Chapter 5
Aya
Aya convinced Twyla and Emi to drop her off in the driveway of Noah’s parents’ house.
The last thing she needed was the two of them twittering around, trying to get her to react as they relived every moment of high school.
It was one reason she wished she’d gotten married.
Apparently, the only way to survive in a small town as a single person was to ignore the way everyone tended to yell at you about getting back together with your high school sweetheart.
“I’m over him,” Aya muttered, shuffling her feet as she climbed the stairs to the Katos’ home. “They should get over him too.”
Standing on their porch, she shooed Twyla away. Twy drove off in her beater of a car but not before stopping to whisper something to Emi. Aya tried to reclaim some of her dignity, pretending not to watch as the car left the neighborhood. She didn’t need an audience for the little reunion.
After high school, she’d felt the loss of the Kato family almost as deeply as she felt the rift that had come between her and Noah.
The two families had always been close, and her mother was a frequent visitor there.
But every time Aya visited, she stayed away.
She and Noah had been together often growing up, taking trips out to the Kato farm to visit the uncles who still lived there and fidgeting through Saturday Japanese lessons with Noah’s grandmother.
All of her friends from the Single Lady Dumpling Club knew what it was like to be one of the few non-white high schoolers in Love Hollow, but only Noah’s family understood the trauma of internment—as well as the particular kind of madness that had led a group of four young people to stay near the site of the trauma rather than flee to other cities, hoping to escape racism, or back to California, the only home they had ever known.
The dry breeze reminded her of the times she had stood there in high school.
On many days she’d just been waiting for Noah so they could spend time together, studying or watching movies.
She loved Japanese horror flicks like the original Ringu.
He was terrified of them, but they provided a good diversion from the pressures of school and, eventually, an excuse for the two of them to get extra cozy.
Then there was that last night, the one before graduation, when she had come over to his house only to leave his porch without speaking to him.
What more was there to say? She would only have been humiliating herself if she had gone through with the conversation, so she had walked home in a rare summer storm.
Before she could lose her nerve, the door swung open.
“Come in! Come in!” said Mrs. Kato, smiling deeply. “It’s cold out there.”
“Aya!” said her husband, who was lying on his belly in the living room.
The principal of the local high school, Dr. Kato was a dignified man, someone who wore a suit even when he was just heading to the grocery store on a weekend.
Aya quickly realized he was lying on his belly because there was a beautiful baby next to him, a dark-haired little girl who had clearly just learned to crawl.
She burbled, and though Aya had never really longed for a child, she felt a pang of panic.
How on earth has Noah managed to keep his kid out of the press?
She was fairly sure he wasn’t married, so maybe that was how things had stayed private.
Who’s the mother? She must be white. The little one had the same hapa look that Twyla and Martha had shown as babies.
Aya had more ambiguous features. Because she had her father’s eyes, she was often mistaken for Latina or South Asian.
Mrs. Kato shook her head. “Being a grandparent is everything they say it is, of course. But if she spits up on that carpet one more time, we’re just going to have to move.”
Mr. Kato maneuvered himself into a sitting position with some difficulty. “How’s the doctorate going, Aya? Good old Pile High and Deep? I would never have finished mine if it wasn’t for okaasan over here pushing me.”
Aya smiled. It had been a long time since she’d heard a PhD referred to as a “Pile High and Deep”—of manure, presumably. It was the sort of joke academics made when they didn’t take their work too seriously. Her thesis advisor never made jokes like that.
Mrs. Kato shook her head. “It would have been better if we’d waited to have children. But both of us working, two little ones, and having to drive to the farm every weekend to help? It was far too much.”
“Yes, clearly, you’re doing nothing now,” said Aya, taking off her shoes. She hesitated, wondering if she could move closer to the baby but not knowing precisely what to do with it.
Dr. Kato’s cheery expression faded. “I’m sure your mother told you about everything that happened just before you came back. What a mess.”
Aya shook her head. “My mom didn’t want to worry me, but I did hear a little about it after I took the position at the museum,” she lied.
She had heard almost everything. The whole town was a hotbed of gossip, and her heart went out to Mr. Kato.
He was tougher than he looked, but surely a firestorm of controversy wasn’t what he’d thought he’d be dealing with when he took the principal job.
Mrs. Kato’s mouth was in a thin line. “I told him he should quit. I almost did. Said it every day, in fact. But if the two of us left, what then? So now we’re in a pickle. Neither of us can retire, but going on as we have is awful, frankly.”
“It’s part of our duty,” said Mr. Kato. “Part of what we’re being paid for. We have to deal with every person we encounter. We can’t simply pick and choose.”
“Please don’t say this is just because I want to be picky,” said Mrs. Kato, but she caught herself. “I’m sorry, Aya. Noah is expecting you, but he went for a walk, and I’m not sure whether he’s back.”
It really wasn’t like Noah to abandon his kid with his parents, going off for a walk and not returning. In big cities, it was more common to have kids a bit later, but twenty-eight wasn’t exactly a crazily young age anywhere. And where would the mom have gone to? Is she with Noah?
With even more dread, Aya tried to force a smile. “Sure, that’s fine. I can wait.”
“Why don’t you go find him,” said Mrs. Kato, who was bringing toys down from a box on her mantel and handing them solemnly to the baby. “He won’t be far away.”
“Sure,” said Aya, taking only two steps back to the entrance and slipping her shoes on. “Thank you.”
As she closed the door, she could hear Mr. Kato scolding his wife for scaring her off with all their talk of the town drama. She gave a small smile. Clearly, Noah hadn’t told them the real purpose of her visit. If they had any idea, that was the drama they most certainly would have focused on.