Had there been anything worth watching, he’d be watching television.  If the slightest concept of a view could be seen from any window in the apartment, he would’ve opened the curtains and be admiring the cityscape.  The problem with living in a complex was that the only view was of his neighbors’ back patios and if he could peek into their lives, they could peek into his.  Sitting in nothing but his boxers, a beer slowly warming where it sat on the bed braced between his legs, he didn’t really want to be on display.

So he stared at the walls, thankful for the dark that kept Paula’s prints in the shadows.  In two more days, the walls would be barren — like his life, he thought miserably.  He brought the bottle to his lips and threw his head back, draining the last half, letting loose with a barbaric belch at the end.  What did civilized manners matter?  Disraeli didn’t care — in fact, he found it intriguing and stealthily moved up the bed to look Sato in the eyes.

“There’s still some manners worth keeping,” he told the cat.  “Like when someone does something for you, you do something in return.  See, I share my beer with you, so you should go get another for me.”

Disraeli’s response was to utter a single questioning meow and roll over onto his back, casting a funny face back up at his master.  A paw stretched out beyond his head and snagged the pillowcase on a claw.

“Shouldn’t do that,” Sato admonished him, wagging a finger before releasing the cloth from the razor-sharp claw.  “The bed is mine, but I’m sure the sheets are hers.”  He cocked his head to one side and wondered out loud, “I don’t think I have any sheets anymore.  I haven’t bought any since… since before she took over my life.”

He bumped Disraeli with a hip, getting the cat to move so he could make his way to the edge of the bed.  He rose and headed towards the kitchen and his dwindling supply of beer, checking the linen closet on the way.  He snorted and closed the door.

“Hangover or no, I gotta go shopping tomorrow.”  He looked around the main room and shook his head.  “And do some housecleaning.  Shit.  We’re gonna need boxes.”

As he ambled past the coffee table, he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks and stared down at the shiny glass surface.  It was such a small thing, sitting there in its pitch black simplicity, solitary.  Small enough to have made the journey across a desert and over mountains, nestled in a pocket next to his heart, and yet it had held a force a thousand times or more powerful than its size would indicate.  He supposed the atomic bombs dropped on Japan had seemed pathetically small compared to the destruction they’d wreaked, too.

“The best things come in small packages,” he mumbled, recalling what was always said when, as a kid, he’d been suspicious of anything he could hold in one small hand.  The way he was starting to feel right now, he was ready to conclude that his childhood sense of things was better, that he much preferred whatever came in the bigger boxes.

He turned his attention back to his original objective and proceeded into the kitchen.  More than anywhere else in the apartment, Paula’s influence surrounded him.  From the choice of foods to the things used to cook and consume them with, whether by design or by nature, she’d claimed the kitchen.  Sato found himself chuckling at that, too.  It was so like his mother.

“I don’t know, Disraeli,” he commented.  “What do you think?  You suppose that’s a girl thing… give ‘em a little of your space to live in and they take it over?  The birds and bees.”  He laughed as he opened the refrigerator and pulled out another bottle of beer.  “They take a man’s cave or tree hollow and make it into a nest or hive.”  Popping the cap from the bottle, he took a long drink and finished with a loud vocalization of satisfaction, more in appreciation of the buzz that was numbing his senses than any real enjoyment of the beer.  He peered down at Disraeli looking up at him from his place on the floor and sighed.  “Leave it to me to snag a defective one, eh?  Or maybe I just don’t know how to pick a good place for a nest.”

Sato wandered back to the bedroom, collecting the engagement ring on his way.  He tossed it up in the air a few times and caught it one last time as he plopped back down onto the bed.  With a thumb, he flipped the box open.

Not even his imagination could dim the brilliance of the main stone.  No matter time or place, it would always find the faintest light and faithfully reflect it.  He felt a stabbing pain rush through his chest, centering straight into his heart.  People weren’t made of such strong stuff.  It was easy for them to be faithless.  It was an apt symbol of truest love, the kind of love that the poets had sung of from time immemorial.  Its costliness spoke of the willingness of the giver to sacrifice for the person being given the treasure.

Anger licked at his spirit again.  He’d postponed so much for her and she couldn’t give him anything but her warped estimation of his sense of equality, demanding more from him, refusing to see that he had any justification in claiming his own rights.

He snapped the box shut and threw it in the direction of the wastebasket.  It hit the wall and dropped into the basket, clean as any backboard shot in the NBA, but he didn’t have the heart to celebrate his success.  In this game in life, the points scored were a sign of defeat.  He would have to be at the equivalent of a three-point shot, too.

Sato turned onto his side, his back to the wastebasket, and took another drink of beer before pushing the bottle to a secure place on the bedside table.  The ring was exactly where it belonged — in the receptacle for waste.

ooooo

It was just as well he’d been as exhausted as he was, Sato thought as he moved from the bedroom into the main room the next morning.  A couple of aspirin had taken care of the mild headache and acted quickly enough to get him to a store for supplies, including boxes.  Thanks to a breakfast of his own choosing, plenty of coffee, and one oversized play list, he was zipping right along.  One room down, two more to go, and it wasn’t even noon yet.

He set the sealed box on the floor near the door where he’d begun piling the boxes and other things that obviously belonged to Paula.  He could do that much for her to help, but it was as much cathartic for him to clear the evidence of her away now that it seemed almost certain they’d awakened from the long dream.  The sooner he made the transition back into bachelorhood, the quicker he could get back to taking care of the things he needed to do.

Atop the stack of flattened boxes near the sofa, Disraeli quietly reclined and watched his master silently.  Turning from the collection of packed boxes, Sato caught sight of the cat and cocked his head to the side, wondering what was going on inside his stalwart companion’s brain.

“Miss her?” Sato asked as he moved to the sofa.  He rubbed the soft fur around Disraeli’s neck, enjoying the look of pleasure in the closing golden eyes and tipped back head.  A gentle purr from the cat’s throat tickled his fingertips.  For the first time he realized there had been no gooey messes to catch his step unawares or have to clean up.  Disraeli was either taking this better than he thought or he had yet to realize the other would not be there anymore.  “I guess you always were my cat and never ours.”

Sato slipped a couple of sheets of the cardboard out from beneath the top one, hand holding Disraeli to keep him from thinking he had to scat.  He sat on the sofa and took his time putting the boxes together in the space cleared by moving the coffee table off to the side.  It would’ve been a mildly relaxing activity if it didn’t have the misfortune of being mindless, leaving him to think about other things.  The reason he was doing this in the first place was only too conveniently at the forefront of his thoughts.

The mentally exhausting, life-altering day behind him, his thinking was a little clearer, a little more rational, but the hurt remained.  He knew that as the time passed, with each day that quietly went by without any other human presence to fill the apartment with energy and warmth, he would truly begin to miss her and the pain would deepen.  He remembered a good friend’s response to his congratulating her on finally being free of a husband who’d made her miserable for years before they’d called it quits.

It’s like someone close to you whose been sick for a long time dying, she’d told him at the lunch he’d taken her out for in celebration of her divorce.  It doesn’t matter that you know how it will end.  Death is death.  It’s final. They’re gone.

He set down the half completed box and leaned back against the cushions of the sofa.  This room more than any of the others, even the very personal space of the bedroom, was theirs.  He looked behind him, towards the bedroom, where on either side of the door they had each claimed their own little bit of space for the books and files and desk to conduct their individual work and research.  Far enough apart for them to personalize their space; close enough that all they’d had to do was look over at the other.

Outside, through the glass doors, the lounge chairs warmed to the mid-day summer sun, reminding him of lazy times spent together reading or gazing at the city night as they shared ideas and dreams.  The walls were covered in the prints of artists they both liked, recalling trips to museum gift stores and catalog searches in bed after loving.  They used to do so much together, always going places, stopping at a whim just because someplace was out of the ordinary or too impossible to be believed, bringing home silly little mementos…

A short, quiet meow intruded on the silence of his thoughts.  Sato turned his head and realized Disraeli was no more than a haze of orange.

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.

Sato stood where the shuttle that Paula had ordered for him had deposited him and looked down the length of the sidewalk.  He’d walked that cement path probably a million times, come home from trips out of town innumerable times without thinking any differently about it, and never once feared setting his foot upon it.

It was stupid to be afraid of what he’d long thought inevitable, but it was such a big thing to be finally making it a reality.  Or hoping to, he reminded himself.

He picked up his suitcase, hefted the backpack further on his shoulder, and took the first step.  As he walked, his mind flashed over a hundred things — Paula, what she’d look like, how she’d greet him, how he’d greet her, what they’d say to each other after a week apart, and the thing that had been bugging him for four days now… how would the proposal happen.

The door to their apartment before him at last, he set down the suitcase and pulled out his keys to open it.  He laughed as soon as he pushed it.  If Paula ever stopped caring, at least there was still Disraeli.  He bent down, giving the oversized, overly talkative orange cat an equal amount of rubs and pets and words.

“Okay, Disraeli,” he ordered with a snap of a finger, pointing it back to the inside of the apartment.  “Move it so I can get in, will ya?”

“I don’t know why you don’t just take him with you when you visit your parents.  He’s worse than a kid missing his mommy when you’re gone.”

Sato dumped the suitcase inside and closed the door behind him.  The backpack slid to the floor with a soft thud.  Across the room, at her computer as he’d expected, Paula was untangling her loose hair from the headphones.  She rose and he watched her with unguarded desire as she came towards him.

“Cat hair and whatever he hacks up as presents?  In my mother’s immaculate house?”  Sato gave a playful shudder.  “It’ll never happen,” he announced before opening his arms for her to slip into.

Once upon a time, she would have been waiting for him at the airport gate, full of smiles, arms and hands all over him, the other travelers be damned.  With maturity and familiarity, she had lost that overwhelming exuberance, unlike Disraeli, but the strength of her embrace and the softness of her mouth hadn’t changed.

“So you survived after all,” she teased him, using her weight to keep him with his back against the door, her arms languidly draped around his shoulders.

“I don’t know.  It’s still too close to call it definite.”

He locked her into another deep, drawn out kiss and pushed off from the door, heading them in the direction of the sofa.  His body ached for her, demanding to feel her curves, her skin.  Senses longed for the taste and scent he knew, to hear her voice saying his name, telling him what he wanted to hear.  He needed to bury himself in her, lose himself in the experience of loving her, fly as he had in the bizarre dream of the morning hours, just as free and awe struck.

“At least one part of me survived,” he joked, his words husky with lust as he pushed her onto the cushions and rubbed his hardness against her.

“More than one part,” Paula corrected him, “and in a very interesting area for what we’re doing.”  She freed her lips from his hungry mouth and dropped her head back.  A hand felt around the area of his breast and patted the lump there.  “I’m getting poked in two places.  Should I be worried?”

All jokes aside, there were definitely times when men did think only with their cocks, Sato mused to himself.  He should’ve slipped out of the jacket first.  He should’ve packed the ring in his backpack.  Maybe he should’ve waited until he got back to Los Angeles to buy it in the first place.

“Oh, that,” he mumbled, pulling back to sit up between her long, bared legs.  It wasn’t his idea of romantic, but the moment had sort of presented itself.  And, it wouldn’t be any easier at another time.  He reached into the pocket, pulled out the little box, and taking one of her hands, placed it on the palm.

“What’s this?”

“Open it and see.”

The excitement he’d felt the day he’d purchased it returned.  He felt his grin take control of his face as he watched her position the box in her hands to open it, then held his breath.

