The Rom-Commers(90)

We owed it all to Mrs. Otsuka’s grandson’s quick thinking and calm presence of mind.

What a blessing of a next-door neighbor.

If they hadn’t shown up when they did—if we’d lost any more time than we had—I might be telling a very different story.

I said this to my dad over Jell-O in his room that evening, when he’d been out of recovery several hours. Sylvie was in the room, too, and I averted my eyes from her presence so relentlessly that she finally excused herself to go look for a cup of coffee.

My dad’s sweet face was bruised and swollen and cut, and his head was bandaged and partially shaved, and it was hard to look him in the face. Instead I just kept squeezing his hand and thinking about how I’d know it anywhere.

He had a fuzzy blue blanket Salvador had brought from home on his lap, and he said, “I’m so sorry I scared you, sweetheart.”

“Thank god Mrs. Otsuka found you.”

“Mrs. Otsuka didn’t find me, she was with me.”

“I thought she discovered you just after you fell.”

My dad shook his head. “She was beside me when I fell. We were taking the stairs together.”

This seemed like a pretty fine point, but okay.

“You know those bedraggled teachers on the first floor who have eight kids?”

“I think they have three kids—but okay.”

“Kenji was with us because we were dropping him off to watch cartoons at their place for the evening while we went for a bite of dinner.”

I nodded agreeably, like that was a pleasant but not super-relevant detail.

But then my dad gave me a funny little smile that flipped all the lights on in my brain.

“Wait!” I gasped—raising both hands to my mouth. “Were you—?”

My dad didn’t say anything, but his eyes twinkled.

“Hold on! You’re saying—?”

This time, a pleased-with-himself shrug.

“You?” I asked. “And Mrs. Otsuka?”

My dad tapped his nose, like Bingo.

“You were going on a date?” I asked. “With each other?”

“Yep.”

“You’re dating? You’re, like, boyfriend-and-girlfriend?”

“More like late-in-life companions,” he said, “but that’s the basic gist.”

“When did this happen?”

My dad kept wrestling with insuppressible smiles. “Well,” he said, “you know. She lost her husband a few years back.”

“Yes,” I said. “I know.” Then, for proof: “Mr. Otsuka.”

“Exactly,” my dad said. “And ever since then—over a respectful time frame, of course—we just kind of developed a little flirtation.”

The pieces snapped together in my mind. “Is that why you’ve been teaching Kenji how to play the harmonica?”

“He’s been a little homesick.”

“And that’s why she kept having everyone over for dinner?”

“She’s a phenomenal cook.”

“And that’s why she kept stopping by with flowers from the community garden?”

Now the smile he’d been suppressing broke through. “It’s not her fault,” he said. “I’m just so irresistible.”

“Dad!” I said, nodding. “I’m very impressed.”

“Still got it,” he said, with a little wink.

“I love this for you,” I said. And I did.

“You know what I keep thinking?” my dad said then.

“What?”

“Your mom would love her.”

My eyes sprung with tears.

Then he added, “And Kenji, too. He’s a great kid. He wants to be a magician.”

“She would love them both,” I said. “And she’d be happy for you.”

“I think so, too,” my dad said, nodding like he’d given it some thought. “Good people have to stick together.”



* * *



IT’S HARD TO maintain the silent treatment with your sister when you’re the joint guardians of a parent in the ICU, but I was up to the challenge.

I directed all my questions to Salvador, like he was my translator, and whenever Sylvie was in the room, I averted my eyes. Through Salvador, we agreed to trade off nights at the hospital until our dad was ready to transfer to rehab. I insisted on taking the first shift that first night—still unshowered, and still in my WRITERS DO IT ON THE PAGE ensemble, which allowed me to extend the enjoyable feeling of having been wronged. Not only was Sylvie guilty of attempted patricide and saying the meanest-thing-ever to me, she also wouldn’t let me go home to take a shower.

What a monster.

The next day, after Sylvie relieved me of my shift, I was heading home to change clothes after more hours than I cared to count, when I arrived at our apartment door to see someone sitting beside it, elbows resting on knees, head bent, like he’d been there a while.

Charlie.

As soon as he saw me, he scrambled to his feet and came as close to me as he dared, an intense, just-flew-to-Texas-without-telling-you-and-showed-up-on-your-doorstep expression on his face.

My first horrified thought was that I was still wearing his ridiculous sweatshirt. And I hadn’t showered. And I still had no underwear on. And my hair probably looked like I’d been electrocuted.