Hikikomori and the Rental Sister: A Novel (18 page)

“Do you feel like eating?” she asks.

“I’m starving.”

“Want to help me finish up? We’ll make enough for your wife, just in case.”

“Of course I’ll help.”

“Get changed first. I hope you like what I picked out for you.”

He goes into the bathroom to change. When he comes out he gives her a slow spin. “How do I look?”

“I knew you’d go for the blue one. You look great.”

He drizzles soy sauce over the fish. He mashes a cube of tofu. Squeezes a lemon. His cucumber slices are irregular. Some thick, some thin.

“So when do you think you’ll be able to go back?” she asks.

“You’re sick of me already?”

“You know what I mean.” Though she could mean any number of things.

“I’m not going back.” Which also could mean any number of things, some of which Megumi will not allow herself to hope for. But trying not to hope is itself a form of hope. “It’s basically destroyed. It’ll take, I don’t know, a year or so at least to get it livable again. Probably just pay what has to be paid and let it go. I have to see what the lease says.”

Leases, the law, technicalities, obligations, reimbursement. Deflections from the real topic at hand. As if this will all come down to what the lease says.

“Sounds like it was pretty bad.”

“It could’ve been worse.” He coughs. He stops slicing the cucumbers. His eyes lose their focus.

“There’s nothing left?”

“Not really.” He answers her questions with an overblown nonchalance so as not to seem evasive, which comes off as somewhat evasive. Then again it could be that the shock of it has not worn off. She can’t expect him to be chatty about it. He probably still smells smoke in his nostrils. It’s a good sign, though, that he’s here at all, that he’s able to answer her questions and live in a place other than his room. To ask for kindness, accept it, return it. All good signs. Megumi can’t discount her own role in it.

He sets the table. “The chopsticks should go across,” she says, “not up and down.” He tries again. “No. Japanese do it like this. In front of the plate. More elegant, don’t you think?”

They eat. “How do you like it?” she asks.

“It’s delicious. Simple. Clean flavors.”

“The rice is Japanese rice. I made it special.”

“What’s the difference?”

She doesn’t know how to interpret his tone. “This rice was grown in Japan. It’s expensive here and hard to find.”

“I’ve seen Japanese rice in the store.”

“No. The brand is Japanese but it was all grown in California.”

“What’s the difference?”

Again. “See how each little grain is the perfect shape? And rounder? California rice is too skinny and brittle. It breaks in the bag. And there isn’t much flavor. I made this Japanese rice special for you.”

The fire doesn’t add up. There are gaps. Something is missing. The hard part is not asking, because she knows she’ll never get the complete answer anyway. A small form of withdrawal. Secrets that will never come out.

After dinner he cleans the dishes. “I insist,” he says. His mind seems far away.

“What’s this notebook?” she says with a gesture toward the sofa’s side table.

He finishes the dishes and sits next to her on the sofa. “Open it.”

A random page. Black ink. In the center, a small sketch, a long oval. Below the oval, in meticulous printing, the words November or December 2007, Right Bicep, Basement. On the facing page, another sketch, this one more of a short, bumpy line. February 1987. Right Thumb. Mrs. Marshall’s Car.

“I don’t get it.”

“Look at my right arm. Higher. To the left. See it?”

“Oh!” She looks back and forth between the sketch and the scar on his right bicep.

“Feel it.” She runs her finger over the hard oval, like something died beneath his skin. “It’s a catalog of all my scars.”

“Thomas . . .”

“There wasn’t much to do. I stared at myself. I could spend all day staring at myself. And I started noticing all these little scars, hundreds and hundreds.”

She explores the catalog. “Some don’t have labels.”

“I don’t remember them all. First I just found each one and sketched. Then I tried remembering how I got it, what injured me. Some were obvious. Some I remembered my parents telling me about. There are burns, cuts, acne, surgeries, injections, bites. But some I just couldn’t remember. I’d concentrate all day on one scar, trying to reconstruct my life, but I came up blank. My life through scars. But so much is missing, empty, gone. The scar is proof that something happened, but I have no idea what it is. I’ve forgotten most of my life.”

She touches his scar again. Smoother than the rest of his skin. “It’s weird,” she says. “It’s all healed, but it’s not the same as before. So if it’s not the same, is it really healed?” She kisses it. “Tell me what happened.”

“I was down in the basement digging through a pile of stuff for my son’s sled. No school that day, so much snow. I pulled out the sled and on my way to the stairs a mouse ran over my foot. I had to dodge to avoid stepping on it with my other foot, and I dodged right into a metal rod that was sticking out of a shelf. Punctured my arm.”

“Was there blood?”

“A bunch. My son laughed and laughed. Made fun of me for being afraid of a mouse.”

“And this one? Right thumb?”

“Sixth grade. It was Jamie’s mom’s turn to drive us home from basketball practice. We loaded into the station wagon. The windows steamed up. We were still sweaty from practice. She pulled into my driveway. It was dark by then. I got out, said good-bye, closed the door, but when I went toward the house my thumb stayed behind. It was stuck in the car door. With my other hand I had to lift the handle and open the door and pull out my thumb. I didn’t feel a thing, isn’t that strange? But when I got inside and turned on the light my hand was covered in blood. Wouldn’t stop. Had to go to the hospital. Four stitches and a splint. I had broken it in two places. I was out for the season.”

“Did the team lose because you weren’t there?”

“They probably won more games without me. I wasn’t any good.”

“Did you ride an ambulance to the hospital?”

“My dad drove me. It was so cool to watch him run through the stop signs and flash his brights and drive faster than everyone. I forgot I was bleeding.”

