Lazy Susan

By Norie Suzuki 

Mischelle Moy - Everyone Has Eaten (個個食咗啦) (2022), Digital photograph
Image description: A highly saturated photograph depicts an assortment of everyday kitchen utensils atop a counter. In the foreground, a cleaning glove lies next to a metal tray holding a blue sponge, a green soap dispenser, and a plastic yellow container holding a variety of utensils, including scissors, spoons, forks, and a white rice spatula. On the right side of the photograph, behind the metal dish, is a pink plastic basket that holds bowls and plates of various materials and designs. A metal handle is partially visible, as is a bamboo rolling mat. To the left of the pink basket are a glass water jug, a tall but slender aloe vera plant in a glass, and a stainless steel mug. On the left side of the photograph, bowls with floral prints are stacked on top of each other in a plastic colander that also holds spoons and wooden chopsticks. In the background of the photograph, a view of the outside shows tall trees and red buildings.

January 1. A day when everybody in Japan is supposed to enjoy a break with their family. Of course, if you’re a doctor or a nurse or a firefighter, it’s a different story. Mother was none of those. In 1968, she was between jobs as a typist, perhaps in the last cohort of those now-extinct professionals. When Aunt Kiku came over to check on us, Mother said no worries, we can live on the dole. That shut Aunt Kiku up but did not prevent her from bringing a sack of rice, miso, yams, and sometimes Uncle Akira, with her on Sunday visits. I preferred Mother using the expression “allowance” when she updated Aunt Kiku on where she stood, rather than “dole,” the sound of which made me think of the pall we covered Father’s coffin with. Aunt Kiku, who was not actually our aunt, but a neighbor, must have been only a few years older than Mother. Her eyebrows, penciled out in thin brown lines (when she didn’t even care to draw her eyebrows, she looked like a sleepy ghost), the way she’d often knit those brows, and her downturned lips, made her look much older than Mother.  Unfair comparison, perhaps, because Mother had once been a runner-up in a local beauty contest.  She had a slender face with a pointed chin, full lips, wide forehead, and jet-black, permed hair she pulled behind her ears—none of which was passed down to me.

“You’ll find a job,” Aunt Kiku said every Sunday, munching on the rice crackers she’d bring with her. “You’re not only highly trained, but a looker.”

“Not that again.”

“I’m telling you the truth.  Think about it. Who do men want to have in their office? If they had a choice, they’d go for a beauty. That’s a fact of life.”

“The only important fact of life is that I need a job before I run out of my allowance.”

“Allowance” had a ring of excitement to it, which my little brother, Taro, and I felt on the first day of each month when Mother gave us a hundred yen. It was always a hard decision: should we get a top, buy candy suckers, or save for the cotton candy man who would wheel his cart to our street corner and show us Astro Boy storyboards? Allowance carried hope, whereas dole was burdened with a heavy murkiness that trapped us like quicksand.

#

“You don’t remember that New Year?” I say to Mother in disbelief and peer into her face, which is tainted with age spots that were not there a year ago. “You must’ve been around my age now.”

“Watch what you’re doing,” Mother warns me.

My sudden grip of the scissors creates ripples in the wash bowl, water spilling over to form small puddles on the kitchen table. I realize I’ve snipped the stems of the yellow pom-pom mums too short. “Oh, well. I’ll just have to rearrange them,” I mumble and carefully pluck out a longleaf pine twig, flowering kale, and the sarcandras, which are firmly fixed in the spikes of the flower frog. I cut their stems in the wash bowl to keep balance with the yellow mums, check the proportion of height in the glazed porcelain flower bowl, and bring slightly forward one of the sarcandras as a last touch. “Perfect. Do I pass your test?” I smile at my own family joke, at Mother who had taught me the basics of flower arrangement, which she believed would make me more marriageable.    

Mother wipes the table and places a small plate with steaming simmered lotus root, her specialty for the New Year, on it. “When I was 32, I was married, widowed, and raising two kids all by myself. Look at yourself.”

“No lecturing, please. Do you remember promising me on the phone you won’t nag at me? As you’ve wished, I went to college and got a decent job. What more do you want?” I blow hard on the lotus root to cool it and take a bite to shut myself up. “Heavenly. Worth coming home for the holidays.”