Her soft blue eyes grew wide the moment they saw what was within.  “Jim… “  She shut her eyes and closed the box, curling her fingers around it.  “Jim… it’s beautiful… but… “

“But?” he finally prompted when she didn’t continue.  It definitely hadn’t been the response he wanted.  “But what?  It’s too expensive?  Too ostentatious?  Too big?  Too small?”  He gave a theatrical sigh and sat back on his heels, still between her legs.  “Please tell me you don’t want it because diamond mining is slavery or raping the land.”

Paula scooted back and collected her legs, throwing them over the side of the sofa.  “We need to talk,” she said, standing.  She set the box on the low table in front of her, a single finger straying over the surface of the velvet.  “I’ll be right back.”

Left alone, Sato repositioned himself and sat quiet, unable to think straight.  He stared at the box.  She hadn’t even bothered to humor him by taking the ring out, trying it on, admiring its beauty.  She could’ve done that much, at least, he dismally thought, even if she was resolutely against marrying him.

Promptly, he stopped the direction of his thoughts, cooling his rising temper before it took control of everything.  Hadn’t he told his mother she might turn him down?  Hadn’t he gone over and over the many reasons why she would feel compelled to?

A few minutes later, Paula returned from the kitchen, holding two bottles of beer.  In one hand, her fingers gripped a large envelope.  “You’re going to need this,” she commented, handing him one of the opened bottles, “for when you see this.”  Dropping the envelope beside him, she stepped back and sat in the chair across the coffee table from him.

Sato took a long swig of the beer, staring at something as innocuous as an envelope and knowing it for an enemy.  He set the bottle on the table and picked it up, lifting the flap to pull out the paperwork within.  His eyes took in the words, but his mind refused to believe.

“Calcutta?”  Of all the places her expertise could take her, some place as distant and primitive as India had never occurred to him.  He looked up at her, wondering how long ago it had occurred to her — and why.

She knew he would react with surprise, though how he couldn’t have thought of it as a possibility was a surprise in itself.  ”Countries like India need a lot of help.  They don’t have the resources Europe and the States have.  They don’t have the money, either.  They can afford someone still wet behind the ears like me.”  Paula leaned forward in the chair and dipped her head.  “Because of the British, they have incredible collections… just sitting there.  The research potential and chance to get practical experience is a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.  You know that.”  She lifted her head and gave him a look that told him he should know much more than that.  “I want to travel… to see the world.  I need to.  It’s in my blood.”

“I’ve known you wanted to travel… from the very first evening we talked.”  Sato replaced the documents in their envelope with slow, deliberate care, and reached for his beer to take another long drink.  He played with the label for a bit, picking at an edge to start it peeling, feeling frustrated.  “The world can’t wait another couple of years?” he finally asked then looked up.  “India will still be there and still need help.”

“The world can wait,” Paula quickly answered him.  “I can’t.”

Sato snorted, angry and hurt.  “I’m sorry.  I had no idea you were so anxious to get away from me.”

“Jim… “  Paula dropped to the ground and made her way to him, grasping a knee and squeezing it, hoping to get him to understand.  “I’m not.  I just can’t stand to stay here anymore.  I’ve got to get out of L.A., out of the States. If I don’t… I feel like I’ll be trapped here if I don’t take this chance now.”

“I could still go with you,” he said, hanging on to hope.  He shrugged and gave a little smile.  “After all, India is practically British.  There’s plenty for me to look into.”

“There is and you could,” she agreed, but her sad smile and caress along his arm told him she didn’t want him there.  “And you’d hate it after a few weeks.  Your heart just isn’t into colonialism.  You live for the gritty world of London and the green of the rolling hills of the mother country…. the Bronte sisters instead of Kipling.  You prefer the familiar over the exotic.”

“God, Paula,” Sato exclaimed and stood to pace, needing to work off a week’s worth of tension made worse by coming home to his world falling apart.  “You make me sound like I’m my father.  There’s a man who really holds on to the familiar with a steel grip.”

“I know you’re nothing like your father.  You never will be.  But there’s a big difference between visiting a place and actually living there.  I’m committed to three years.”

“You’ve already accepted it?”  Sato whipped around and stared at Paula with disbelief.  “You never thought to talk to me about it?”

“No,” she answered simply, her voice quiet and head bowed.  “I knew you’d be against it.  What was the point?  I’m not about to throw this opportunity in the trash.  They don’t grow on trees, you know.”

Sato let out a howl that sent Disraeli, dogging his heels since he’d stood, scurrying for the bedroom.  “But you were more than willing to throw away a relationship seven years in the making.”  Hands on hips, he stood staring down at a woman he wasn’t sure he knew anymore.  “And me.”

Paula looked up at him, her countenance sad rather than angry, and shook her head.  “I never looked on it as throwing us or you out of my life.  You’re putting ideas into my head that were never there.  Jim… I just don’t think getting married right now is the thing to do.”  She rose from the floor and took his place on the sofa, taking a drink from the bottle of beer she’d given him.  The black velvet box sat there, as accusatory as Jim in its inanimate silence.  “I looked on it as gaining unique experience while you worked on your doctorate.  We’ve known there was a strong chance I’d need to move away from L.A. in order to get my career started.”

“India… anywhere outside of the country… wasn’t something that was discussed.  It’s not like I can just jump on a weekend flight to come see you,” Sato replied, still angry.  “I certainly didn’t think you’d take something without talking to me first.”  He looked to the table and pointed at the box.  “And that… that is nothing more than a promise of marriage in the future… something I did think we were on the same wave length about.  But you can’t give me even that much commitment.”

“Jim… “

“How long have you known about this?” he blurted, cutting off any remark from her.

“I saw the announcement last month.  The paperwork came while you were in Phoenix.  It wasn’t something I could tell you about over the phone… not even if I hadn’t expected an argument from you about it.  I had to make the decision for myself, for my career.  I woke up Thursday morning knowing it was right for me, contacted them and accepted.  Where are you going?” she suddenly asked when he turned on his heel and started for the door.

“What do you care,” he tossed over his shoulder, slamming the door on his way out.

“Not disturbing you?” she asked, a little disappointed to find her son already awake.  She knew she shouldn’t be walking in on him, that the time when it was acceptable was very long past, but she’d never been able to resist the opportunity to sit nearby while he slept and remember.  One day he would marry, putting a real end to this kind of maternal indulgence.

Sato closed the book and set it down on the bed.  He shook his head, patting the space beside him.  “A dream woke me up and I couldn’t get back to sleep.  I’m just killing time, really.”

“Excited?”  Mrs. Sato crossed the short distance to the bed and sat on the edge, a warm, teasing smile brightening her face.  She took her advantage of being his mother a little further and swiped the fall of hair off to the side to get it out of his eyes, hoping his wakefulness was just that and not still the tension of yesterday.

“Excited, nervous, impatient,” he ticked off the list then grinned sheepishly.  “Scared.”

Mrs. Sato nodded her head, understanding he must be feeling even more than he realized.  After so much waiting, so much pressure, there had to be a degree of unreality about it, like seeing the summit of Mt. Everest.  “I wish I could help,” she said and brought her hands to lie in her lap, resisting petting the silky hair.  It wasn’t the kind of comfort he needed from her anymore.

“You do,” Sato assured her, resting one of his own hands atop hers.  “In quiet ways.  All I need most of the time is to know someone is on my side.  I might lose the fight, but I’m not completely defeated.”

“I’m surprised you’d say that… about me, that is.”

Sato gave her a curious look.  “Why?”

“All those blind dates.  My matchmaking,” she added with an embarrassed grin.

“Yeah, well, you weren’t exactly quiet about that, were you.”  He laughed lightly, patting her hands before stretching back against the pillows and folding his arms across his chest, feeling more relaxed.  “I like to think I get my stubbornness and determination from you.”

“You probably do,” she laughed with him, “but you’ve got your father’s way of showing it.”  She shrugged, deciding, “Maybe it’s only because you’re a man.  Neither one of you can withdraw from a disagreement without a display of temper.  That causes more problems,” she added, prodding him in the chest with a finger.

“Would you rather I ran away crying?”  Sato could just imagine how well that would go over.   Mary already thought he looked sweet in an apron and Ken would never give up on the stereotypes of a California lifestyle.  At least at this point he didn’t think his father entertained any notions of him in that direction, but he surely would had he ever walked out of an argument in tears instead of like a barely contained volcano.  Mary’s suggestion in the kitchen came to mind.  “Wonder what he’d do if I did?” he mused aloud.

“Your father?”  Mrs. Sato leaned back and sighed with thought.  “I don’t think he’d know what to do.  I don’t remember you ever crying in front of him since you were very, very small.  Sometimes I think now you did it then only because you hadn’t learned how to fight back yet.”

Sato thoughtfully regarded his mother for a moment, wondering if she wished he had never learned.  “Any regrets?” he ventured to ask.  “That I grew up refusing to give him the satisfaction of my tears?”

She shook her head.  “It wouldn’t have changed his mind.  Tears don’t have that kind of effect on him. What it would have done is probably made him worry about you more.”

Mrs. Sato sighed again, heavily this time from a deep sorrowful wish that her husband could’ve been more relenting towards his eldest son.  It wasn’t giving in to him or having her head turned, as he was too fond of resorting to labeling her accedences, but acceptance that their son’s decisions had merit.  Like Paula — as soon as she knew Jim was certain this was the one, she’d accepted.

And she’d accepted something else through the years.  “It was for the best that you met his anger with your own.  He could respect that, at least.”  Emotional with the memories and remembering that in a few hours he’d be gone, flying off to what she hoped was a new kind of future, she reached out and caressed her son’s broad cheek as if she’d never be able to again.  “I knew you had a heart… that your true nature was softer, gentler than your father’s.  I heard and felt my sons’ tears behind the closed doors.”

Sato let his head fall back to the pillow.  He held his mother’s hand to keep it against his face and smiled.  “We knew you did,” he spoke softly.  “We both remember the little things you’d do when we came up short of Dad’s expectations.  Quiet comfort,” he reminded her.  “It might seem like we take it for granted now, but… we know you’re still there for us.”

He quickly sat up and took her in his arms, giving her a strong hug, like she used to do to him when she’d come in to talk things over and quell his anger and frustration.  After the tears had passed, he suddenly realized and hugged her a little harder.  He’d have to remember that, he decided, for when he had children.  She’d always given him comfort, but always careful not to damage his pride.

“It’s not fair, you know,” he commented, still holding her.  “I’m going to have the jitters all morning and Paula’s probably sprawled all over the bed back in L.A., obliviously calm.”

ooooo

The coolness of terminal four* did nothing to staunch the continued dampness on Sato’s skin.  The sweat had begun as soon as he had started his packing.  He’d hardly even noticed the already formidable noon heat when he’d stepped outside of the house to load his suitcase into the car for the drive to the airport.  The desert sun was no match for the adrenalin acting like heating oil as it rushed through his veins.

He could feel his heart thudding in his chest, beating stronger the closer they got to the gate.  Seven years ago, he’d felt just this way when his parents had walked him to the plane that would take him to Los Angeles and another kind of hope, then the hope of the beginnings of a career he wanted.  He could never have imagined then that something else could make him feel even more anxiety ridden than an interview for a faculty position.  Awareness of the little velvet box tucked in the breast pocket of his sports jacket enlightened him.

His parents stood off to the side as he walked up to the desk and handed his identification and ticket to the attendant.  He looked over at his mother, smiling to himself at the mix of worry and joy in her expression, perhaps a little more pronounced this time than it had been all those years ago when it had only been a job prospect.  He glanced at his father and gave a little snort.  Same old look of cool disinterest, only doing his parental duty.  Sato doubted it would be any different if the old man had been aware that this flight was taking him to a marriage prospect.