She opens to another page. “This one looks like a good one. Show me.” He twists his forearm. Three circles next to each other, the middle one bigger than the others. She touches the scars. “But you don’t remember how you got them?”

“I’ve tried, but I have no idea. What could that shape possibly be?”

“Maybe a bite?”

“Something with three teeth?”

She skips ahead a few pages. “Wow, show me this one!” She holds up the sketch.

“That one? That was so long ago. I don’t even remember the year. I was in grade school. Maybe kindergarten.” He pulls up the leg of his new jeans, but it won’t go high enough.

“Take them off. I want to see.”

He takes off his jeans.

She grabs his calf and pinches for a better look. “It’s like a huge hole,” she says.

“You’re probably too young. Or maybe it was different in Japan. But when I was a kid soda came in bottles, glass bottles, in six-packs with a handle.”

“Like beer.”

“Exactly.”

“I was grocery shopping with my dad.”

“Your mom was already passed away?”

“She was still here. We were having a summer barbeque. Mom sent us out to pick up some last-minute things. Dad always had little jobs for me, and that day my job was to carry the six-pack of soda. The bottles were green. I think it was 7UP. The cardboard handle cut into my hand, but I was strong, up and down the aisle.”

She strokes his leg as he talks. This is the same guy—isn’t it?—who a few months ago wouldn’t acknowledge her through the door, the same guy who shouted at her to go away, who pushed back her origami penguin. His frozen insides are thawing, and she is the heat source, she knows it. Not his wife. Her. If it weren’t for her, where would he be? And when she makes it all the way, when his core, too, is completely thawed, where will he go?

She sees him as a little boy helping his father with the soda. Smart father: it’s hard for a kid to run off to the candy aisle when he’s lugging around a case of soda. Thomas must have felt so important, helping his father that way.

“Even though they were heavy, I refused to set the bottles down. I wanted to prove I could do it. I didn’t need a break. But then, in the pasta aisle, there was a huge crash and I felt my legs go wet. Green glass all over the floor, and clear, bubbly soda spreading wild. I didn’t understand. The handle was still in my hand. I hadn’t dropped it, but two of the bottles were missing. They had fallen through the bottom of the case. I lifted it to show my father I hadn’t dropped it. I was afraid of getting in trouble for making a mess in the store, but Dad didn’t even look at the bottles, he was looking at my leg. A huge shard of green glass, a missile, was sticking out my leg. Half in, half out. Blood was streaming into my shoe. I wasn’t wearing socks. The blood was sticky. I pulled out the glass. I don’t know why but I put the glass in my pocket. There was a commotion. They took me to a back room and bandaged me. White gauze.”

“It’s so big. You should’ve gotten stitches.”

“I thought I’d get in trouble for wasting soda and making a mess in the store, but my dad didn’t say anything.”

“Do you still have the glass?”

“It was in my room somewhere. Probably melted.”

She turns the page. “What about this one?”

“Let’s stop.”

“Just one more. It’s so interesting.”

“Okay,” he says, “let’s do one more.”

She finds a scar marked April 2000. Central Park. “This one.”

“Nope,” he says. “That one’s a secret.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s really embarrassing. Too embarrassing.”

“Come on.”

“Maybe tomorrow. If you’re good.”

“Okay I’ll be good but then you have to tell me.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Promise.”

“I promise to think about it.”

She sets the notebook back down on the side table. “Only the notebook survived? That’s all you brought back?”

“Pretty much. It’s all I really wanted.”

“It’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. So precious. But didn’t it hurt to see all your other things destroyed?”

“I didn’t feel as much as I thought I would,” he says. “Like when you come home from a long vacation and you see all your stuff again and it’s all right where you left it and you wonder how you lasted so long without it but then you realize you lasted just fine and you don’t really need any of it.”

“Except for the notebook.”

“ ‘My life through scars.’ ”

“You should write that on the cover. It needs a title.”

She ignores the tension lurking below his happy façade. She’ll take the happiness for as long as she can get it.

Later she readies the futon. Silke does not come back. Thomas and Megumi lie together in the darkness.

Neither of them can sleep. Their thoughts race and collide. They toss and bump into each other, struggling to find the right position. She touches him. He responds. He accepts. While he is inside her there are no thoughts. There is peace, relaxation. When it is over—like an exhale—they finally fall asleep.

Her brother walks out of his room, smiling, with a tray. He sets it in front of her.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he says, “but for you it had to be perfect.”

She tries to speak, but she cannot.

From through the open window a white petal floats in and lands in her soup.

“What luck!” her brother says.

The petal is nearly transparent, soaking up the soup.

She focuses all her energy toward her mouth, but it is no use. She is mute. Her thoughts and questions, trapped.

Next to the river she spots a turtle, trying to camouflage itself among the wet rocks, hiding deep inside its shell.

She knock knock knocks on the shell.

Big white squid, splayed open wide and hanging along a line to dry in the sun. She is so hungry.

She begins to perspire uncontrollably in the heat, and an unseen hand blots the sweat from her skin.

But she has nothing to drink.

She is so thirsty.

She wakes up and goes to the kitchen. There is a candy bar in the refrigerator. She keeps it where an American would put the butter. A grid of chocolate. She breaks off a square. She waits at the window. The breeze floats in. She allows the chocolate to melt on her tongue before swallowing.

In the morning she makes breakfast. She opens the window a little more. She needs fresh air. Spring is here. She doesn’t eat much. As she puts on her jeans, he wakes up. “I left you some breakfast. And I made some extra rice for your lunch. Don’t worry about dinner, I’ll make it for you. The keys are on the hook.”