Mischelle Moy - “Ting’s Gift Shop” (2020), From Chinatown, With Love, Digital photograph
Image description: A vibrant assortment of everyday objects—books, stationery, and figurines—fill up the shelves of a white desk organizer. The shelves are decorated with children’s stickers. The rightmost column of shelves display objects such as a Mr. Potatohead, a car, a troll doll, a doll in a Chinese opera costume, a series of children’s books, and a book, Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul III. The middle column of shelves display objects such as a black lucky cat, an American-themed Ty’s bear plushie, a jar of origami paper stars, and a pair of small, jade, lion figurines. The leftmost column of shelves, partially cast in shadow, display children’s books, stationery, PowerPuff Girls figurines, and more. A yellow Chinese knot pendant hangs from the shelf. In the top left corner of the photograph, a Miss Piggy PEZ candy dispenser lies on top of the shelf. In front of the shelf, a half-finished coloring book is laid open with some color pencils scattered around it.

#

Mother lives alone in the house where Taro and I grew up. It is a single-story townhouse, long and narrow, divided into small rooms with paper sliding doors which had all been removed by Taro last year, except for the room where Mother sleeps. Taro wanted to remodel Mother’s room. Paint the plaster walls, change the tatami mats, replace the grey, clay, roof tiles with galvalume steel sheets, redo the wood sidings. Most of all, he wanted to renew the rainwater gutters that were sagging. The most he got around to doing was attaching a new strap to secure the loose downspout, which banged against the siding on windy days.

“What’s the point in spending money on this house?” Mother argued. “In no time, this whole place will be taken over by developers.”

True. What remains of our old neighborhood is just the one block where Mother’s house stands. There used to be single-story townhouses chained together like identical train cars. All built after the War. Most of them have been torn down, including Aunt Kiku’s, and condominiums soared one after another like bamboo shoots. No more fish market, butcher, and the mom-and-pop grocery store. Instead, now everyone shops at a huge supermarket that is open even on New Year’s Day.  

Some things don’t change, though. For instance, preparations for the New Year.  Wiping windows, washing screen doors, scrubbing mold off bathroom tiles to welcome lucky spirits. Pitting seeds of kumquats, simmering black beans for hours, mashing sweet potatoes and chestnuts—food that promised health.

By the time Taro started primary school two years after me, we would compete in cleaning all the windows until they were spic-and-span. We tried to outdo each other, and never complained about the chafed, red hands that hurt each time we wrung out rags. Taro and I longed to be awarded the privilege of sampling the raggedy edges of rolled omelet that Mother cut away, and the stewed bean curd cakes she made in our kitchen. We sang “How Many More Nights to Sleep Until New Year’s Day” at the top of our lungs so that Aunt Kiku would stick out her head from her window across the street and say, “Good for you, your mother needs all your help.” Both of us were guaranteed a generous amount of money from Uncle Akira on New Year’s Day if Aunt Kiku witnessed us at work.

How difficult it was for Taro and me to keep our thoughts, our mental shopping list, to ourselves. Mother said it was vulgar to talk about money. And God forbid we opened gift money envelopes in front of others. Money was an open secret. Without money, we would be houseless, foodless, clothes-less. Like the children of Biafra in a poster tacked on the school bulletin board. The principal explained at the all-student meeting that some of these children’s parents were dead. Even if they were alive, they did not have money to provide their children with the essentials. What moneyless-ness could do frightened me. Still, we were not allowed to mention money, let alone worry about it, particularly after we lost Father. Money was a topic saved for Mother and Aunt Kiku to discuss, over a cup of green tea—where to get inexpensive but fresh vegetables, which pantyhose provided value for money—as if neither Taro nor I was within earshot.  

On New Year’s Eve, when the stinging smell of mildew remover that blended with the fragrance of simmering soy sauce, brown sugar, and sweet rice wine seeped through the paper sliding doors into the room where Taro and I slept side by side on our futon beds, it was impossible for us to contain our vulgar thoughts. Taro would say he’d get a baseball, a bat, or maybe a kite. Uncle Akira might even give us enough money to buy everything, he’d add, and he’d ask me what I’d get. He’d nudge me while I tried to make up my mind. A paint set, I’d lie into his ear, trying to shut him up.  What I actually yearned for was a necklace like Mother’s, which she used to wear for our family outings when Father was still alive. A gold chain with a pearl pendant that swayed against her black, turtleneck sweater. If I’d mentioned it, I was sure Taro would say, you’re so girly, in that voice he would use to alert his friends of dog droppings he found on their way to school.