“Interesting name.”

“Hmm?”  Sato turned his gaze from his parents and onto the young female attendant.  He looked straight in to her eyes to strengthen his words.  “It’s Japanese in origin.”

“Yes, I know,” she smiled.  “Hajime Sato.  Do you watch animé or read manga?”

“No,” he sighed, “but I know where this is going.”

It didn’t surprise Sato to see her nudge her coworker’s arm and show him the name on the ticket in her hand.  It did, however, to see the look of confusion on the man’s face.  He instantly thought he might like this guy.

“You know,” she prompted the clueless attendant, “the cop in Rurouni Kenshin… hates Kenshin… always giving Sano a hard time.  This guy’s name is almost the same as his.”  She rolled her eyes in exasperation at the lack of recognition and finished the paperwork, complaining as she collected it all together with his boarding pass.  “I thought all guys were into animé.”

“Is there a problem?” Sato heard his father ask at his shoulder.

“Yes,” Sato answered, taking his identification, ticket and pass and leading his father back to where his mother stood watching with concern.  “I wish you and Mom had read up on Japanese history before you decided to name me Hajime.”  Both parents looked at him in an almost identical look of confusion as the man had.  “Wait a few years… when Tim and Jimmy and Danny are all into animé.  Then you’ll understand.”

It could’ve been worse, he reflected for a moment.  After all, his family name could’ve just as easily have included that one, simple letter’s difference and his parents would’ve been just as ignorant when they named him.  Bringing up his nephews now made him wonder what was facing him when the boys did grow up, saw this animé that brought him attention — and they would — and were introduced to a character from real history with a name that could sound so like their uncle’s.  It might be worth the time and effort to look into it, he thought — just to be prepared.  With his luck, the guy was a total asshole all around.

Any furthered discussion about the frustration with his name was pre-empted by the call for boarding to begin.  He grasped his father’s hand within his own, the only intimacy he’d realized a long time ago the man would ever permit him, and gave it a brief, short shake.  His mother, however, was an entirely different experience.

He could feel the sting of the tears forming in her eyes, the pull of the smile across her face.  His own eyes stung and his own face was stretched tight in recognition of the secret they shared.  The pack slipped from his shoulder to rest at his feet as he reached and pulled her into a close embrace.

“Thanks, Mom,” he spoke softly against her still dark hair, letting her move him to and fro in a familiar rocking gesture of farewell.  “For everything.”

“You know you’re welcome,” she answered, holding her son tightly, suddenly not wanting to let him leave without her.  Four hundred miles was such a long way away and no technology could make up for it when he really needed her.  She patted his back, rubbing it as she forced herself to begin to pull away from him.  She put another smile on her face when their gazes met again and tried to wink at him.  “Next trip, bring Paula.  In fact,” she whispered, leaning close to the ear away from her husband, “don’t come home unless she’s with you.”

Sato chuckled and kissed the side of her wet face.  His wink was more successful than hers.  “I’ll call you,” he said, knowing she understood he’d have some kind of news for her.

ooooo

On such a short flight, there was no need for his backpack.  On such a momentous flight, he’d be needing the little bit of extra room to either squirm or stretch out his legs.

Sato pushed the pack into the overhead compartment and took his seat.  Buckled in, he felt the constraint more than usual.  He looked out of the small portal, disappointed that he couldn’t see the terminal windows.  No matter how impatient his father might be to get back home, he knew his mother would be there, watching until she could no longer see the plane in the sky.  This time she would be sending him all the hopes and prayers she could muster.

This time, he was glad for them.

“I’m sorry we kind of ganged up on you out there,” she apologized.  “Part of it is just being tired of Dad griping about you even when you’re not around, like we could make some miracle happen.  The rest of it… we’re only worried about you.”

“Yeah, well, fuck you, too.”

The hands slipped away and Sato stared at the facet cuts in the glass he held up before him as Mary moved to sit at the table.  In the sunlight coming through the window, they picked up the deep burgundy of the wine and reflected it back in shades of magenta and fuchsia — the way the diamond did, the color of the ruby on the necklace warmed against his mother’s skin.

“Look, I know what you do with your life is none of our business, really, but… “

“Got that right,” Sato interrupted her and took a drink.  “I don’t tell you guys what to do and if anyone has some rightful place to comment on how you and Ken live your lives, it’s me… the eldest brother.”  He looked over at Mary at last, a scowl etched deeply on his face.  “But I didn’t want to play that game.  I still don’t.  It’s medieval.”

“You don’t have to provoke him.”

“I don’t.  He starts it even when he just sits there.  When he does open his mouth, I tell him the truth because I’m not clever enough to lie to him and get away with it.  Besides, with the way he views my life, I’d never be able to keep up with all of what I had told him and he’s got a memory as dependable as one of Ken’s computers… maybe even better.”  Sato took another sip of the wine, wishing he could get really drunk, and chuckled.  “There’s a lot he doesn’t know about me.  And I won’t tell him unless he drags it out into the open because I know what I’d get… I’m an idealistic fool who can’t do anything right.  It’s not worth the extra grief.”

Mary held her peace, taking the time to pour herself some of the wine and cut it with ginger ale.  There’d been a secretive side to her brother even when they were still children, made worse once he’d graduated to being in his own room and yet again as soon as he’d been able to drive.  Moving to Los Angeles had been the ultimate in closing them off to what he was doing.  She’d always put it down to the inevitabilities of certain facts: he was a guy and she was a girl, the difference in years between him and Ken, and just the simple reason he was something of a black sheep in the family.  He could very easily be living a double life for all she knew of his world on the coast.

She suddenly snickered, trying to imagine her scholarly brother being a drug dealer or a con artist or some other underworld type.  He just didn’t fit the picture, but then it would be the perfect cover, she thought.

“I’m glad someone finds some humor in all this,” Sato mumbled over his glass.

“It’s not that,” she assured him.  “I was just thinking on what you said about Dad not knowing everything about you… trying to think of you doing something really immoral or illegal.”  She laughed this time and shook her head.  “I just can’t see it.”

Sato could see her point and grinned mischievously.  “Yeah, I run drugs from the Orient out of the port of Los Angeles, actually have several wives and an unknown number of children, and Ken doesn’t realize that I’m the sugar daddy to a stable of young studs.  The college is just my base of operation.”  He drank down the last of his wine and went for more, feeling a little lighter thanks to the first glass and Mary’s warped imagination.  “I mean, who in their right mind would actually teach English Lit and how else could I afford to live in southern California?”  He snorted at that, nearly spilling wine as he poured.  “The apartment Paula and I live in is a great front to hide how much money I actually make.  Of course, she’s just my moll and that’s why we haven’t married.”

Mary just smiled, her eyes following him across the kitchen back to his seat.  “You know,” she said as he took a drink from the refilled glass, “sometime you should tell Dad that.”

His eyes grew large over the rim of the glass and he hastily set it down.  “Didn’t you just now chastise me about provoking him?”

“That’s reality.  Maybe it would put some perspective on it for him if you told him such a crazy story… let him in on what you could be doing instead of being an upstanding citizen and teacher and boyfriend.”

“What crazy story is this,” a voice inquired from the doorway.  Ken noted the color of the liquid in his siblings’ glasses and chuckled to himself.  Depending on how much of it his brother had had and given his vivid imagination, almost anything was possible.  He listened as Mary recounted Sato’s little scenario while he poured himself some of the wine.

“Trying to give the old man a heart attack?” Ken commented, taking the chair on the other side of his brother.  “Just one of those sidelines would be enough to shock him.”

“He needs a good shocking,” Sato replied.  “Something… anything… to get him to release his steel grip on me and accept me on my own terms as just his son.”

“Might as well ask the sun to stop shining,” Mary sighed.  “Or a blizzard to hit Phoenix in June,” she added with a smile.

He’d seen strange things happen in his short lifetime, but Sato was inclined to agree only too much with his sister’s estimation of the situation, although the suggestion of fabricating some kind of other life for himself was gaining a certain appeal, if only to see his father’s immediate reaction.  A little more wine and he’d probably be able to come up with a good one, but the chance had already been spoiled by the earlier argument.  Nothing would move his father this trip, not even if he were to make the potential sacrifice of his pride by telling him he was planning on proposing to Paula.  No matter how brilliantly the diamonds in the ring sparkled, his father would find something to dispel the happiness of the moment.

“You really didn’t mean what you said out there,” Sato broke into the lull, glancing over to his brother.  “About not liking the way I live my life?”

Ken sighed.  “Live however you want, but I know at least I wish you’d give some thought to what Mary and I go through when you fight any suggestion you might not be right about something.”

“Oh, come on,” Sato complained and fidgeted in the chair, finally settling into a sideways position with his arm along its back.  “Name me one thing he’s ever given me credit for in front of you guys.”  When the answer was silence, he chortled.  “You can’t.  If I have to suffer, you’re suffering right along with me.  Isn’t that what family does… stick together?  At the very least, I deal with it in some fashion, whether it’s going out on idiotic blind dates that are totally pointless or standing some of my ground with Dad.  You don’t like it, tough.  I don’t like it either.”

He looked over at Ken, tempted to tell him that his own wife had been the sole support back in the living room, willing to show some defiance in favoring him against her formidable father-in-law.  Such a simple gesture and it had been both comforting and bold.  He mentally filed it away for when he got back to Los Angeles.  His credit card could take one more hit and he could count on Paula to know what would be the perfect gift to send her in appreciation for what she’d done.

Before Sato could say anything to further jeopardize the tentative truce between them, Ken spoke up.  “Then you’re just going to have to deal with the fact sometimes we’re going to piss you off because we’re tired of hearing the same bullshit year after year.”  Ken lifted his glass and raised it to Sato, giving him a sardonic smile.  “Nothing personal.  It’s just the way it is.”

ooooo

Whether it was because anything was better than the stress of the day or Paula had really been more available to him, Sato couldn’t decide.  It didn’t matter, he concluded as he set his cell phone to recharge.  The last hour of talking with her in the dark of the night left him feeling at peace.

His sister and mother would’ve said it was because he was going home to her in the morning and, ordinarily, that would have been the case.  Not this time.  Calm as he was, the anxiety of what lay ahead of him remained foremost in his thoughts, especially now that the day was over.  Part of him couldn’t wait. The other was disturbed by how quickly time was ticking by, bringing him closer and closer to the moment.

Sato slipped deeper between the sheets, thankful for the air conditioning that allowed him to bring the covers up to his chin.  It had always made him feel safe to cocoon himself in bed, adding to the sense of calm Paula had given him.  Burrowing his face into the soft pillow, it didn’t take long to drift into sleep.

ooooo

The car bumped its way at a fast clip, leaving a wake of red dust on old dirt roads that wound around the high desert brush.  Anyone who didn’t know the lay of the land would’ve wondered why in so flat an area there would be any need for twists and turns at all.

Then something happened.  He felt his body and mind change.  The land around him changed, shifting to rock as though he’d taken a turn off the main road and was heading down the side of a mountain.  He didn’t have time to think.  All at once, he felt himself leap, his evolution complete, understanding he had taken flight.  The air whipped by, the force of his increasing speed a pull on his body as he dove headlong towards the canyon floor.  A white circle came into view and he realized in an instant that was his target.

He scrunched his eyes, readying himself for the inevitable impact, then gasped.  Just short of the earth, he felt himself pushed upward, lifted higher and higher.  The sides of the canyon seemed to go on forever as he rode a thermal, softly and slowly rising.  They took his breath away with the majesty of their formidable stand against the universe, as though daring anything or anyone to broach their guard.  It was no wonder the ancient Indians had sought shelter among them.

