He was hardly dressed for a summer walk, Sato reflected, feeling the sweat tickle down his sides, but he’d needed to get away — get away before he did real damage either to his relationship with Paula or her. Stopping at the first fast food joint he came upon, he ordered a large drink and took it to the park to sit and think.
It wasn’t that he was prone to be an abusive man. If provoked, he might slap someone, but the idea that he would actually beat someone up, truly hurt them, was not within the realm of possibility. He’d throttled Ken often enough as they were growing up, joking even now that they were men about how he should’ve done more while he had the chance. Mary had received her share of pushes and shoves, too, but all of it had been benign and a response to irritation. Entertaining the wish that he could wrap his fingers around Paula’s throat right now and shake her senseless was just that — a scenario played out in his head that brought a certain degree of release of the frustration.
He sat on a bench under one of the old eucalyptus trees, set down his drink, and pulled off his jacket. Paula’s not wanting to be engaged wasn’t entirely a surprise. Nor was her taking a job that would take her out of Los Angeles. He’d reacted badly. That shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise, either, he thought.
It was part of the reason he found the academic life so appealing, why he thrived in it. There were personal issues, to be sure, and rivalries that could become frankly childish, but immersing himself in the search for information, figuring out people who were dead and couldn’t take issue with anything he did, was a lot easier than dealing with the dearly still living. It was one thing to rant and rave at some imaginary specter of a historical figure over an obstacle put in his path, keeping him from what he wanted; quite another to face a person in the flesh. There were consequences to what one said and did to the living.
Paula was right. The opportunity awaiting her in Calcutta was special, valuable, and it was her decision to make. Getting married could wait, but so could the commitment the engagement ring represented. They’d waited seven years already for reasons that made sense to them. What was three more? And anything could happen in those three years, especially the closer it came to the end of her contract. It mattered most, maybe only, to his family.
Or did it?
As his father had remarked, he wasn’t getting any younger. Neither was Paula, a mild concern Mary had reminded him of. Once she returned to the States, she’d want to find a job to settle into before thinking of starting a family. That would put her in her mid-thirties, him nearing forty. He idly wondered if he could survive children at that age, remembering watching his sister deal with her brood.
Sato groaned within at what that postponement could mean to him in other terms. His parents hadn’t shown the slightest patience about his delay in getting married. How much worse would it be with them waiting for the first grandchild? He could already hear the voiced worries, the recommendations for doctors and clinics that could help them, the arguments when — or even if — they learned the lack of children was on purpose.
But that was still quite a way on the road to the future, he reminded himself and took a thirsty drink of the cold soda to clear his thinking. First there had to be a marriage and it was left to be decided how he felt about it remaining a nebulous idea instead of the betokened promise he’d set out to get.
He wanted to be married and he specifically wanted to be married to Paula. Her strong interests and insatiable curiosity, her sense of humor and ability to laugh at the world and herself, knowing when to be serious and level-headed, the way she talked to him and shared her life with him — it all suited the way he was and wanted his life to be. Above all else, he loved her. The thought of being without her was something he’d long since pushed aside until he’d recently realized he’d taken her presence for granted.
Wasn’t that worth waiting a little longer for?
It was, he realized. And more. He’d live the rest of his life unmarried to her if that was what she really wanted. He’d acted out of insecurity, as if that piece of paper with its ebullient legal jargon and sloppy signatures really could work miracles and keep them together for eternity. It couldn’t, as he’d told his parents innumerable times in trying to get them to quit matchmaking.
It shamed him to have to admit how much he would’ve enjoyed a marriage getting his family off his back, too. He’d been fooling himself when he’d told Yoko he didn’t want to use that as an excuse. He didn’t, but that hadn’t stopped him from letting it influence him, joining with his insecurity to present a strong case for him to act.
He’d always said he wouldn’t live his life for his parents — he couldn’t. The only person to accommodate was Paula, the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, and he’d just blown up at her for doing what he expected her to do — establish a life that was both independent of and complementary to his own.
While Sato thought things out, a couple of pigeons courted nearby. He half watched them, smiling occasionally at how hard the male was trying to impress the female, puffing himself up and prancing while she acted oblivious. Women might be the ones to dress themselves up and coo for a man’s attention, but it was a male’s fate to have to display himself with aplomb and bravado, whether he be bird or man. It was silly, reminding him of his mother’s talk about romance, and gradually brought him out of his mood — until the female suddenly flew off.