#

The summer Mother lost her job and stayed at home as she had done before Father died, Taro—being a seven-year-old baby with no brains to understand what that meant—hopped-skipped-and-jumped all the way back home from school. At home, the talk between Aunt Kiku and Mother turned into whispers, quite hard to catch. Taro playing a cup-and-ball game beside me, which was his thing then, did not help. He was hanging around, hoping to get some candies from Aunt Kiku. I was pretending to read a book and telling Taro to get lost, but he’d lean over my shoulder and say he’d tell Mother, that he knew I was not actually reading but trying to eavesdrop on their conversation. What else could I have done but ignore him while there was imminent danger of being put out on the street?  

“I’m not laying a finger on that money,” Mother said.

“I’m not telling you to spend it on a diamond ring, for heaven’s sake. Using it for the kids now is just the same as saving it for their college. What good does your husband’s workers’ accident comp do if it sits in a bank? Your husband would understand.”

“What do you know about what he might have wanted? You don’t know how hard he worked to get that site foreman’s job. It took years. Not because he was inexperienced. Papers. It all boiled down to whether he had a university diploma or not.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Aunt Kiku place her pudgy hand over Mother’s clasped ones.  

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bite back at you,” Mother said.

“I know. So what’s your plan?”

“Tell me more about that job your client mentioned.”

#

Mother had no experience working as a waitress, but since the restaurant was booming and short-handed, she was immediately hired as holiday-season staff. No training though. She’d just have to watch others, follow their instructions, accept any shift. Mother told Aunt Kiku that she’d answered yes to all the conditions, quite automatically, like wedding vows. Preordained, she laughed, making Aunt Kiku’s worried face soften up.  

It was one of the most popular restaurants in Chinatown, located on a strip that was vibrant around the clock. Our neighborhood’s ramen-noodle shops, vegetable stands, and mom-and-pop stores would be closed from December 31 to January 3, and the entire street would have looked dead if it were not for the joyful, twisted-rope wreaths with red and gold fans and tangerines on their storefronts. Chinatown, which was only a few stations away from our house, was a different world. The strip would continue its business, which meant pay, as long as Mother did not get fired, and the company did not go under like the one she used to work for.

Mother bought a pair of black, flat shoes (so ugly compared to high-heels she wore to the office), and a black, ribbon barrette with a hairnet. No more pink curlers at night. Instead, she soaked her feet in hot water while she went over the names of exotic-sounding cuisine written on her notepad: century egg, Peking duck, shark-fin soup. We were not supposed to interrupt her “study,” although Taro was dying to know what those things were. So, in our futon bed, I explained to Taro that a century egg was a rotten egg served as a punishment to a boy who didn’t listen to his sister; a Peking duck, a sibling of an ugly duckling that failed to turn into a swan; and shark-fin soup was for the poor with strong teeth who couldn’t even afford to buy mackerel, our favorite. He looked at me doubtfully and said I was lying. But my nodding at him knowingly in a dimly-lit room had a mesmerizing effect, and his imagination got the better of him. You mean that shark we saw at an aquarium? Tail, back fin. All that? You chew them? I pretended chewing the edge of my blanket and let his fancy grow with mine.  

During the first week of December, Mother was on the day shift. She’d come home around 7:00 p.m., and we’d have dinner. Leftover curry from Sunday, plain, boiled noodles.  Although Taro and I replied in great detail when Mother questioned us about our day at school, her mind seemed to be elsewhere. Not wandering, but sunk deep in her body. I shut up and offered to do the dishes, make her futon bed, and cook dinner if she’d allow me to use the stove, but she declined.  “No fire. This house is your father’s keepsake,” she said. So I let Taro do his show-and-tell, let him brag about how many times he was able to do pull-ups, spread out a paper shark with a clip at its jaws that he made in his science class to prove how magnets work. I did not tell Mother about making a Santa Claus strap in the handicraft club nor about scraping my knee while playing dodgeball.  

In the second week, she was on the night shift, and returned home around midnight. When we came back from school, there was a note telling us what to do. Miku, for dinner, get out a plate of pickled cucumbers and carrots from the fridge; Taro, serve rice; wash the dishes; take a bath by 7:30; bed by 9:00. Aunt Kiku would drop by and check what was in the pot on the stove before heating it up. She’d hum a song or two, swaying her big butt, making the ribbon of her apron swing like a horsetail—a sight that insulted me. Mother would’ve told Aunt Kiku that I was not to be trusted with matches. Fifteen months short of ten, as if two digits made the world of a difference, like night and day. I was glad to see her leave, although Aunt Kiku would return around 9:00 to check on us, to make sure that all the windows were locked, the kitchen tidied up, and school clothes nicely folded beside our pillows.  