Taking its cue from his thought, the image changed; not at once, but slowly… dissolving into a timbered slope.  Beyond he could see water, a lake.  As he continued to soar, the air current took him past it, to a flat of cleared land and a village.  He flew in among its people, feeling peace and contentment… like coming home.

Sato awoke.  His eyes opened to darkness, but he blinked them several times anyway.  His obsessed scholar’s mind was confused.  That hadn’t been a Moqui* village.  Nestled in a forest, it was more like something he imagined the eastern Indians inhabiting, like the Cherokee or something.

He sat up and rubbed his eyes, wondering what would ever make him dream about driving up into Indian country on a whim or why the images drawn had been so breathtakingly beautiful to him.  Even now, he could feel the power of the sheer canyon walls and the freedom of the flight.  He laughed at himself.  His Kafkaesque transformation from man into bird should’ve been answer enough for why he’d come upon the wrong tribe, but it would have to be such a trivial detail that would rouse him from the dream.

Looking over at the digital clock brought a frustrated sigh.  Outside, the sun was hours away from peeking over the Superstition Mountains and shining over the sleeping city nestled in this once barren valley and he was awake.  He reached over and flipped on the lamp then leaned over to pull his backpack closer to the bed.  Getting back to sleep was useless now that this day had arrived.  Even as he pulled out the thick book he’d brought with him, he knew it held out little hope.  Nothing, not even the invincible canyon walls in his dream, could protect him and free his mind of what this new day could bring.

It would’ve all been different if Paula were here with him, he thought sullenly.  She was his in a kind of exclusive possession that only a couple shared.  It was strange to him to think how that was considering there was no connection of blood like there was with the majority of those with him now.

Was it because he and Paula loved by choice rather than some hereditary obligation?  Sato grinned to himself.  He hadn’t exactly chosen to love Paula.  It had simply happened, but the decision to follow through on those feelings had been his choice.  The decision to make the union legal and binding was theirs to make as well.  Surely that was what made it unique and fulfilling in its own way.

He felt motion beside him and glanced over to see Amy in the midst of sliding over to him as gracefully as her heavy bulk allowed.  He knew his sister-in-law far less well than his brother-in-law, but there was something about her he appreciated, either because she had come into the family after he had gone or because she wasn’t entirely Japanese.  It was like she was as different from the rest as he felt being the eldest, the last unmarried, and childless.

“This being Phoenix, I think I can still get away with offering a mere penny for your thoughts,” Amy teased as she came to a stop close beside him.  “You seem far away.”

Sato smiled and nodded his head.  “I suppose I am.  My thoughts keep drifting back to L.A.”

“Paula?” she ventured a guess, doubting he could be concerned about his work or simply missing the larger city.

He nodded his head again.  “What is it they say?  Absence makes the heart grow fonder?”  He chuckled and shifted on the sofa to talk to her more comfortably.  “We’re like ships that pass in the night most of the time, but it isn’t until I’m hundreds of miles away from her that I really miss her.  It makes me realize how much I get from just seeing her the small amount of time I do when I’m home in L.A.”

Amy sighed and rested her folded arms above the bulge of her belly.  Her gaze drifted over to her husband.  “And if you’re like most men, once you get home you’ll forget how much you missed her and why.”

Sato gasped theatrically.  “Me?  Never!”  When Amy gave him an equally dramatic look of not being convinced, he laughed.  “You’re right, but I don’t think men have an exclusive on that.  Sometimes it makes me wonder if what we really miss is the normalcy and once we’re back into the routine we’re happy again.”

“That’s so unromantic, Jim,” Amy complained and tapped him on the knee with the back of a hand.  “Here Ken and Mary are always telling me how you’re the poetic dreamer of the family and you’re spoiling the image I have of you.  I was hoping there was at least one living, breathing man left in the world with a romantic soul.”

“It kind of gets knocked out of you when responsibilities rear their ugly heads.”  Sato glanced over at his father, sitting like a king on his throne of a recliner, surveying the activities of his small group of subjects.  “Or you keep being called a fool.”

Amy noticed where Jim’s attention was drawn.  She didn’t know all the problems between her father-in-law and his eldest son, but she’d heard enough from Ken and seen enough during these occasional brief visits to understand the incompatibility.  She’d figured out long ago, too, that her husband and his brother were just as different from the other and the relationship between them strained because of it.

She couldn’t say that she would want to be married to a man like her brother-in-law for all his handsome looks and poetic nature.  She liked him, admired his intelligence and insistence on living his own life, but those very qualities made her feel insecure.  Granted, Ken was practically married to his career, but there was something about Jim’s pursuit of knowledge that bordered on the obsessed.  She mentally shrugged, concluding that it would take someone just like him to understand and be able to live with it.

“Mary was telling me Paula’s close to finishing her doctorate,” she introduced into the lull, remembering the two times she’d met the woman and recognizing the two were like goal-driven peas in the same intellectual pea pod.  “She must be going crazy these days.”

“She is,” Sato confirmed. “I think she’s feeling a little better about the premise of her dissertation after hitting on a cache of letters that pushed her into an unexpected… and unexplored… area, but now she’s got the work of pulling it all together, writing the stupid thing, then having to go through her defense.  She won’t have a life again until sometime this fall.  If all goes to plan, that is.”

Amy rolled her eyes, dropping her head back against the high sofa cushion.  “Is it really worth all the frustration?” she wondered out loud.

“It is to some of us,” Sato told her with a grin.  “To spend the rest of our lives buried in the subjects we love and still pay the bills, we have to do it.”

“What could possibly be so fascinating about a bunch of dead, dried up prudes, even if they were artists and poets, that anyone would want to put themselves through so much hell just to spend their life learning about?”

“Look, I can’t fathom what’s so fascinating about circuit boards and microchips and tedious programming codes that would make working with electronics and computers every day bearable.  God, that’s like one of the levels of hell.”  Sato stood, grabbing his empty glass and Amy’s, and turned to her to finish.  “All I want to know is which button to push.  Those artists and poets might be dead, but they were human.  I can relate to humans.”  He gave his sister-in-law a suggestive grin and a wink.  “And they were anything but dried up and prudish.”

Amy slapped his backside as he made his way past her to the kitchen.  “Whatever floats your boat,” she laughed.

ooooo

“What are you doing in here all alone?”

Mrs. Sato turned and gave her son a smile before going back to pouring the rest of the marinade over the meat in the shallow pan.  “It only takes one person to do this,” she told him as she set the pan back into the refrigerator and exchanged a warm jar of tea for the two glasses he held in his hands.  She loaded both with ice and set them on the table.  “Enjoying yourself?”

Sato let loose with a little snort and smiled.  “Yeah, it’s always good to be all together again, but I feel all alone out there.  Even Amy is picking on me.”  He finished pouring the tea, recapping the jar, and gave his mother’s shoulders a squeeze with a long arm around them.  “You’re the only one in this family who ever understood me and you’ve been keeping yourself in here.  It’s time for the cavalry to show up and save my sorry you-know-what.”

“One of these days, you and Paula will be charging through the front door like the marines storming a beach.”

“Just keep in mind, Japan, Italy and Germany lost, Mom.”

“But they bounced back stronger than ever,” Mrs. Sato reminded him.  “With a little help.”

“Yeah, well, we’re gonna need a lot of help facing down the emperor out there,” Sato retorted, nodding his head towards the living room and his father.  He took a sip of his tea and mused, “I wonder what Hirohito really thought about things back then.  About the megalomaniacs in charge of Germany and Italy.”

“I don’t know, but at least he lived to see his country recover and become prosperous in a more positive way.”

“Electronics,” Sato shuddered, then winked at his mother.  He looked around the immaculate kitchen and thought of his breakfast.  “I see you’ve reclaimed and restored your own little country.  I don’t think I want to know how much it looked like a war zone this morning.”

Mrs. Sato laughed and handed him the other glass of tea.  She turned him in the direction of the living room and moved to follow him out.  “It was worth it watching them try to put it all together.  Mary, Amy and me were just sure they were going to wake you up before it was even half done with all the things they dropped and the constant, excited chatter.”

“Mary did that with her whispering,” he joked.

“Only because you were probably dreaming of someone whispering sweet nothings in your ear,” Mary defended, hearing her brother’s comment as he came into the room.

Sato leaned over to his sister.  “If you’d really thought that you wouldn’t have let the kids in.”  He watched as her face remained neutral, beginning to worry just how far she’d take her teasing of him one of these days.  “Right?”

Mary’s answer was a wicked, low throated laugh as she left him to referee a quickly heating dispute between her youngest and his cousin.

“You see, Mom?  I’m a sitting duck out here… alone and defenseless.”

“Get yourself one of those in just that condition,” a lower voice spoke from the side, his hand just visible as it pointed in the direction of Amy, “and you’ll fit right in.”  When Sato turned his head to give his brother a scowl, Ken added, “With the rest of us men, that is.  They never stop picking on us.”

Mary and Amy looked across the room at each other and broke into laughter.  “Maybe if you guys used the head on your shoulders more than the one a little lower down,” Mary told him, “you wouldn’t get picked on so much.”

Sato sighed as he handed his chortling sister-in-law her tea and sat down in a huff.  Paula was going to fit right in, leaving him to speculate idly if it was going to be such a good idea getting the three women together.  His mother would be sly about it, too.  Quiet within the larger group, but he knew what got talked about when they thought no men were listening, and she’d join right in with her daughters’ complaints and the anecdotes that would send them all into peals of laughter.

He looked over at his father, not so much hoping for any kind of support as curious as to how he was taking this bawdry teasing.  The older man’s interest in what the children were doing was answer enough and Sato once more sighed.  If even the lion wasn’t going to rise to the challenge of defending the male of the species with his paternal authority, there was no hope.  He suspected that at fifty-six, James Sato had been there, done that, and knew better.

Tom interrupted his thoughts, the question he asked making Sato only more on edge.

“Seriously, Jim.  When are you and Paula finally going to make it legal?”

Sato quickly glanced over at his mother, his eyes silently reminding her of his desire to keep his secret, then shot his sights on his father.  Part of him expected to hear the patriarch order the children out, turning the family get-together into a family business meeting to discuss how to amend the failure of one of its members to behave in accordance with the rules.  He could see his father’s eyes harden, the tiny muscles tighten in his jaw, but not a word was said.

“In this day and age, our relationship isn’t illegal,” he defended in the too quiet room.  His parents could think what they wanted — they did anyway and from the perspective of a totally different time — but that much was true and remained his best defense.  “If we decide to marry, we’ll do it when we’re ready.”

“If?”

Sato’s head turned at the single, soft word from his father.  “Yes, Dad.  If.  I know your views and the reasons for them, but like everything else in my life… it isn’t the same for me.”

Mr. Sato looked at his son, the slow anger building in his gut.  He pointed to Tom and Ken.  “It was for them.  What makes you so special?”

“It isn’t a matter of being special.  It’s about you growing up in the society of the fifties and sixties and Ken and Tom making their own choices.  There’s nothing illegal or immoral anymore about living together.  They didn’t have to marry Amy and Mary any more than I do Paula.”

“They sure as hell did and what you’re doing is still wrong.”

From just outside his vision, Sato could sense his mother going into immediate action.  As young as they were, even the kids knew to do as she suggested without complaint, preceding her into the hall to another room where she’d find some way to keep them entertained… or answer their questions.  It was just as well she was leaving the room, he thought.  She already knew the argument and the temptation to defend him with what she knew would become more and more difficult to resist as the words got hotter.

