Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
“She can be weird. I love my sister, but I don’t always know how she’s going to react to things.
She can be impulsive, passionate maybe. She’ll think I took you away from her or something.
Or maybe even that you’re taking me away from her, when it’s our last summer together as a family.
You never know, that’s the thing about Amy. ”
“I’m an only child, so I can’t really relate.”
“Do you wish you had siblings? Do you feel like an only child? If that makes sense?”
“I did when I was younger. I envied my friends who had brothers and sisters to play with. But now, I want to do my own thing at home. I’m happy to be solo.
I guess the fact that I’m adopted is the thing that makes me feel different.
Like when you look at my parents, it’s so clear that they’re not my biological parents, and I feel like they want to talk about it, but they also really, really don’t.
” Kit didn’t understand the boundaries around this subject at all.
It was simultaneously a shiny object she wanted to hold so desperately but was also terrified of breaking.
“Yeah, I can see its totally different—being adopted. I couldn’t even begin to understand it because I don’t have the experience, and never will, not from your side anyway.
I’m sorry if that sounded insensitive. I just mean, it’s not the biggest thing I see about you.
In fact, if you hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t even know it.
It must feel like a big part of you though. ”
It did.
Ryo continued, “When I met you, I figured you were just another ha-fu kid, or something. A third-culture kid, you know what I’m saying, right? My parents never mentioned it either. Dad just said his friend from high school’s daughter was coming to stay. “
Kit nodded slowly and tried to imagine how Ryo must have seen her that first day at the party. She remembered again how beyond her own years he had seemed when they first met.
“Do you talk to your parents about everything ?” she asked.
“Some things, yeah. My dad is pretty good at listening. He gets it. He has a fairly laid-back attitude. My mom can be a little rigid. There is definitely a culture clash at home. But it’s mainly Amy culture versus Mom culture.”
“I hope you don’t mind me saying, but I find your mom super glamorous and inspiring.” She felt she was being too earnest, she could hear it in her voice, but she wanted him to know.
“You do? That’s a bit weird to hear. But yeah, my mom is cool.
To me, anyway. But with Amy, she’s kind of explosive.
When Mom’s conservative Japanese side comes out, Amy seems to do the exact opposite of what my mom wants.
They both rile each other up. The more one does one thing, the more the other does the opposite.
And it’s kind of weird. It shows in a way that they’re both kind of cut from the same cloth, you know? ”
Kit didn’t know. She didn’t know at all what kind of cloth she was cut from, really.
After the trip to Kyoto, Kit’s head was full of Ryo and all the things she wanted to do with him.
He was the only thing she thought about.
She also felt her face flushing a bright pink at unexpected moments as she thought about sex.
In fact, the thought of pressing up against him occupied most of the hours of her day.
The world around her was telling her to “go on and just do it.” The music in the bars on ’90s night sang about sex .
Shinjuku, with its red flashing lights, where she searched for the best bowl of ramen in the city, was littered with “Love Hotels,” rooms hired out by the hour for clandestine lovers to meet.
On the way back from Tokyo, she sat beside Amy on the train, rows away from the boys, as she whispered to Kit, full of details about the things she did with Christian while Kit went out with Ryo and his friends.
The more time she spent with Ryo, the more she wanted her relationship with him to move forward, but the Kyoto trip had not given them enough opportunities to be alone.
Instead, they spent most of it doing the touristy things that she was meant to do in Japan.
Whether it was Ryo who distracted her or not, she had yet to find the Japanese-ness of herself, or whether there was any at all.
There were only fourteen days left before she returned to Philadelphia.
How many hours did she have left with Ryo before she went home?
A disappointment sank into her stomach when she saw “Mom cell,” rather than “Ryo Buchanan” flash up on the screen.
“Hey, Mom,” she said quickly, sitting up against the headboard.
“Hey, Sugarlump. How are you? How is it all going over there?”
“Oh fine. Everything’s fine. How are you?”