“Taro, do you want me to stay until your mother returns?” Aunt Kiku asked as she turned off the overhead light, leaving only a miniature night lamp to glow in the corner of our room. Taro was still holding my hand under the heavy comforter so I pinched him before he had a chance to reply.  

“Thank you, Aunt Kiku. We’re fine. Good night,” I said with a big yawn.  

After we heard her lock the front door, Taro kicked my legs, turned his back to me, and insisted that he wasn’t planning to ask Aunt Kiku to stay, that he wasn’t afraid. I kept vigil beside him and stared at the stains on the ceiling. The house had come with those stains when Father bought it when I was five. The first night, after we all lay down on our futon and Mother remarked on the stains she couldn’t get rid of, Father said he’d already fixed the leaking roof, the cause of those stains, and we need not to worry anymore, to just enjoy the stains like clouds we give names to, a game we play on our outings.

“Looks like cotton candy,” Father said.

“Butterfly,” I said, and Taro parroted after me. Mother was silent for a moment, then suggested an airplane. That perked Taro up and he begged Father for a lift, a plane ride on Father’s legs.  

When the stains started to get blurry, I rubbed my eyes to stay awake. I had to make sure that Mother returned home safely. If Father were alive, he would have done the same. Immediately, I realized how stupid my thought was. To begin with, if he were alive, Mother would not have to be waitressing, serving shark-fin soup in her hideous, flat shoes. And what if it had not been raining that day, making the scaffold slippery? What if Father had not fallen? What if Father had had wings? The more I strained to keep my eyes open, the more strange thoughts oozed out from the stains, which began to look like water puddles. What if the puddles had been deep like a swimming pool? Would Father have been saved?

The next morning, I woke up to the smell of miso soup Mother was preparing for breakfast. Taro snuggled beside me with his eyes wide opened.  

“Are you awake?” Taro whispered to me.

“What do you think?” I pulled my blanket over my face.

“You have to help me.” Taro tugged at my blanket.

“You’re not telling me you forgot your homework again.” I sat up and looked at him in disgust.

He put his hand over my mouth. “Quiet.” 

I realized he was blushing, perhaps even crying. “What now?”

“Promise you won’t call me a baby. Never tell Mother.”

“Depends.”

“Please.”

“OK. Tell me. What did you do this time?”

Taro lifted his blanket and I saw a yellow stain, like that on the ceiling. When Taro stopped wetting his bed soon after he turned four, Father bought him a new futon. I expected Father to say, “You’re a big boy now, so no more accidents,” or anything suggesting that he was a baby, as opposed to me who had never wet the bed and therefore didn’t get a new futon. But he just patted the fluffy futon and said, “All yours, Taro.”   

The same bitter-sweetness I tasted back then filled my mouth, but I swallowed it and hugged Taro. Leave it to me, I assured him. Not because I felt sorry for Taro. Nor did I have any idea about what to do with the futon. It was more of a call from somewhere, coming from beyond the stains on the ceiling.  

Mischelle Moy - Untitled - From Wing on Wo Lookbook II (2019), Digital photograph
Image description: A red cloth drapes over a square, wooden table, leaving one corner of the table surface exposed. Against a yellow backdrop, numerous objects are arranged on the table in the style of a still life. In the foreground are peeled and unpeeled longans and a sliced white dragon fruit. Slightly behind them, on the right, is a ceramic bowl with blue and white porcelain prints, holding a bunch of longans. To its left are a small, metal vase holding a yellow carnation, and a small, white bottle. At the back of the table are two tall, glass vases. The one on the right holds a sunflower and a yellow chrysanthemum; the one on the left holds a pink rose and a stalk of small, blue flowers. 