“Not in the eyes of the law or society in general.”  Sato took up the challenge again once there were only adult ears to hear and steeled himself to counter whatever his father, or any of the others, could throw at him.  “And it isn’t just the way things are in cities like Los Angeles.  It’s accepted all over the country… in small towns, the southern states, New England… all across Europe… Japan*.

“To the heartbreak and disgust of their parents, I don’t doubt.”

“Change is hard, Dad.  I understand that.  But it doesn’t make it wrong.”

“Doesn’t make it right, either.  And I don’t have to accept it from my own son.  If you’re a part of this family, you obey our ways, not go off on your own and just do whatever you want.”

Around him, Sato could hear the intake of breaths being held.  He felt the sudden sensation of his heart dropping in his chest at what was being implied in his father’s words and then his face flush with anger and frustration.

He closed his eyes, trying to calm the storm within.  When he opened them again, it was to look the piercing eyes dead on and ask in a soft, controlled voice, “Are you giving me an ultimatum?”

A gentle hand slid along his arm and grasped his hand — Amy, the truest outsider, offering him comfort and support.  At that moment, he wanted to turn and hug her, thankful to have her more in his corner than in his father’s, but she’d dared to show defiance in the simple, unobtrusive gesture and anything more would call unwanted attention to her.  Slowly, he applied a little pressure on the fingers gently curled over his, enough to let her know she had given him something he desperately needed.

He watched as emotion played over the face he could remember being as smooth as his own, knowing that within that strong mind, responses were being formed and discarded.  His father had a decision to make to answer the ultimatum the son had just delivered.

“No,” Mr. Sato answered at last, a single syllable that allowed time to flow again and everyone to breathe once more.  “But it’s a warning.  Like it or not, everyone has obligations to their family and that will never change.  You’ve got to stop thinking only about yourself and consider what these choices you talk about mean to your family.

Sato gritted his teeth, wanting to tell the old man that that worked both ways.  A parent owed something to the child, too, not just the child to the parent and as far as he was concerned, despite the generous room and board he’d been given through his first twenty-four years, he’d come up deprived of a lot for what he was expected to give.  To tell his father that would certainly get him thrown out the front door, but he would not completely give up the argument.

“And what if everyone else is okay with my choices even if you aren’t?”  At the general murmur that went around the room, Sato looked at the others in turn, disheartened by their unwillingness to get involved in this.  He could understand.  He didn’t like pushing the old man into a proverbial corner, either, but he was a free man, not a child or slave and neither were they.  “What’s wrong with you people?  Isn’t it more important what the majority thinks than one man?”

“Not when that one man is your father,” Ken spoke up.  “And who says we like how you live your life?”

“I see,” Sato drawled, looking at each one of the others again, disappointment heavier in his heart with each face he found bowed to the floor, refusing to meet his gaze.  Even Mary, the feistiest of them all, was subdued. “So you all just humor me because I’m your brother.”  He released Amy’s hand and folded his arms across his chest, leaning back with a defiant attitude.  “I’ll never understand how something so stupid as a piece of paper could hurt so many.”

“It’s not just a piece of paper,” Mary commented, her hand reaching out for her husband’s.

Sato leaned forward and lowered his voice menacingly.  “Don’t you think I know that?  Why do you think I’ve rejected every prospective daughter-in-law he and Mom have sent me out with?  Why do you think Paula and I have waited so long?”  He leaned back again, yearning more than ever for L.A. and the woman he shared everything with, to live in the century he belonged to, including all its problems and pitfalls.  “Marriage is a very serious business.  I don’t think any of you realize just how serious.”

He returned his attention to his father, the one who understood the least, carefully choosing his words.  “I don’t know how many times I have to explain this to you, but I’ll do it until I’m dead if I have to.  Whether you like it or not, it isn’t only the society that’s changed.  The laws have changed since your day, too, and they’re very clear.  One partner doesn’t like the marriage, all they have to do is trot down to the local bookstore, pick up a divorce packet and fill it out, and everything they own is thrown together and split right down the middle.  If you can’t understand the realities of that, sit down and talk to a few friends of mine who learned them the hard way.”

“That can’t be the problem with Paula,” Ken remarked, finally meeting his brother’s eyes.  “Once she gets her doctorate and into a job, she stands to be making more than you.  What we don’t understand is what’s taking the two of you so long.  You’re sticking together through all of this degree shit anyway, so what difference does it make?”

Sato dropped his head and sighed.  The fact he’d been asking himself the same thing while he was here didn’t help him come to any satisfactory answer, not when the question of marriage was far more important to them than to either him or Paula.  One thing was becoming clearer to him, though, the more they hammered him about it.  What difference did it make?  Married or not, the chances were still good that they could be spending time apart in the near future or one of them making a difficult sacrifice.  A piece of heavy paper with pretty lettering and their names scrawled across it was no guarantee their lives wouldn’t go separate ways.

“I can’t give you an answer you’d believe.  I’ve tried and it doesn’t sink in.”  It never would, he realized with sorrow, leaving him feeling completely isolated and wondering if he really was related to anyone in the room or if it was simply another case of his face resembling theirs because it was Japanese.  “It just does.”

He stood and retrieved his tea, heading for the sense of sanctuary the kitchen gave to him.   All he wanted now was to get the day over with so he could go off on his own and think… about Paula, his feelings, and the aftermath of a simple proposal of marriage.

Danny squirmed a bit and settled, falling into the slow rhythmic breathing of deep sleep.  It was odd feeling the warm, small body beside him — his brother’s son.  Sato reached across his chest to idly comb through the short, soft hair, reflecting on children.

Like marriage, that he would have children of his own someday was something he’d taken as a given.  It wasn’t just responsibility or expectation, though, but something, again like being married, that he wanted; especially after Marisa, the first of the next generation, had been born.

Nothing else could’ve convinced him of his hope for children better than being there when his first and only niece came into the world.  Back then it had come close to convincing him he’d never put himself or the woman he loved through what he’d experienced with Mary.  He remembered the silence of his parents’ house as he studied being broken by the shocking phone call and what had felt like a comedy of errors ensuing.  His father had been at work as usual, his mother out with her friends, Ken doing his own thing, and Tom out of town.  Mary’s frantic voice came back to him — it was now or never, she’d yelled at him across the connection.

Sato chuckled to himself at that memory.  How was he to know then that there had been plenty of time?

Even the hours of boredom while his sister had slowly labored had driven him crazy.  It hadn’t mattered that it was a natural part of life, as the nurses had kept reassuring him.  That was his sister and he didn’t need her wails and sharp words to tell him she was in pain.  The lines on her normally smooth face and the sheen of sweat covering her skin had been enough.  The books he’d hastily stuffed in his pack to study while he waited remained forgotten.  She’d needed him, whether she was in the throes of a contraction or seeking calm and support in between.

Those ten hours were both the slowest and fastest he’d known, before or since.  As the contractions had picked up and she’d come closer to delivery, he was sure he’d never make it to the end.  And then, just as he was coming to a decision he had to get away and regroup, leaving had no longer been an option.  One good, strong push and it was over.  He was suddenly an uncle.

Marisa would always hold a special place in his life and heart.  Messy as she was as she’d lain between her mother’s legs while the doctor and nurses worked on her, she’d been utterly perfect.  Her dark, wet hair plastered to her skull, tiny hands clenched tight into little fists, she’d announced her entrance into the world with healthy wails that were a joy to hear, like music from the angels.  If Mary hadn’t yet recovered enough from the exertion to plaintively show her happiness when she looked down on her daughter, he had been smiling — and crying — enough for both of them.  For the absent father, too.

She’d taught him a lesson about life that no one else could have.  The stories of experience told around kitchen tables and backyard patios, the books offering advice, the clinical textbooks that detailed the science — none of them could ever come close to what it was like to witness the birth of new human being.  The facts were for the medicos.  The awe and emotion belonged to those connected by blood.  Marisa hadn’t had to be his doing. She was still a part of him and he of her.

Sato planted a soft kiss atop Danny’s head.  They were a part of each other, too, and soon there would be another to make him feel connected in a world where he was just another face, name, or number.  As strongly as he felt about his niece and nephews, how much more would he feel about a son or daughter?

He closed his eyes against the wave of emotion and hugged his brother’s son a little closer to him.  He knew.  It would be overwhelming.  He’d feel ridiculously proud and deeply humbled and the poor infant would probably never get a moment’s peace thanks to its father’s abject fascination with the miracle.

It was a good thing Paula had a tendency to be more level-headed than him, Sato thought as he relaxed to join the amazing creature next to him in sleep.

ooooo

He awoke in the morning to someone making a hushing sound.

“Sshh.  You have to be quiet if you want to surprise him,” Sato heard his sister whisper.  Behind her, in the hall, he recognized his sister-in-law’s giggle.

He kept his eyes closed, fighting to stop the smile from spreading across his face and giving him away.  Whatever had been planned, he didn’t want to spoil their fun.  He idly considered that being an uncle was good practice for becoming a parent.

The bed dipped and rolled like a boat on the sea as four small bodies climbed atop it and scooted around to surround his prone form.  The longer they took, the harder it became to keep his face neutral, but he continued the struggle of fooling them into believing they’d pulled off their surprise.

A peck on his cheek was his signal.  He smiled and opened his eyes, sliding his gaze upwards to see Marisa’s happy face, knowing the smile was love and not gas as his mother had insisted every time he’d giggled and let everyone know the baby niece in his arms loved him best.  Beside her, her cousin couldn’t be patient any more.

“You sleep lots, Uncle Jim!  Get up!”

“Leave him alone, Danny!” Marisa bossed, feeling all her five years that made her an authority.  “He’s a grown-up.  He can do whatever he wants.”  It didn’t surprise him to see a shoving match result.

Sato turned in the bed as Mary stepped further into the room, telling the two to settle down as she carried a tray over to him.  The children gave way to let him sit up in the bed and Marisa quickly plumped the pillows behind his back to lean against before her mother set the bed tray over his lap.

“We made you breakfast!” Mary’s eldest son informed him, excited with the fun of doing something special.

“Thank you,” Sato said with a tousle of Tim’s perpetually disheveled hair.

“I was in charge,” Marisa piped in.  She made a point of stressing her important role by straightening the various plates and utensils on the tray until it was to her satisfaction.  “I did all the cooking,” she added.

“And what did the rest of you do?” Sato asked while he waited for his niece to finish her perfecting of the presentation.

“Cut the stuff.”

“Squeezed the oranges.”

“Buttered the toast and put on the jelly.”

The voices came at Sato all at once, making him laugh.  He looked down at the fare on the tray, letting his humor continue on into a chuckle.  Obviously the cutting knife had been a plain table knife considering the wielder’s age.  The uneven, clumsy chunks of strawberry and cantaloupe were more appetizing to him than anything he’d gotten in a fancy restaurant.  The toasted crisp bread hadn’t had a chance against the determination of its maker to ensure the butter reached every corner and there was enough jelly on it to put him into diabetic shock.  He never got enough jelly for his order of toast, anyway.  Floating on the top of the juice, a pale seed or three peeped out from within the foam.

In the center of the tray, the plate was barely big enough to hold the generous helping of scrambled eggs, the creamy mix of white and yellow interspersed with the brown of scorching.  He certainly wouldn’t be complaining that the bacon wasn’t crisp enough and he preferred french fries to hash browns anyway.

His stomach growled in anticipation of the best breakfast ever.

