Page 36 of Water Moon

Chapter Thirty-six

Tuna Casserole, a Blue Tie, and a Stranger in a Box

If he had passed away in Japan, he would have been dressed in white. But Keishin’s father had died thousands of miles from his old home, and in this place, the dead wore suits that made them look as though they were dressed for a job interview.

Keishin’s father had never worn a suit in his life, and his stepmother had spent hours at the sales rack trying to choose between a gray suit with a black tie or a pinstripe suit with a blue one. If she had asked for Keishin’s opinion, he would have told her that it didn’t matter. The man in the coffin was going to look like a stranger either way. Cancer had made a feast of his father, gnawing at him until all that was left was skin and bones. His stepmother finally selected the pinstripe and blue tie option when the sales clerk told her that it was an additional 20 percent off. The other thing that appeared to be on sale that week was tuna. After the fourth tuna casserole from one of their neighbors had been squeezed into the refrigerator, Keishin was almost certain that by the end of the week, he was going to sprout gills.

Keishin picked at his third tuna casserole dinner in a row, counting down the forkfuls until he could dive into the latest book he had borrowed from the library, a yellowing copy of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time.

“You don’t have to finish it,” his stepmother said without looking up from her own untouched plate.

Keishin stared at her, trying to process what he had just heard. Those words had never been uttered in their home when his father was alive. Hearing them might have killed him faster than his cancer had. His father loved many things about his new homeland, but the amount of food that he saw thrown away each day at the restaurant he worked in made him gnash his teeth.

“I’ll finish it.” Keishin shoved a forkful of the tasteless casserole into his mouth.

“Things don’t have to stay the same,” his stepmother said. “If you don’t want them to.”

Keishin swallowed without chewing. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t have to pretend anymore,” she said. “I know that you have tried your best to accept me as your new mother when your father and I got married. I appreciated that. Truly. But your father is gone now. You don’t have to pretend for his sake or mine. I would rather that we be honest with each other than polite. Perhaps, that way, we can even learn to be friends.”

Keishin set his fork down and looked at his stepmother as though seeing her for the first time. He had never heard her speak more openly or plainly. A part of him felt relieved to have her say those words to him. It wasn’t that he didn’t care for her.He did. And he knew that she cared for him. But being his father’s wife did not magically transform her into his mother, and neither did him calling her “okaa-san” make him her son. Calling anything by a false name only made it feel less true. And yet, there was another part of Keishin that felt sad to hear his stepmother speak this way. Their lie, like most lies, had been a balm to a truth that chafed. Without it, all he was left with was the relentless awareness of having the perfect likeness of a mother going through the motions good mothers were supposed to do.

And this is how Keishin knew, upon hearing Fumiko’s words that night beneath the stars, that he needed to run, as fast as he could, to Hana. He had realized what Chiyo’s real punishment was because, just like Fumiko, he had been sentenced to it too.