“You know. Same old. It’s a hot one. I guess it is there too. I saw on CNN. I’ve been watching the international news and weather segment since you left.”
“Yeah. It’s hot. But everyone has air con. Just like at home. Fewer bugs though.”
“So tell me what you’ve been doing.”
Kit tried to concentrate, but she wanted to hang up. What if Ryo called?
“Well, I went to Kyoto with the Buchanan kids. And it was really great. Really interesting.”
“Oh you did? What are those kids like? And how are Rick and Yuriko?”
“Good. They’re good. I dunno. I don’t see them all that much. They seem really busy. But they have been really nice to me. I guess I’ve spoken to Yuriko just a little bit more.”
“You have? What do you talk about?”
“What do you mean? Stuff about Japan, I guess, like where I should go sight-see, you know?”
She could hear her mother getting impatient on the phone, holding it back.
“Mom, can I ask you something?”
“Of course, honey, shoot.”
“It’s about, well, my adoption.”
The line was silent. Kit hadn’t planned this conversation before she answered the phone. The words started to pour from her mouth before she could scoop them back up.
“It’s just, I guess I’m not totally sure what I was expecting to find here. Or how I was expecting to feel.”
“I understand. But I’m glad you are having this experience out there. Like you wanted to.” Kit could hear her mother’s voice slowing down.
Kit said nothing. She wanted her mother to speak again, since she wasn’t ready to say what she wanted to say.
“No matter how you feel right now in this moment, to have traveled across the world and experienced a completely new culture is a wonderful thing.” Sally’s words felt empty to Kit. She felt herself losing her patience.
“So, I’m thinking about getting in touch with my birth mom, or parents, when I get back? I mean, are you open to that?”
The line was silent again, and Kit could only hear her mother breathing.
“Where has this come from, honey?” Sally finally asked.
“Well, I was talking to Amy, you know Rick and Yuriko’s daughter.
I know it’s a closed adoption, but there are ways to get around this stuff.
We could get an intermediary, I can appeal for the release of the records.
I can contact the agency you adopted me through.
Maybe even ask Mr. Buchanan to help, because he has an official role with the government.
I don’t know.” As Kit said this, she felt a momentary pleasure when she said intermediary.
A week ago, she and Amy had lain side by side to research her rights to finding her birth parents.
My Dad always says, information is power .
Sally sighed on the other end of the phone.
“Look, we should talk about it all together as a family when you’re back.
Dad and I will support any decision you make.
We always want the best for you. You’re about to start college.
That’s a big deal. You need a clear head, and my reservation is that if you start digging into this now , it might just take away from this really important moment in your life.
Starting your future. Do you know what I’m trying to say? ”
“Sure. But maybe it’s because I’m about to start this next stage that I want to figure it out. Like a clean slate, you know? So, Mom, if I want to look into it, you’re not going to stand in my way?”
Sally didn’t respond.
“Is there something you know about them, about her, that you’re not telling me?”
“No, honey, I’m just wary.”
“Of what?”
“Wary of what this will bring into your life, what you will gain out of it. I’m just trying to protect you.”
Kit said nothing. She wanted to snap back that it was her choice, that it wasn’t up to her parents now that she was going to be an adult.
She wanted to say that it wasn’t fair that her mother was not encouraging her to explore the very essence of who she was.
But instead, her throat caught on the words, and she let the tears that started to fall form a wet patch on her T-shirt.
“Let’s talk about this properly when you’re home. Life isn’t always as neat and tidy as the movies.”
“So you just assume that it all has to be bad? That I was just unwanted and thrown away? That they were bad people?”
“No, that’s not what I said.”
“Or do you know that, Mom? And you’re just not telling me?”
“We have always been honest with you about how you came to us, Kit. Always.”
Kit said nothing. She listened to her mother take deep breaths, and she let the silence continue. The gulf widened between them.
Finally, Kit croaked a response. “I’ll call you soon, okay?”