“Does Grandma know you picked one of her roses?” he asked, touching one of the bloom’s broad petals.  It had blossomed days ago, faded now and looking close to coming apart if anyone breathed on it, but it was getting too late in the season for the best buds, he knew.

“Grandma said we could pick anything.  They always have roses on TV shows.”  Marisa leaned over and sniffed at the bloom, then sniffed a little harder, crinkling her face when it didn’t impart the fragrance she was expecting.  Her features melted into disappointment as she said, “I should’ve picked some of those pink ones… the ones Grandma calls zanies.”

“Zinnias,” Sato corrected.

Marisa shook her head.  “Grandma calls them zanies.”

“That’s because they pop up in crazy colors,” Mary cut in from the direction of the chair, where Amy had settled her heavy body.  The two women seemed to be having as much fun as their offspring in concocting this treat for him as they smiled.

“That’s okay,” Sato assured his niece.  “I like roses better anyway.”

Marisa brightened.  “Are they your favorite flower in the whole world?”

Sato gave a little shake of his head after taking the first bite of the eggs and quickly swallowed them.  “My favorite flower isn’t in bloom now, so this is the very next best thing.”

“What is it?”

“Irises.”  Sato paused, a piece of bacon between his fingers half way between the plate and his mouth, and thought about the fields his grandfather had had.  He was suddenly thankful for the chance to see them before they were gone, to walk among the row upon row of tall plants with their flower heads proudly crowning high in the air.  And the fragrance… he’d never forget it.  “The scent of fresh candy,” he mused aloud.  It had been intoxicating.

“You like candy?” the youngest of the four ventured to ask.

Sato looked at the one nephew to bear the name of Jim, further confusing who anyone was compelled to scold any time it was called out when they all got together, and opened his eyes wide with feigned shock.  “You kidding?  I love candy.  Any kind. But I don’t get to eat too much of it.”  He patted his flat stomach and sighed.  “I’d get fat so quick.”

“Not if you went to the gym like Daddy does,” Marisa suggested.  “He says that keeps him from getting fat.”

“I think he’s more concerned about your Mom’s good cooking,” Sato told her with a chuckle.  And his cardio-vascular system and looking good and for the time to unwind, he thought to himself, thinking of all the reasons that had him making daily use of the college’s gym.  “You’ll see when you’re all grown.  It’s like everything you eat goes right to the middle when you get to be our age.”

“No way,” Marissa giggled and slid back to snuggle next to her favorite uncle.  “I’m never gonna get fat.”

Sato lifted his gaze and smiled over at Mary and Amy.  Too soon the lithe little waif beside him would be taking her place with them, disgusted by how easy it was to put weight on and how it always went to the wrong places.  Paula was always clicking her tongue at the reflection she saw in the mirror, grousing about how it went straight to her hips and not to her breasts, where she could really use it.  His protestations to the contrary invariably fell on deaf ears.

“Famous last words, eh?” he commented to the two women and winked as he bit into a very crunchy slice of bacon.

Amy snorted and started waddling towards the front door of the house.  “Yeah, well, I’ve served the eviction notice.  Another month and this little bugger finds new digs.”

“Then renovation begins,” Ken commented, slamming the trunk closed and coming around the car with enough gear to belie they were staying only the night.  “The tenants keep trashing the place.”

His wife stopped in her tracks and turned her head, casting her husband a dirty look.  “And who brings the tenants in?”  She looked over at Sato and gave him a sly smile.  “I may start looking for a better management company.”

“Don’t look at me!” Sato exclaimed.  “I don’t know anything about property management.”

Beside him, Ken chortled.  “You need a good investment counselor, then you’ll be all set.”

“I already have one of those,” Sato snapped back.  “I think you know her.”

“Either you’re an idiot and she’s not very good.”  Ken grinned over at his brother.  “What are you now?  Close to forty?”

“I knew I should’ve choked the life out of you while we were still little.”

Ken stopped ahead of Sato, made a show of looking him over from head to toe, and smiled.  “I remember some of the girls Mom set up you with before you left and I’ve seen Paula.  You sure you moved to L.A. to go to school? Or did you find yourself a sugar daddy* after all?”

Sato pushed his brother.  Ken had been teasing him about moving to the much more liberal west coast since the beginning, the taunting continually getting worse as the years had gone by and he remained unmarried.  “Keep talking and you’re going to have one confused son… or a black eye.”

ooooo

Sato accepted the glass of iced tea from Ken as the younger man joined him on the bed.  They both leaned back against the headboard and stretched their legs out, glad to see each other and have a chance to talk.

They hadn’t always been so willing to spend time together.  They hadn’t always had anything but vindictive words to say to each other.  Sato had always expected and understood Ken’s animosity, but it hadn’t made him any more patient with the brother five years younger than him.  Ken had been surprised to learn how envious an older brother could be.

“I suppose nothing’s changed with Mom and Dad,” Ken commented.

“Nothing will ever change with Dad.  No matter what I do, it’ll never be enough or it’ll be the wrong thing.  English literature isn’t a necessity of life like electronics and computers, you know,” he harped, mimicking their father’s authoritative, sardonic tone.  He chuckled.  “Never mind it’s been around a hell of a lot longer than either and will still be there when technology surpasses itself again.”  Sato nudged Ken’s arm and teased, “Then we’ll see who’s still employed.”

“Not in this lifetime, Jimmy-boy.  Computers are here to stay.”  Ken grinned over at his elder brother, feeling an odd connectedness to him.  “Like your literature.   That which you love is being written and saved and distributed from hard drives around the world.  Even your teaching is becoming increasingly dependent on computer technology.  Am I right?”

“No argument here, but… “  Sato sighed and adopted a pained, pleading expression.  “Would you find a way to explain that to Dad?  Maybe you could approach it from the angle that it’s people like me who give you a job.”  He brightened and sat a little straighter.  “Yes, that’s it.  See, it would be like I’m enabling you to succeed.  I’d be doing what an older brother’s supposed to do.”

Ken laughed, trying to imagine himself sitting their father down to extol on the great opportunity his humanities-oriented brother was providing.  “He’d think I was going off the deep end.  I think he already has his doubts.”

“No,” Sato exclaimed.  “Not the practical, sensible son!  You’re his pride and joy.”

“Only because I was interested in something he could relate to.  And it only seems that way to you.”

Ken shifted to fold his legs and face Sato, resting his tea glass on his knee.  He watched the sweat from the glass darken the denim in a spreading circle, reflecting on how, like a pebble cast in the water, it was like his life as the years passed.  Once, it all been simple, his life a neat, compact existence.  College, a career, marriage, family — with each new addition, he’d had to spread his attention out from the initial focus and as time went on, it had become less and less defined.

“Listen,” he went on, head bowed while he continued to stare at the wet stain.  “On the surface it seems like Dad has nothing but criticism for you and praise for me, but it’s not really like that.  I’ve heard him talk about you to friends and colleagues and it’s not disappointment that comes out of his mouth.  He gets a real kick out of having a son who’s a professor.”  Ken snorted and looked up, grinning widely.  “That word carries a lot of punch.  It’s like it’s something more than what ordinary people do.”

“Remind me not to enlighten him about the dull routine of it.  That would burst his bubble.”  Sato smiled with unexpected pleasure despite the unrealistic notion his father had.  It was just a small city college, his position nothing of the stature of being on the faculty of a larger, top-notch college or university, but it made him hopeful.  He couldn’t help but wish his father would let him in on just a hint of that pride, however.

“I’ve done all the things Dad expected of both of us.”  Ken’s voice took on a wistful tone, his smile more bitter than mirthful.  “And, yeah, I hear about it whenever he’s in a mood to take you down a peg or two, but I don’t do everything right in his eyes, either.  He keeps asking about when I’m going to find a way to transfer back to Phoenix.  Amy and I love Tucson.  We don’t want to move back here… not the way it’s growing.  I’m always doing something he thinks is going to ruin Danny… like I don’t’ have a clue how to raise my own son just because it’s not the way he raised us.”

“It’s just the way he is… the way he was raised to think,” Sato offered, remembering Paula’s acceptance of his mother’s continued matchmaking activities.  Her parents were proof that it didn’t always have to be that way.  “But I know… it’s hell to have to live with.”

“I love him, but… “  Ken shook his head and lowered his gaze again.  “You joked about confusing Danny with my teasing you in front of him.  That’s nothing to how confused he’s going to be when I tell him one thing and Grandpa tells him another.  Then Danny’s bound to ask why that is and Dad’ll of course tell him I’m wrong.”  He looked back up suddenly, his head cocked to the side, confusion in his soft eyes.  “What’s my own son going to think of me after enough of that?”

Sato leaned forward and laid a hand on his brother’s knee, giving it a little shake.  “He’s going to catch on that Grandpa is either from another planet or doesn’t know what he’s talking about because you’re raising him with love.  I’ve seen how much you play with him, hold him… how much of that did we get with Dad?  It’s the same with Mary and Tom.  Those kids climb all over them.  They know they’re all loved equally.  All you have to do is just not let Dad convince you of anything.  You want to stay in Tucson, stay there.  Stand your ground, man.”

“That’s easy to say… “

“And hard to do.  I know.”  Sato leaned back and took a drink of tea.  He grinned to himself, tempted to tell Ken how much time he’d wasted in this very room during his growing up, silently arguing with their father in preparation for the moment when he’d have to stand his own ground for real.  “We’re grown men.  Our lives are now ours to live as we want.  As far as I’m concerned, our only obligation to them is to show them respect… even when we disagree… and be there for them when they need us.  Any more than that… shit, I can’t be what they want me to be.  I never could.  My brain was never wired for that.”  He chuckled, tapping his brother’s leg with his foot.  “They probably would’ve constantly changed their minds about what that should be anyway.  Talk about becoming confused.  It’d be worse than I am now.”

Ken chuckled with him and quickly transferred the glass to his other hand to grasp an ankle with a cold hand.  He smiled broadly at the reactionary jerk that slipped it from his hold.  “Mom showed me the necklace you gave her.  Was that out of respect?”

“Of course.  And love.  Think about it, Ken.  She has her own weird concept of what should be, but she’s always been a kind of buffer between us and Dad.  She might not have openly opposed him, but how many times did we find some treat or little thing we wanted after one of Dad’s lectures?”

Sato grew quiet, thinking of just the few days he’d been here this trip home.  Yes, she’d done what he knew she’d do despite all previous reasonable protests and he’d dutifully obeyed with an attitude of frustration, but she’d also shown him warmth and the accessibility to speak his mind, if only to her, that she’d always given him.  More than that, she was willing to accept he knew his own heart and open hers to a daughter-in-law not of her choosing.

“Fair or not,” he continued, “I’m the eldest son and I’ve never behaved as he thinks I should.  I’ve always been able to get away from him.  She can’t.  She has to live with him day in and day out.  What I can imagine probably isn’t close to what she takes off of him because of me.”  He shrugged, giving his brother a questioning look.  “What’s a necklace to that?”

Ken nodded his head in agreement, then theatrically sighed.  “No doubt Dad’ll get on my case now about how you know how to appreciate our mother and I don’t.”

“Oh, I don’t think you need have any fears on that score, little brother.  You’re married.  I’m not.  I don’t have a cute little grandchild for her to bounce on her knee and a wife about ready to burst with another.”

“I suppose,” Ken mused.  An impish expression came over his face as he looked up, ready to tease again.  “So… how many girls has Mom sent you out with this time?”

Sato groaned and set his tea on the table beside the bed.  “Only one,” he informed, laying his hand against his forehead in an overly played gesture of frustration.