#

As Mother’s third and fourth weeks at the restaurant went by, all of us got used to the new routine.  On the calendar, Mother drew a sun for her day shift and a half moon for her night shift, so Taro and I would know what to expect. When winter vacation started, Mother made rice balls to last for three meals, and I was allowed to use matches under the condition that we turn off the TV while I heated up the miso soup and boiled fish Mother had prepared for us. Being busy with her end-of-the-year cleanup and cooking, Aunt Kiku left us alone most of the time.  But once in a while, she tried to open our front door to check whether we had locked it or not. It spooked Taro the first time, and my telling him that it was a konaki-jiji ghost looking for somebody to cling onto didn’t help. Pointing at an illustration in a book on ghosts I’d checked out from the school library, I explained to Taro that it was the baby-faced codger trying to break in. The codger would cry like a baby so that you would feel sorry for it and carry him on your back. Then it would turn into a stone, like the ones you see at a graveyard. That really scared him. Taro followed me everywhere, even to the toilet, and stood by the door while I did my business. But by the third time Aunt Kiku rattled our door, and satisfied, shouted, “Good. I’ll have some nice surprises for you for the New Year,” Taro stopped tagging along. I thought Taro might tell Mother, but he didn’t. He must have been ashamed of being fooled, time and time again. After that, whenever the door rattled, Taro would smirk at me and say, “The konaki-jiji ghost is after you.”

#

Aunt Kiku’s surprise was an outing on New Year’s Day. 

“Can’t tell you where yet, but you come with us tomorrow,” Uncle Akira said over a song blasting from the TV, the traditional New Year’s Eve concert. A singer in a gorgeous, carmine-red kimono with embroidered, golden peonies was holding a microphone and stretching out her free hand as if she were reaching for something only visible to her. Uncle Akira had been drinking sake since sunset, and his face was a boiling-octopus red. Usually, he was quiet, leaving all the talking to Aunt Kiku, but sake worked like the lubricating oil Father used to pour over the bearings of his bike.  Uncle Akira kept asking us our age (which he should have known), saying that in seven, eight years, once we turned fifteen, I should start working like him. Not as a fish market apprentice, the way he started out. Maybe Taro, yes, but not me. The fish market was not for girls. Beauty salon, that was for girls. Seamstress, another great option. “Look at Aunt Kiku. You can be like her when you grow up. Make money sewing at home.”

“Don’t listen to the drunk. I’m sure your mother has big plans for you. Like going to college,” Aunt Kiku said as if she had read my mind. I tried to smile, aware of my grimace. Not that I had anything against Aunt Kiku’s job. I just couldn’t imagine myself cutting fabric into patterns, basting for the first fitting, and pinning a dress worn by a live person. When Mother used to sew our clothes, she made me stand still during the fitting. Don’t fidget, she’d say, while Taro pulled a funny face at me behind her back. I felt like a straw doll. Helpless, at her mercy. I felt the need to prepare myself for a little accident, a sudden prick, although that never happened.

“We’d better go home. It’s past our bedtime.” I stood up to clear the table, silently commanding Taro to do the same.  

“You stay here. I left a message at your door, telling your mother you’re with us,” Aunt Kiku said and made us sit again. “I’m filling up the tub so you can take a bath, get changed, and relax. Why not enjoy the New Year’s Eve together?” She pulled out a paper bag from under the table and showed us our clean underwear, our PJs, which were supposed to be in our drawers.  “Aren’t we all set? Don’t worry. Uncle Akira will carry you home when your mother comes back.”

There was no way out. My plan of heating up our house for Mother went out the window. Once Aunt Kiku made up her mind, that was that. She was like a strong current you could not resist.  The disaster of my first birthday after Father’s death did not even leave a dent on her. It was late March, less than two months after his funeral. Mother had just been hired as a typist by a company she used to work for before she got married. Word got around, Mother explained to Aunt Kiku, who took care of us while Mother went looking for a job. Her plan was to have everything set before I start elementary school  in April.

On my birthday, Aunt Kiku invited us to her house. Or, rather, she herded us to her house although Mother told her that she had a headache, and that Taro and I were somewhat under the weather. Aunt Kiku seemed to be completely deaf to her pleading. A surprise party. When I opened her door, Uncle Akira aimed a party popper at me, and colorful confetti fell on my hair. A strawberry shortcake with four candles was placed on a table and we were all guided to sit around the cake while the two sang, Happy birthday to you, happy…happy. “Make a wish and blow the candles,” Aunt Kiku said. I resisted it. She coaxed me. I was stubborn. “Come on, Miku, make a wish.” From the corner of my eyes, I saw Mother’s tired face. Then Taro dipped his crayon-marked finger in the cake, breaking the thin chocolate plate with my name. I cried hard, not even bothering to wipe my runny nose. “Never mind. It tastes all the same,” Aunt Kiku said and gave me the biggest slice of cake, which I didn’t touch. At home Mother told me that I shouldn’t have hard feelings toward Aunt Kiku, that she is a big-hearted woman with good intentions.  

