Chapter 3

3

Messages

5:26 PM

Me

Legit, the thought of confronting my mother is the best laxative ever.

Noora

You can do it.

Noora

Go in and Law and Order it up. It’s time she pays for her crimes. You be the plucky DA who brings her to justice.

Me

I’d much rather be Mariska Hargitay. She’s badass. Plus, Ice-T is her partner.

Me

Gotta go. Mom’s home.

Noora

Remember. Hammer of justice!

With a sigh, I silence my phone. My shoulders square. My heart resolves. The pit in my stomach remains. I carry it with me as I head down the hallway and into the kitchen. Mom is already banging around, opening and closing cupboards, pouring oil into a giant wok. Stir-fry night. I flex a tremor from my hands. Play it cool. Act natural. This shouldn’t be hard to do. It’s practically my job to hang around the kitchen starting at six o’clock and ask every ten minutes when dinner will be ready.

I belly up to the bar and sit on one of the stools. Mugs hang from hooks under the cabinet. Mom collects them. Her favorites have quirky sayings. Geology Rocks is in my direct line of vision. Mom places a cutting board, knife, and multicolored bell peppers in front of me. “Chop, chop,” she says.

I do as I’m told, slicing into an orange bell pepper. “Mom?”

“Hm?” She wraps tofu in a cloth. She’s removed her suit jacket, but still wears the rest of her “school uniform”: button-up shirt with sleeves rolled to her elbows and a tasteful pencil skirt.

“Tell me again about my father, the sperm donor.”

Our relationship used to be so straightforward. I could distill it into one sentence—single mom with daughter, two against the world. Now, it all seems so complicated. Everything has changed. But she doesn’t realize it yet. Kind of like when Glory’s parents got divorced. Her mom fell out of love and started dating their dentist while her dad planned their twentieth anniversary. Lies taint everything.

Mom closes her eyes. Ah, she’s in one of her I’ve-had-a-long-day-and-don’t-have time-for-this moods. “I’ve asked you not to use that term.”

“Sorry. I go to public school. We have sex education. I know too much.”

She unwraps the tofu, cubes it, and throws it into the wok. It sizzles and the sound is oddly satisfying, like coming home. “Can this wait? I’m in the middle of making dinner.”

I grip the knife harder, a rush of determination courses through me. Her answer doesn’t make me feel stabby. Not at all. “It can’t wait. Just tell me again.”

She stops and stares at me over her shoulder, a suspicious gleam in her eyes. “What is this about? Are you missing something not having a father?”

Gah, the look on her face—heartbreaking. My determination goes on the defensive. What can I say? Yes. I miss having a dad. Even more, I miss having a past. There isn’t any family on Mom’s side. She’s sansei, third generation Japanese. Her grandparents emigrated in the thirties. They didn’t speak the language and only had a whisper of a better life when they boarded a ship bound for America. After World War II, they slipped their heirloom kimono under the bed, put up Christmas trees in December, and exclusively spoke English.

But some traditions refuse to fade. They seep through the cracks and cling to the walls—remove your shoes before entering the house, always bring a gift when visiting someone for the first time, celebrate the New Year by eating Toshikoshi soba and mochi. The promise of that ghost life makes me yearn. I want to understand myself. I want to put my hands in the earth and pull up roots.

But I can’t tell my mother any of this. I can’t tell her that when people ask me about my story—who I am, where I come from—I tell it like it’s an apology. No, I don’t speak Japanese. No, I’ve never been to Japan. No, I don’t like sushi. It’s always clear in their disappointed gazes. I am not enough.

All of this would hurt her.

So instead I let my silence do the talking.

Her sigh is long and suffering. She looks to the ceiling. Lord, give her patience. “I met him my senior year of college at a party. We slept together. I found out I was pregnant with you after I graduated. By then, it was too late to find him.”

“You never knew his name?”

She won’t make eye contact. “That’s right.”

“Didn’t know where he lived?”

“Nope.”

“What about one of his friends? Did you try tracking him down through them?”

“We didn’t have any mutual acquaintances.”

“Huh.”