“One?”  Ken counted the days on his fingers.  “But you’ve been here six days now.  Ah!  I get it!   The necklace was a bribe to get her to temporarily cease and desist.”

“I suppose it was… in a way,” Sato agreed, keeping his secret safe, “but she hasn’t had much chance to match make.  She was kind enough to give me the first night to rest.  Mary saved me the next night.  She trapped me on Wednesday, though.  Last night I insisted on staying home and cooking dinner and you’re here tonight.  Tomorrow we’re all getting together and I’m keeping everyone here as long as I can.  Sunday I head home.”

“So, Mary and I have our uses, after all, eh?”

Sato laughed.  “I’m still not sure about you, but Mary’s always been a good conspirator.  I don’t know.  Maybe I should worry about her and Paula being such good buddies.  What those two could come up with to make a man miserable doesn’t bear thinking about.”

Ken stretched to place his nearly empty glass on the other side table and scooted back to be beside his brother.  The natural rivalry and the prevailing attitude that there was something a bit more special about an eldest son had kept them from being on close terms, but the older he got, the more he wished they were.  He’d been more like their father, proud of Jim in his own way but unwilling to show it.  In a very real way, he did have Jim to thank for his promising future.  Competition had a positive influence… if one approached it the right way.

“Jim.  Any time you and Paula want to get away, be with family without the hassle of dealing with Mom and Dad… you can always fly into Tucson.  Mary and Tom wouldn’t hesitate to pack up the kids and come on down.  They do anyway, so it wouldn’t be suspicious.”

His head braced against the headboard, Sato turned it to smile fondly at Ken.  “I’d like that.  Thanks.  You sure Amy could stand all of us in her house?”

“She’d love it.  So would I.”  Ken threw his head back and laughed then, surprised at a sudden revelation.  “You know, I don’t think the three of us have ever gotten together without Mom and Dad around.”

“Oh, god… have you thought, though?  How would we explain what we were doing if they drove into the driveway for a surprise visit?  I have that kind of luck.”  The back of his hand thudded against Ken’s chest as he thought of something else and wondered just how skilled a conspirator Mary really was.  “We’d be in so much trouble if one of Mary’s kids let on that they’d seen me.”

“Have you noticed how life just gets more and more complex the older you get?” Ken sighed.  Danny, at four, was even more likely than Mary’s children to spill the beans.

“Yeah, I’ve been noticing that for a long time now.  And we used to think we were so confused as teenagers.”

Most teenagers were and even though he had been certain about what direction he was headed in, he’d suffered from the same questions and insecurities about himself as any child growing into an adult.  None of it seemed as important to him now, though, as the torment he was going through just over the proposition of marrying a woman he’d been with for so many years.  Or figuring out how to be with the brother and sister he loved more than ever.

“I suppose they’d feel left out if you guys all came out to take the kids to Disneyland.  It’s perfect, but… damn, why can’t we just do something as siblings?”

“What were you just telling me a while ago?  Something about standing your ground?”  Ken snickered and thumped Sato.  “You’re gonna just have to keep on doin’ it, big brother.  That’s your job as the eldest.”

Sato pushed Ken’s hand away.  “Yeah, well, little Kenjiro shouldn’t lose sight of the fact he’s a big boy now and all Mom and Dad have to do is jump into the car and be at his front door in a couple of hours.”  He chuckled maliciously.  “You’re the one who’s gonna have to do the explaining after Mary’s given them a piece of her mind and I’m refusing to pick up the phone.  Welcome to adulthood, little brother,” he congratulated with a tousle of hair exactly like his own and swung his legs over the side of the bed to rise.  “You wanna go somewhere and get a beer?  I’m sure one of us can come up with a good enough excuse to go out for a bit.”

He considered a moment the perfection of the stone as a symbol.  Hard, almost impossible to destroy, it was what a marriage should be.  It was difficult to attain, requiring the sweat and sometimes the blood and tears of men to bring it out of its dark, buried depths, not unlike love.  Eons of time had to pass, incredible pressures endured, an exacting set of circumstances in place to create it in the first place, making it as rare and precious as true love.

Sato brought the ring to his smiling lips and slid the main stone along them in a wishful caress.  Its beauty was as enticing as a woman in love.  No wonder men had toiled and fought and died for them across time.

Slipping the white gold band to the second knuckle of a finger, he held it out to capture the faint light again and let his thoughts drift.  Now that he’d decided, now that he had the ring, how was he going to pop the question?

He could do it the old fashioned, romantic way, but there were so many variations on that one theme.  Should he choose the dinner route, and if he did, should he prepare something wonderful at home or take her out to a nice restaurant or even her favorite?  He kind of liked the idea of proposing to her surrounded by an arbor of greenery, but should he do it in the light of day or the silver glow of the moon, in the park they’d spent so much time in or the carefully maintained beauty of the Huntington?  And how about the beach, with the song of the surf and the gulls to remind them in old age?

Sato chuckled to himself.  The one thing he didn’t have to make any choices about was the act of going down on one knee, holding her hand to his heart, looking up at with a hopeful gaze, and saying those four little words.  He laughed aloud at all the things that could go wrong with that, though.  He could hear his knee pop and lock, could feel his hand crush her fingers in trying to keep his balance, could hear her laugh as he stuttered and stumbled through that simple and all too important question.  The mishaps could be a fond memory, too, couldn’t they?

His mind drifted to other possibilities.  He could slip the ring into her purse or backpack before she headed off to class, either in its little velvet box or tied to some other little gift.  She’d know who it was from and what it meant the moment she saw it.  He giggled silently at the thought of her sitting with excitement in a three-hour lecture and not able to do anything until it was over.  Maybe she’d share her surprise with the others, and then maybe she wouldn’t.  Maybe she wouldn’t even see it, or worse, it would slip to the ground undetected as she pulled something else out.  He’d be figuratively lashing himself with an imaginary cat-o-nine tails each month he sent off his credit card payment.

He snuggled against the extra pillow and rubbed his face against it like a contented cat, the ring still around his finger.  His thumb grazed the raised mounting as he imagined another scenario.  He’d get home after a long week away and they’d make love.  A little down time, a little refreshment and sustenance shared naked in the bed, Disraeli locked out of the room and placated with some Guinness stout, and he’d bring out the ring.  They’d make love again, this time longer and sweeter, and whisper between them about the most fanciful ideas for their wedding.

Sato’s cheeks ached with the constant smiling and he suddenly squirmed and kicked in the bed, giddy with visions of something much better than sugar plums dancing in his head.*  He took a deep breath and let it out, forcing himself to calm.

The calm quickly dissolved into the frustration of reality, however, popping the bubble of his little fantasy.  Paula was busy.  He’d make it home, but it was just as likely to be on his own steam via a hailed cab or unexpectedly available shuttle.  Once he did come through the doors of the apartment, she’d either be rooted in front of her computer, lost under headphones, or sound asleep, dead tired with mental exhaustion.  He couldn’t really blame her and it certainly wouldn’t do to ask her to marry him after disturbing her train of thought or much needed sleep.

He finally decided he’d just have to wait until Paula was flesh and blood in front of him and go from there.  The only problem was he wasn’t sure how long he could hold out.  It seemed ridiculous after seven years of waiting, but now that he was resolved to do this, just making it to Sunday morning was becoming increasingly difficult.

ooooo

Surveying the price of food as he pushed the cart along while his mother loaded it at an alarming rate, Sato reflected on just how much less expensive it was to live in Phoenix.  He had to laugh, however, when they came to the fresh produce section of the store.

“What’s so funny?” Mrs. Sato asked, looking up at her son as if worried he was destined for an asylum.

“Most of this stuff probably comes from California and it’s cheaper here than there, even with the price of gas to transport it across the desert.”  He gave her a challenging rise of his eyebrows.  “You don’t find that funny?”

“About as funny as why anyone would want to live in L.A.,” she retorted and returned to picking out peaches.

“Because it’s beautiful and there’s so much there.”  He snatched a plastic bag from the roll and looked over the red plums.  “You can head up into the mountains to the ski lodges in the morning and stroll on a moonlit beach in the evening.  There’s theatre and film festivals, music that’s little more than just noise to the finest symphonies, museums for about everything you could think of, and strange and wonderful places to eat any time of the day.”  Sato tossed the bag of plums with the rest of the food in the cart and started eyeing the apricots, thinking of how good they’d taste as he read late at night.  “Hollywood, Disneyland, Universal Studios… what’s not to love about it?”

Tapping the cantaloupes, Mrs. Sato told him.  “The crime, the pollution, the traffic, the high cost of living.”  She handed him a couple of melons, one at a time, counting on his larger hand to hold them securely while in the other he held his growing supply of the small sweet fruits.  “Mother Nature alone should’ve been enough to keep people away.”

“You get used to that stuff,” he replied, setting the bag to spinning before tying it off with a twist-tie.  “You learn to be careful and how to deal with the disasters when they happen.  It’s a fair trade off.  Besides, every time I come back to Phoenix, it’s looking more and more like L.A., but it’s still too hot and the notion of any culture remains stalled in the dark ages.”

“There are lots of ways to keep one’s self amused, Jim.”  Mrs. Sato shook her head and moved on to the vegetables.  As soon as he had a child, he’d be too busy and entertained to care if there were a hundred one things to do or not.  “Does Paula want to stay in Los Angeles?”

“If there’s a future for her there, sure.  Otherwise, we’re willing to move to wherever we need to.”

“You said she was close to finishing this last degree.  She’ll go to work full-time in the area while you work on yours?”  The silence that followed reminded her of her husband.  A glance over at her son reminded her of him even more strongly.  The blank, distant look in his eyes, the furrows deepening on his brow were telling traits.  “Jim?”

Sato smiled at her and relaxed out of the tension.  He didn’t want to discuss this with her.  He wasn’t looking forward to discussing it with Paula, either.  Both women had a talent for voicing what he didn’t want to face.  “That’s the plan,” he answered simply and became very interested in the greens.  “Mom, let me cook dinner for you and Dad tonight.  It’s the last chance I’m gonna get with Ken coming up from Tucson tomorrow and all of us together on Saturday.”

Mrs. Sato understood the intent of the sudden change of subject.  Now she furrowed her brow and studied her son as he rifled through the bunches of spinach.  Was that the reason behind his wanting his intention to propose kept a secret, the source of his doubts about a seven-year relationship becoming formalized with a wedding?  Her heart sank, already bleeding for how hurt he’d be if Paula turned him down, grieving for the hit his pride would take if his father ever found out.

She suddenly had an urge to grab the cell phone from his shirt pocket, find Paula’s number in its directory, and tell the girl off.  Instead, she moved over to his side and wrapped an arm around his waist.  “I know better than to tell you you don’t have to.  Just keep your father’s indigestion in mind.”  After all, she congratulated herself on remembering, Paula might still say yes.

“Yeah, I guess Chinese wasn’t the best move last night,” Sato admitted, but he suspected it had been more than just the food that hadn’t set well.  He knew his parents well enough to understand something was up between them by the reserved mood of his mother the rest of the evening.  He also knew he was most likely the cause.  “How about… ” he drawled as he thought about what he could cook that wouldn’t raise his father’s acid level even higher and brightened with an idea.  “Stuffed pork chops, a nice salad and home-baked rolls… from the freezer section, of course.”

“If you’re sure you want to go to all that work, it sounds good,” she agreed.

“Work,” he dismissed.  “What is there to throwing together a basic stuffing, cramming it into unsuspecting pork chops, tearing up a bunch of greens, and letting a bunch of frozen dough balls thaw?  I think you women have been running a scam for centuries making us men think preparing dinner has to be so much work.”