“Are you all right? I’m sorry this conversation has upset you.”
“I’m fine, I gotta get ready for dinner. Bye.” She hung up before she could hear her mother’s response.
Kit cried and cried until the skin on her face felt tight with salty tears and her eyes ached as they opened.
Was her mother keeping something from her about her birth mother’s identity?
What was it about Kit that was so easy to give up?
In that moment, she hated everyone who knew exactly where they were from.
She envied everybody whose life wasn’t peppered with unknowns.
She resented Sabrina, and how clear she was on where she was from.
Lee Lee had immigrated from China, and that was where Sabrina wanted to travel.
Amy, Ryo, and all the other ha-fu friends of theirs she had met in Tokyo all knew their origin stories.
And Dave, with his born-and-bred-in-Pennsylvania bloodlines.
The magnitude of her unknowns felt like the greatest injustice in the world.
···
A few days later Yuriko invited Kit to an ikebana class she held for the American-British Society, and to her own surprise, Kit accepted.
She watched Yuriko work deftly at the stalks of the flowers on the countertop.
The sharp needle points of the kenzan , where the flowers and stems were placed to stand them upright, in its dark metallic slate color made a stark contrast to the bright green of the stems.
“Now you try,” she said, shifting to the side to allow Kit to move in front of the arrangement.
She tried to carefully push a lily into the base, but it snapped and folded over.
“Oh no.” Kit sighed.
Yuriko encouraged her. “Try again,” she said, and Kit could feel Yuriko’s eyes on her.
Kit picked up another stem; it felt thicker, sturdier. She pressed it carefully into the center of the pad of spikes.
“That’s it.” Yuriko smiled. “You’ve got it now.”
Kit beamed with pride and stood back to see her creation. It looked sparse and incomplete.
“Is that right?”
“Not yet. But it’s a start. Think about what would work with this. Take your time.”
When the class was over, Yuriko walked around the room and said goodbye to the ladies who had attended her class. Kit was still lost in the positioning of the stems.
“Why don’t you come next week to join the ladies I teach? I have to get ready for my lunch appointment. But Ryo will be back any minute.”
“Great idea,” said Ryo, who came into the room at that moment. “Hey, Ma, Dad said you’re going in like twenty minutes.”
“Oh, okay. Bye, Katherine. I’ll see you soon. Bye-bye, Ryo-kun.” She ruffled her son’s hair and left.
She watched as Ryo bent down to examine the ikebana .
“This is so lady-who-lunches of you.” He smiled and threw a handful of peanuts in his mouth. She could smell the earthy nutty smell in the air.
“I think the ones your mom does are amazing,” she said, looking at the finished dish Yuriko had left.
A single white flower was sheltered by the perfect curve of a stem of delicate leaves.
Her hand hovered over it, without touching it.
The intricate balance, the fragile placement, just a change in the wind might topple it over.
“All these bowls of flowers look the same to me,” Ryo said, poking a leaf that looked as though it would snap at its stem. Kit drew a quick breath, willing it not to fall or snap.
“This is the one I made.” She walked toward her stand and he followed.
“You’re an ikebana protégée now! God, Mom has been trying to lure Amy into this stuff for years.”
“Where is Amy?” Kit asked, looking back through the door as she listened to the clip-clopping sound of Yuriko’s heels walking across the entrance hall.
He pulled her up the stairs.
“Out with some friends.”
He began to kiss her at the top of the landing and she pulled away.
“Let’s go to your room?” she asked.
He suddenly became more hesitant, pausing before his doorway, asking a silent question: Are you sure?
She nodded and pressed on, closing the door behind them. They fumbled their clothes off in his immaculate room. Kit took her own T-shirt off, proud of the tan lines from her bikini on her chest. He ran his lips along her collarbone and the hair on her arms stood up.
He asked her aloud this time, breathless. “We don’t have to. We can wait.”
She said, “No, we can’t.”