Riku
As soon as his family moved in, Riku set to work. First, he had the rugs lifted and the wooden floors hidden beneath the tiles scraped so that the light pine was revealed when the sun bounced off its surface in the morning. He covered the middle of the newly naked planks with the deep-red silk rug, whose design was scattered with delicate green-and-white renderings of cherry blossoms. Riku took pride in knowing that it was the very same rug that had been in his grandmother’s home in Japan and that had adorned his parents’ parlor when he was a child in San Francisco. And, with Esther’s approval, he had placed the massive velvet sofa, along with the coffee table and standing lamp, upstairs in the main bedroom, replacing it all with a flowered chintz sofa, two end tables with small lamps covered with simple white shades, and the chinoiserie, black lacquered, which held his father’s collection of painted wineglasses. The piano, though at first an object of mild interest to the children, remained untouched in the corner of the room.
When he was done with the inside, having painted the bedroom his daughters shared a soft pink and having set up bunk beds for his sons in the blue room, Riku turned to the outside of the home. Enlisting the help of his twin sons, he ripped down the rickety deck, which he calculated could withstand only a couple of years’ worth of stormy winters. It wasn’t long before the entire deck had been replaced with a sturdy one made of redwood in time for its first Fourth of July barbecue. Jenny, of course, insisted on starting a vegetable garden, which by summer’s end would already be flowering with full red tomatoes, hearty zucchini, and ripe green cucumbers. The hefty apple tree that had overseen its share of mellow springs and tumultuous winters found a slow renaissance as leaves emerged on every branch, and the smallest of embryos that would blossom into juicy apples in the fall, bringing shade to the parcel of grass. The backyard with the oak overshadowing it all had become a peaceful place, with gentle breezes that weaved through the newly formed leaves.
Then after reconnecting the broken links of an old swing he had bought secondhand, along with a slide that required constant sweeping from dirt and leaves, he turned his efforts to the facade of the home, which with systematic strokes of the brush was tempered from its sunny yellow, which had taken on a dismal and sad hue, to a more sedate shade of greenish blue. Last, the family carried new wicker chairs and a wicker love seat to the porch, along with a green-and-white-striped hammock that Riku tied in the shade between two trees in the back of the house. When all was done, everything about the place echoed home to the Japanese American family.
Esther herself had settled into her new residence in Boca weeks before the family had moved into the home. Riku could tell that Florrie, though, kept a keen eye on her neighbor’s house through the open slats of her own window shade. On the first of each month, hair tied back and dressed in a pantsuit, she would appear in front of the home, its path lined with new rocks, and step onto the porch that no longer squeaked. That was when Jenny would greet her with the monthly rental check, which Florrie would later deposit into Esther’s account. Jenny had never asked her inside since, because as she and Riku had agreed, she didn’t like the idea of turning a business relationship into something more than that. Nevertheless, she would usually catch the woman trying to sneak a peek into the home’s ever-changing interior. As Jenny closed the door, she could see the shadow of disappointment wash across Florrie’s face. Jenny was pleased that she would have no gossip to report back to Esther, other than the fact that they were good tenants.
Once his efforts were expended and the house made into the very model of his and Jenny’s vision, Riku had little time to enjoy it. He was kept busy with his new job as a chemical engineer at Dow, which had recently expanded with home food management projects like Ziploc and Saran Wrap. Riku worked long hours, leaving at 6:00 a.m. and not returning until eight in the evening, when the night had dimmed the hue of the home’s exterior so that it blended in with the dark sky. Yet even from down the block, as he approached, walking past the stately oaks at each curb, the garbage cans positioned like soldiers before every home, Florrie’s house with the wooden bench in front, he could discern the lights of the home sparkling brightly. Not his home, not yet. But he hoped that one day it might be.
Often when he looked at his wife of twelve years, Riku would consider himself a lucky man. Although Jenny herself was highly educated, possessing a master’s degree in business administration before embarking on a career in management at one of the largest hospitals in San Francisco, she had abandoned it all once their twin boys, James and Joseph, were born. After that, Jenny never seemed to complain or to long for missed opportunities, instead devoting herself entirely to the two boys and the two daughters to come. And, of course, to Riku who, she had to acknowledge, was the most difficult of all.