“So speaks the twenty-first century single man living in the big city,” Mrs. Sato scoffed.  “Just you wait, Hajime Sato.  Someday you’re going to find yourself in some small town in the Midwest with three kids whining when can we eat and Paula stuck at work.”

“What do you think pizza delivery or even frozen pizzas are for?” Sato countered and stuck his tongue out at her.

“A man must’ve invented those, too, then.”

“Of course.  That’s how the last two children would come about… let the first stuff himself on pizza while mommy and daddy take advantage of him being occupied and quiet,” Sato explained, remembering her wild take on how and why romance came into being.  “I’ve already got experience with that, too.  Disraeli loves canned spaghetti and beer and really doesn’t care if I exist after that.”

“That poor cat,” Mrs. Sato sympathized, beginning to feel a certain pity for what her unborn grandchildren might find on the dinner table.

“Oh, he’s a pig about it and feels like the king of the jungle afterwards.  It’s not like that’s what he subsists on, you know.  It’s so rare it’s a treat.”

“Well that’s a relief,” she sighed and smacked his arm before taking it to lead him towards the meat section.  She had few reservations about either her son or Paula as parents.  Part of her even envied a bit the kind of childhood their children could have with parents as interested in the world as they were and how involved their father would be in their lives.  In that, Jim would not be like his father.  Of that she was sure.

Her attention was drawn back when she felt his arm go around her shoulders and pull her a little closer as they walked.

“Mom… to go back to what you brought up before I changed the subject.”  Sato stared straight ahead as he pushed the cart, not wanting his mother to be surprised if things didn’t go the way he hoped.  “Paula and I have always planned on staying in L.A. until both of us had our PhD’s.  There are very good reasons for that, namely finding a place where we can settle with some kind of job security.  What we didn’t plan on was her getting hers first.”

“That shouldn’t make a difference.  Not if she loves you.”

“It could make a difference if she’s offered the right kind of job somewhere else.  There are so many what if’s and maybe’s it makes my head spin sometimes.”

Reaching the refrigerated shelves of meat, Sato released his hold and began looking for three of the fattest pork chops he could find.  Satisfied, he pushed on ahead towards the frozen foods, glad for his mother’s intuitive knowledge that he had more to say.

He was the first to be born, the last to be married, and both situations had contributed a healthy amount of stress over and above the usual of raising a child.  She’d endured, as many mothers did, but it wasn’t until this afternoon that he’d really appreciated just how much she’d done for him through the years.

Reaching into his pants pocket, he pulled out a velvet box, larger than the one that held the ring he hoped to slip on a slender finger of Paula’s left hand.  “This is for you,” he said, offering it to his mother on his open palm.

Mrs. Sato looked at the box then up at her son.  “What’s this?”

He gestured with a nod of his head for her to accept the gift.  “Just a little something to say thank you and that I love you.”

“The lunch was enough,” she scolded with a smile, but lifted the box off his hand.  He watched as she opened it and smiled happily at the way her eyes got large as a child’s and her lips parted in exclamation.  “Oh, Jim,” her words drawn out to almost a sigh.  “It’s… it’s too much!”

“No, it’s not.”  Sato unbuckled his seat belt and turned in the driver’s seat to take the open box from her.  Carefully, he removed the pendant necklace from its velvet holder and undid the clasp.  “It’s a small thing,” he said as he brought the loop of fine gold chain around her neck.  “I thought of you as soon as I saw it.”

“But when did you get it?  I was with you the entire time.”

“Did you really think I’d leave my cell phone… my best connection to Paula… on a counter somewhere?”  He chuckled and pulled back as soon as he had the tiny clasp closed.  “I slipped my card to the salesman and left you outside on the pretense I’d left my phone.”  He winked at her when she gave him a silly grin.  “See?  You taught me all kinds of practical things.”

Mrs. Sato pulled down the visor and flipped open the mirror.  Her fingers caressed the small golden rose that hung from a wide link studded with a single fuchsia pink ruby.  “An associate professor in a small college in L.A. doesn’t make enough to be buying diamonds and rubies on the same day.”  She gazed over at him, tears sparkling in her dark eyes almost as brightly as the diamond on Paula’s ring.  “Not very practical.”

He shrugged and reached over to take his mother into a hug.  “Okay, so maybe I’ll be eating canned spaghetti and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a while,” he teased, “but I’m not the only one who’s made sacrifices for those I love.  You taught me that, too.”

She squeezed her grown son, rubbed his long back, and gave it a good patting before pulling back, sniffling.  “I don’t know what your father’s going to think.  I haven’t gotten anything done today.  I don’t even know what I’m going to do about dinner.”

“I’ll take you to the store tomorrow,” Sato said, wiping the stray tears from age-softened cheeks.  “And there’s bound to be a good Chinese place that’ll deliver, so I say let’s order in tonight.”  Before she could say anything, he grasped one of her arms and became serious.  “Mom… about asking Paula to marry me… let’s keep it between us for now.  Don’t breathe a word of it even to Mary.”

“But your sister would be so happy to… “

“Too happy,” Sato stopped her.  “We’ve been celebrating like it’s a given it’s going to happen.  She might say no, you know.”

Mrs. Sato let loose with a sound that told him how much she thought that was unlikely.  “After all these years?  I can’t believe that.”

“Yeah, well, she might.”  Whether he was tired now that the first fence on the course to marriage had been cleared, or too relaxed from the wine, or simply reminded of issues that still remained, doubt returned to haunt him.  He’d only made the decisions that were his to make — to take the final step, propose and be prepared to give her the symbol of one of her two possible answers.  Which answer Paula chose to give him remained to be seen.

“Jim?”

He felt her touch on his arm and stopped his inner speculating to smile.  “I just don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up unnecessarily.  Or get someone bent out of shape for nothing.  For now, it’s enough that you know my intentions.”

“It’ll be our secret then.”  She leaned over and kissed his cheek, pausing to indulge in a brief study of his face.  A woman would be a fool to turn him down, she thought, and one who had held his heart for so many years as Paula had was worse than a fool if she refused.  She sighed, not understanding why he would have any doubts, and slapped his knee.  “Why are we still sitting in the car?  Your father will be home in an hour and we’ve got a Chinese take-out to find.”

ooooo

Mr. Sato looked up from taking off his shoes and caught his wife gazing at her reflection in the dresser mirror.  As he walked to the closet to put them away, he watched her fingers caress the ornament resting just beneath her throat.

“What’s that?” he asked over the thud of the closet door closing.

“A gift from Hajime,” she answered with a smile.  She turned and showed it to her husband, watching his face for a reaction as he lifted it from her skin and inspected it.

“Looks expensive,” he muttered, letting it fall back to hang.

“What does it matter what it cost?” she asked, a little hurt by his lack of interest, but not surprised by it.  “He wanted to give his mother something to express a son’s love and thankfulness.”

“There’s a better way he could do that.”  Mr. Sato ambled into the bathroom and splashed water from the faucet on his face.  He shut the water off and stood bent over the sink, a hand braced on either side on the counter.  “He should be saving his money to spend on a bride.”

Mrs. Sato clamped her mouth, her jaw tightening against what she wanted to blurt out about their son’s plans.  She’d promised to keep it a secret and she knew as well as her son that the news wouldn’t have the desired effect.  If anything, it would make things worse at first.

“He’ll marry when he’s ready,” she defended, “and I’m satisfied that one day he will be.  He’ll find the right one for him and settle right down.  You’ll see.”

“He’s going to keep putting it off and putting off until one day he wakes up and realizes he’s become an old man.”  He grabbed the nearby towel, wiped his face with undisguised irritation, and tossed it to the counter.  “It’s that woman he’s living with in Los Angeles.  She keeps him from taking his responsibilities seriously.  So long as she’s around,” Mr. Sato finished as he came back into the bedroom, “Hajime will hold off.”

“It isn’t just fun and games with Paula, you know.  And he isn’t simply being belligerent to irritate us.”  Mrs. Sato put herself in the path between her husband and the door to the hallway.  The one thing she could do for her son was tell his father what was real.  “He loves her.”

“Not enough to marry her and make things right.  Or maybe she’s the one holding out on him.”

“They have their reasons.”

“And that makes it okay for them to live like husband and wife in the meantime?”  Mr. Sato put his hands on his hips, blew out a puff of air, and shook his head.  “Hajime could at least have the decency to be discreet.  Why did he have to tell us they were living together?”

“You’d rather your son lied to you?”

Mr. Sato looked at his wife, not sure what to answer.  It was one thing his eldest had rarely done — more to goad him than out of any ethical consideration, he’d decided long ago — but at least he’d known what was going on in his son’s life and in his head.  There were limits, though.  “Of course not,” he replied.  “But there are some things maybe he should just keep his mouth shut about.  I didn’t need to know this woman was sharing his bed.”

“He probably wouldn’t have said anything about it if we hadn’t pushed him.”  Mrs. Sato gave him a wide-eyed look and a nod of her head when he tried to dismiss it, challenging him not to accept the truth.  “It didn’t come up until the second time they came to visit us together… when we sent him out with another girl and he told us to stop trying to marry him off.  You have to admit, he had to say something.”

“He shouldn’t have brought her here in the first place.”

“Stubborn man,” Mrs. Sato hissed.  She moved to stand in front of her husband and tilted her head back to look him straight in the eyes.  “Why does a son bring a woman four hundred miles to meet his parents?  To show off in front of his father that he has one?”  At the roll of eyes that accompanied the turning of his head, she reached up and tilted his face to meet hers again.  “No.  He was telling us this was the one.”

“That didn’t stop you from searching for a better choice for him,” Mr. Sato reminded her.  “You don’t accept her any more than I do.”

“No, it didn’t.”  She stepped around him to sit on the bed, fingering the delicate petals of the gold rose at her throat, remembering the fun she’d had that afternoon.  She’d never forget the boyish joy on her son’s face as they’d gone from jeweler to jeweler, his explaining the merits or unsatisfactory aspects of the rings by how he thought Paula would like it or how it suited her personality.  He’d honored her with being the only one in his life to know his decision.

She stopped fidgeting with the pendant and folded her hands in her lap.  “I was wrong,” she quietly admitted, to herself as much as her husband.  “If Paula is his choice, I accept her.”

She heard him sigh, could feel his disapproving gaze.  “Hajime always could turn your head and soften your heart.  You give in to him too easily.”

“Yes!” Mrs. Sato exclaimed and suddenly stood.  “Because he’s always made sense.  From the very beginning he was a clever boy with a strong will of his own and the courage to stand up for what he knew was right for him.  Anything he’s ever gone after, he’s achieved.”  She took a short step, leaning forward to plead with her husband to understand and relent.  “He’s a good man.  A successful man with still more promise ahead.  His relationship with Paula has lasted longer than a lot of marriages these days, no thanks to us, so I have to credit him with knowing what he’s doing on that score, too.  They’ll marry when they’re ready.”

“Just how long does it take, Rose?” Mr. Sato countered.  “How long does it take a man and a woman to settle into a life together?  We didn’t need seven years.”  He made his way to his wife and lifted the pendant between his fingers again.  “All it’s ever been with Hajime is what he wants and his intelligence a convenient excuse to get it.  There’s something wrong with him, the relationship, or both.  And he’s bought you off with this.”

The gold felt cold against her skin when he dropped it from his fingers.  Through the blur of tears, she watched him head for the bedroom door and open it.  “You don’t know how wrong you are,” she told him, her voice barely above a whisper.  She nodded her head, certain in the secret she carried in her heart.  “You’ll see.”