“Are we done with this now? Did you finish your English project, the journal on Huckleberry Finn?”

I take her question as a personal insult. “Of course I finished it.” Truth: I didn’t finish it. But I did get a week extension. All hail the period excuse. What Mom doesn’t know won’t hurt her. “And no, we’re not done talking about this.”

Tofu crisps in the wok. She dumps in onion. “Izumi.” I love the way my mom says my name. Elongating the I, softening around the zumi, an ounce of love behind it all. But today, there is an extra helping of annoyance.

“So he never told you his name was Makotonomiya Toshihito?” I say his name softly, but it drops like a boulder onto our linoleum floor. This is the moment I know for sure Mom has lied about everything. She swallows, her lips part. Her dark eyes dart to mine. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

“How do you know that name?” Her voice is tinny.

I set the knife and bell pepper down. “I saw his name in that book on your nightstand. Well, part of it—the name Makoto. Noora and I figured out the rest.”

“You went through my things?” Wisps of hair have escaped her low ponytail.

“No.” A technicality. Noora went through her things. “I wasn’t snooping. I came across it by accident.”

Her eyebrows dart inward. She doesn’t believe me. That’s not the point. The point is … “You lied to me. You told me you didn’t know his name. You told me he wasn’t anybody. He’s very much somebody.” Her dishonesty is exposed. It feels as if the ground is shaking. A chasm forms between us. I cross my arms. Two bell peppers remain uncut. Vegetables and dinner be damned.

Mom’s face shutters closed. She turns. I watch her profile. “So what? I knew who he was.” She says, jabbing at the tofu and onion with a wooden spoon. “It was so trite. A poor girl falls in love with a prince. Things like that don’t happen in real life. And if they do, they don’t end in a happily ever after.”

“Mom?” Her motions are mechanical. Stir. Season. Toss. “Mom!” This gets her attention. We stare at each other. Many unsaid things pass between us. “Why did you lie to me?”

She shrugs, rinses broccoli, and sets to it with a butcher knife. “His whole life had been planned. Mine was just beginning. When I learned I was pregnant, I confided in a friend. I was somewhat familiar with court life, but she educated me even more. It would have been constricting. You should have seen him at Harvard. There was always someone with him—a chamberlain, a valet, an imperial guard, or police. We stole kisses in the hallways and snuck away to hotels. He lived in a fishbowl.” She pauses, wiping her hands on a dish towel. Her focus returns to me. “Women royals are especially scrutinized. Everything is done under a magnifying glass. You’re picked apart for the causes you support, the dresses you wear, and what sort of child you bear. I witnessed your father given choices like he was a toddler. You can have this or that, but never all of it. Your life would have been determined by the family you were born into—I didn’t want that for you. For us.”

“And he agreed with all that?”

Her eyes dart away from mine. “I didn’t tell him.”

I ball my hand into a fist. Eighteen years old and my father doesn’t know I exist. “You should’ve told him. He … maybe he would’ve stayed in the States.”

Her smile holds all the sadness in the world. “He said more than once if he stayed in America, he’d be like a tree without sunlight. How could I ask that of him?”

“You should’ve told me. I deserved to know the truth.”

“You’re right.” She flicks the burner off and removes the wok from the heat. She leans over the counter and cups my cheeks. Her fingers are cold. “We’ve had a good life together though, right? I guess all I can say is, I had your best interests at heart.”

It is a mother’s instinct to protect, I suppose. But her good intentions are eclipsed by my anger and her betrayal—a dangerous combination. I lash out. “And yours,” I say.

She pulls away. “What?”

“You had your best interests at heart, too.” I point out my mother’s selfishness. I have no excuse for my awful behavior. But sometimes when you’re down, you can’t help but try to pull others into the gutter with you. It’s lonely at the bottom. “You didn’t want a life with my father so you chose something else, but I never got to choose.”

Mom inhales sharply. I’ve hit her where it hurts the most. “Izumi—”

I slide from the stool. I let my guard down with my mom. Big mistake. I’d never have guessed she’d be someone who could hurt me. The world is a cruel and unfriendly place. Things are about to get ugly. A messy emotional breakdown looms on the horizon.

