“I wanted to believe she would get better,” I said. “Until the very end.”
For months after the memorial, I allowed Aki to float through the house like a ghost, holding my tongue, trying to maintain the peace when he wanted to pick a fight.
“Don’t touch my things,” he yelled at me once when I was cleaning his room. “Don’t touch those pictures. You have no right to be in here.”
“I took that photo of you and your mother,” I said. “I bought that frame. And last I checked I’m paying for this house and you’re not taking care of your room. I let you get away with a lot around here.”
He clutched the photo of his mother to his chest, the two of them on a boat ride circling Tokyo Bay. Beside his futon, Hollywood slept, powered down. Most of the time we didn’t pay the dog any mind, often forgetting he could self-activate until he reacted to something—a television commercial jingle, a broken glass, one of our shouting matches. It wasn’t until Aki picked up his mother’s shamisen again that Hollywood left his charging station and truly reentered our lives. I watched my son open the case as I was preparing dinner, inspecting the instrument that once belonged to his grandfather, hands hovering over the strings, as if afraid to break anything. One note. And then another. And another. After several false starts, I could discern an unsteady “Moon River.” Aki continued to play. I heard Hollywood activate behind the sliding door separating the living room from my son’s bedroom, the mechanical whirring of joints as the dog waddled across the tatami. And then came her voice. Aki stopped. We both regarded each other as if a veil had been lifted. I slid open the door. Hollywood looked up at me with his pixelated eyes and wagged his tail. If I threw his Bluetooth ball, he would fetch it and bark. If I asked him to dance, he would sit upright and wave his front paws in the air. A robo-dog, a toy, a pet. And yet. Even though I had never subscribed to the traditional idea that all objects contain a spirit, I couldn’t deny that a part of the woman we lost remained somewhere inside Hollywood.
“Keep playing,” I told Aki.
Ayano slipped between English and Japanese as she sang, humming along with the instrumentals. Hollywood swayed from side to side. And for the first time in recent memory, I saw my son smile. For the first time since she left us, we sat in the same room and ate.
After that day, Aki moved Hollywood into the main room. We made a point of incorporating him into our lives. Aki still avoided speaking to me when he could avoid it. Instead, he used the dog as a conduit for connection.
“How about a car ride?” Aki would ask Hollywood in front of me. “Hollywood, maybe we can go to the movies and eat some popcorn. What do you say?” I once blew up at him for playing these games.
“I’m your father,” I said. “You need to learn how to talk to me.” But we weren’t there yet.
Aki stormed out of the room with Hollywood in his arms and didn’t acknowledge me again until he asked Hollywood if he wanted to go to the mall. Does Hollywood want a chocolate-covered pretzel? Does Hollywood want a Gundam model?
My son acted tough, but once, not long after his mother’s funeral, I overheard him talking to the dog. His bedroom door was closed. I walked closer, leaned in to listen: “We’re okay. I finally got a job at the corner store to help out Dad, but I haven’t told him yet. His cooking is horrible. He can be a real dick sometimes, but I guess I can be, too. I miss you. I love you. I miss you so damn much.”
Beep, blip, chime.
“Say it,” Aki said, louder. “I love you. Say ‘I love you.’”
Ayano’s voice: “I love you.”
“Repeat.”
“I love you.”
When Aki was at school, I’d play Ayano’s music from her phone and sing along, horribly off key—“Yesterday” by the Beatles—and wait for my wife’s voice to emerge from Hollywood’s mouth. I wanted her to tell me she loved me, too. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine Ayano in the room with me, but the recording always stopped, followed by a digital chime, and when I opened my eyes, I was alone on my knees with a plastic dog running on a lithium battery.
*
In my workroom, I finish constructing the pine caskets for the upcoming memorial service, affixing a photo of each pet to the top with a coat of polyurethane. Some owners bury their dogs with their charging station and toys; others use the casket as a shrine, standing it upright to form a nook for candles and photos. The mail carrier delivers two packages. In the first box: spare parts I found on eBay. In the second: a first-generation poodle model named Samson all the way from Austin, Texas, accompanied by a letter from its owner explaining the problems he’s been having. I told the owner not to send the dog. But people still seem to expect miracles.