He watched the male’s demeanor change with empathy, understanding the feeling expressed in the settling of feathers that seem to shrink the bird to half his size, the blank, confused look in the eyes as he stared after in the direction the female had flown. All that work for nothing. She’d left him behind.
Paula had been leaving him behind for some time, if he really thought about it, feeding his insecurities until he feared losing her. The further she’d gotten in her studies, the more distant she’d become. The closer she got to the end of that journey, the more he felt himself farther and farther behind on his own. It had made sense to let her go on while she had the momentum, the sacrifice to his own studies only temporary.
All that work… and for what?
Paula was flying off.
His jaw clenched with renewed anger. His heart cried with the understanding of the source of the hurt. She was abandoning him, leaving him behind, giving nothing in return for what he’d done for her. Where was her willingness to sacrifice for him and what did her lack of it now hold for the future?
His father would have a field day. His mother would hurt for him even as she felt justified in the search for a suitable wife over the course of those seven years. It tore at his heart. Accepting and adjusting would be hell for a long time to come. Something told him, however, that Paula might’ve just done him a big favor.
ooooo
“What are you doing?” Sato asked as he closed the door behind him, leaning back against it just as he had an hour ago. The only difference was Disraeli was nowhere to be seen.
Paula closed her laptop with unnecessary force and shoved it into her already stuffed backpack, refusing to look up at him. When a slender hand brushed through one side of her hair to tuck it behind an ear, he could see she’d been crying. She was still crying. “Going over to my parents’ house,” she finally told him. “We need to get away from each other for a while.” She snickered and rolled her eyes up at the ceiling. “That’s funny. You just got back from a week away.”
Sato watched her head into the bedroom, heard the bump of a suitcase being dislodged from the crowded closet and the latches being opened. Disraeli scurried out, pausing long enough to flick his tail a few times at his master before dashing on to the kitchen. While he’d be trying to pick up the pieces of his life, he’d be spending the night cleaning up the piles of undigested cat food Disraeli would be leaving about the place.
He sighed. He just might be joining Disraeli once he got a few beers downed. At least by then he wouldn’t care — and Paula wouldn’t be around to care, either. Maybe that was a male thing, too.
Forgetting the cat, Sato traipsed back to the bedroom and stood in the doorway, watching as clothes were pulled out of the drawers and thrown into the case on the bed. “Let me know when you’re ready to get the rest of your things and I’ll vacate the place for a few days,” he said, folding his arms and leaning against the doorframe.
“What?” Paula straightened and looked over at him, confusion overriding her anger.
He shrugged, not feeling the nonchalance of the gesture, but not wanting to give way to the emotion of the moment. “You might as well collect all of it and take it to your parents’ or put it in storage. I think we both know you won’t be coming back.”
Paula stalked over to him, standing face to face with him. “Just you remember this when you tell your family and friends what a bitch I am… I’m not the one calling it quits. You are. All I did was accept a job that will advance my career… something you encouraged me to go after. But now, just because it means you’re gonna have to rely on your own good right hand to get you off, you go all possessive and want to be sure all the world knows I belong to you.”
“You are a bitch, Paula.” The slap across his face sent his head against the doorframe, but rather than raising his ire, it calmed him, solidifying his resolve to see this through to the end. “You don’t give a shit about me. Your career is more important to you than I am… maybe it always was and I was just a meal ticket… a little amusement along the way to relieve the stress.” He stopped her hand before she could slap him again, holding her wrist in a tight grip as he continued. “And the problem isn’t with me wanting everyone to know you’re committed to someone, but you wanting to stay free. Looking to step up in the ranks from a mere samurai and find yourself a raja this time?”
“That’s sick,” she hissed at him and yanked her hand free. “I don’t think I want any man if this is what happens to them once they think a woman is theirs.”
She turned on her heel and went back to filling the suitcase, shoving as much as she could into it. Grabbing a nearby cloth bag, she stormed into the bathroom and swept what was hers into it without care, anxious to be free of him and any obligation to another. It had been a long time. She was going to enjoy it.
“I’ll be over Tuesday afternoon after class,” she told him, slinging the straps of the bag over a shoulder and grabbing the handle of the suitcase. It was almost more than she could handle and it dropped from the bed to the floor with a loud thump. She’d be damned if she asked for any help and dragged it across the floor towards the doorway. “With a truck and friends to help me,” she added with a hateful glance as he got out of her way.
Sato stood by and watched as she added her backpack to her already burdened shoulder, feeling no compunction to offer to help. He’d helped her enough and gotten this in return.
“Better make sure to find yourself a couple of strong men to come with you,” he yelled as the door slammed behind her.
