later."

The weariness in his next words plows deeper than any bullet. "Then let it be later, son."

I can't believe what I'm hearing. Not a word of it. I thought I'd embraced this already. The fact that my father has dementia and... this makes it all so much different. He's put the gun in my hand now. Am I supposed to make that decision easily when the time comes? Do you think I of all people must be okay with you dying? Is that why you gave this to me?

I don't have very long to ponder. A voice heavy with authority makes us both turn and I feel a child again, caught doing something I shouldn't.

"Why are you having Kazuya make promises when you can't keep your own?" mother asks, stepping from around the tall, brittle azaleas mere feet away, her arms crossed. I wonder how long she's been listening. Her gaze could melt steel and I can't help but be thankful it isn't aimed at me. She's fixated so intensely on my father, I may as well not be here.

"Asuka..."

His plea falls on deaf ears. "What about our agreement?"

"We were just kids," he says and steps forward, arms open.

She takes shuffling steps back, hurt in her eyes. "Do you even remember?"

Always goes for the stab, no mercy. She's probably known about the dementia for as long as he has. The Soryu men have never been very good at keeping secrets. Not from her.

Despite the low blow, he manages a smirk, and closes the distance between them. "I'm not that bad yet."

"After all this time I– I can't believe you're– that you're still this–" she hits his chest with the side of her fist, "this stupid!" she hits him again. He catches her wrist before the third strike, and her other hand latches onto his.

"I know, I know. I thought that..." he takes her hands in his, feeling the ridges of her knuckles. He makes sure their eyes meet. "We'll go together. Just you and me, okay?" he says, mirth coloring his tone as he tries again for a smile, but she doesn't return it.

The air between them bleeds. Another argument, silent and much older, happening in that small, wounded space. Eventually, she slides her hands free. "You're a jerk."

We both watch her turn and leave, soon slamming the back door shut. The sound echoes over our hilly tundra, which I'm convinced has gotten a few degrees colder.

"Dad... what is she talking about?"

He sighs, staring after her. "After Third Impact... well, we didn't have much to hope for back in the camps. We didn't have anything. We decided that, if we were going to die... we'd die together. I didn't think she took it seriously. Not anymore, at least. We were just kids."

I flinch, remembering the papers still clutched in my hand.

A promise to die together.

My father once made me promise to take care of his flowers if anything ever happened to him, but it looks like their stalks have already started to turn gray again.