Ever so slowly I walk to my room, off to lick my wounds in private.

---

Mom gives me space. While I cry, Tamagotchi sleeps. He’s not much of an emotional support animal. Our relationship is distinctly one-sided. I feed him treats and he burps in my face. Such is life.

Noora texts me a gif of a Chihuahua dancing on two legs.

Noora

Dying. What did your mom say?

I turn the phone over. I’m still sorting through my emotions, picking at the scab of my anger. Stewing.

There’s a knock on the door. “Zoom Zoom?” Mom enters, carrying a bowl of rice and stir-fry. She places dinner on my dresser and sits next to me on the bed. Since I’m still in a snit, I gaze out the window. She takes my hand. Warm and dry, her touch brings me comfort, despite everything.

“This is what I should have done years ago,” she says. Her voice is calm, collected, easy, the lie no longer weighing it down. “Your father’s name is Makotonomiya Toshihito. He is the Crown Prince of Japan. Someday, he will be emperor. People bowed to him, but he never asked me to. I called him Mak. And for one season, he was mine.”

The sun shifts, descending. The tall grass in our backyard sways.

Soon, I know everything. My parents met at a party. It wasn’t love at first sight, but there was a connection. The connection led to phone calls, then to meetings, then to overnights. They agreed to keep their relationship a secret. Mom didn’t want the attention. “I worked so hard to get where I was. I couldn’t risk it for a boy,” she explains. “He respected my wishes. We had fun. But we both knew it wasn’t meant to last. Our worlds were too different.” She laughs. “He didn’t know how to iron a shirt, do laundry, or make a cup of soup. He drank like a fish, loved microbeers. And he was funny. He had this dry sense of humor and a wicked wit. You wouldn’t know you were at the receiving end of one of his barbs until you were bleeding and he was gone.”

My eyes crinkle at the corners. “You kept the book he gave you all these years?”

She gazes at her lap. “It’s a rare edition. I forgot the poem was in there.” We both know she’s lying. My mom still totally holds a candle for my father. The secret is hers to keep.

Mom stands and withdraws a slip of paper from her pocket. “I have no idea how to get hold of him now, but we did have mutual friends. David Meier is a chemistry professor at the University of Stockholm. He and your father were close. They might keep in touch.” She places the slip of paper next to my hip and touches my shoulder, then my cheek. “Try to eat something.”

As she goes to close the door I say, “I’m sorry … for what I said before.”

“I’m sorry, too,” she says. “For what I never said.” A bridge forms over the gap between us—rickety, but passable. Everything will be okay.

I’m itching to grab the paper. “One more thing,” I say. “You really don’t mind if I try to get in touch with him?” If we connect, we’d be diving headfirst into the fishbowl. Our lives might never be the same.

She hesitates. Apprehension sits heavy on her shoulders. A single headshake, and her spine straightens. It’s a signature Mom move, bracing for the hard stuff. I’ve seen it before, like on my first day of kindergarten, when I clung to her ankles and cried as she pried my fingers from her body. Or the time she cut her hand making me a sandwich. Blood was everywhere. She wrapped it in a towel and we drove to the emergency room, but not before she packed my lunch and some books. She’s always put me first.

“No, I don’t mind.” Her voice is so gentle, so understanding I want to spontaneously burst into tears again. “I’ve accomplished what I wanted to and more. Our life is small in comparison to his. But I’m happy.”

She leaves and I pick up the slip of paper. On it is an email address, [email protected]. I press the envelope icon on my phone.

Dear Mr. Meier,

My name is Izumi Tanaka. My mother, Hanako, graduated Harvard in 2003 and she believes you may have kept in touch with my father, Makotonomiya Toshihito. It is my hope you will be able to connect me with him. Below, I’ve included a note that you may forward to him.

Thanks,

Izumi

I take a deep breath and start a letter to my father.

Dear Mak,

You don’t know me but I know you.

Ugh. Too creepy. Too casual. I delete and start again.

Dear Crown Prince Toshihito,

I think I’m your daughter …