So her taking us to the Chinese restaurant where Mother had to work on New Year’s Day was supposed to be an act of kindness, consideration, neighborly thoughtfulness.

“Get changed into your best outfits. We’re going to surprise your mother.” Aunt Kiku barged into our house before noon with Uncle Akira, who didn’t take off his shoes, but waited at the entrance. He had no stubble on his chin, and he stood with a slight stoop, his hands in the pockets of a caramel Chesterfield coat, instead of the usual, army-green, bomber jacket. No rubber, long boots, but black, leather shoes that used to belong to Father. Mother gave away Father’s suits, coats, shirts, and shoes to Uncle Akira, except for the ones Father wore on his wedding day. Mother believed that Father would want things to be put to use instead of becoming moldy and unusable in a drawer. Since Uncle Akira’s work at the fish market did not call for suits and shirts, I didn’t see any difference in keeping Father’s clothes in their closet or ours. I’d wanted Mother to keep everything that belonged to Father. So when Mother laid out Father’s suits and neckties on the tatami mat for Aunt Kiku, I snitched a navy blue, pin-striped tie. But when Aunt Kiku ran her fingers on each piece, marveling at the softness of the fabric, the quality of tailorship, and how well they were taken care of, I saw Mother smile the way she did when Father was with us. I let Aunt Kiku take everything. 

“Aunt Kiku, I have a stomachache.” 

“No, you don’t,” Aunt Kiku insisted.

“You’d better hurry. We have to catch a 12 o’clock train,” Uncle Akira shouted to us. I was half-dressed behind the paper sliding doors.

“Miku, don’t worry about anything. Don’t you want to spend the New Year’s with your mother?”

Taro was already in his heavy-knit, navy sweater with white snowflakes along the neckline, my hand-me-down. He pranced around me, babbling duck egg, scrambled egg, stomachache.  When Aunt Kiku was not looking, I stuck out my leg and tripped him but glared at him not to cry.

My loathing built up with each step we took to the station, each stop the train made. Aside from the time I’d prayed for Father to rise from the coffin, pick up the white pall, and play peekaboo, I’d never prayed. But I resorted to it again. Prayed for a snowstorm, power outage, fire.  Anything to stop us from reaching the restaurant.

Again, my prayer was not heard. When Mother saw us come in, I believe she froze. At least that’s how I remember the scene. She was in her uniform—black tight skirt, white blouse, white bib apron with frills. She was carrying a round, aluminum tray with steaming noodles, spring rolls, and dumplings. I was afraid she might drop them.

Of course, she didn’t. She smiled at Aunt Kiku who waved her hand at her waist level, at Uncle Akira who bowed inconspicuously. A waiter led us to a round table covered with a white tablecloth. Taro perked up when he saw Aunt Kiku rotate the lazy Susan. I knew what was coming.  He spun the lazy Susan like a top, making the water in the glasses ripple and spill over. He could have made a big scene if Uncle Akira had not gotten a hold onto it.  

“Behave,” I whispered through my gritted teeth.

“Order whatever you want,” Aunt Kiku said. She opened the menu filled with intricate Chinese characters and photographs. “How about stir-fried prawns?”

“Beer, for a starter. Do you want orange juice?” Uncle Akira asked us.

I shook my head and pinched Taro’s thigh before he had a chance to say yes. All this time, Mother kept maneuvering between the round tables, taking orders, serving to strangers plates full of what looked like crab legs and giant shrimp, picking up chopsticks and napkins that fell on the floor.  

Mother did not belong here. Neither did we. Mother and Taro and I should have been at home, with Father, eating mochi rice cakes, opening gift-money envelopes that Father would have given us, first to me, and then to Taro. We should have been playing cards, flying kites.  

“What a surprise,” Mother said, standing by Uncle Akira.  

“Is there any chance you can take a short break and join us?” Aunt Kiku asked.

“I’m afraid not, but you enjoy yourselves. Anything in particular you’re interested in?”  Mother took out a pad to write down our orders.

I did not want to look at Mother, at her white apron, at her ugly shoes. I fixed my eyes on the lazy Susan going round and round on the adjacent table.  

Aunt Kiku picked out a few menu items and asked us what else we wanted to eat.

Taro kept flipping through the pictures on the menu, trying to find something familiar to him. I was sure that Mother was about to say that Aunt Kiku had placed enough orders for the four of us when a middle-aged man sitting at the corner table clicked his fingers at Mother. She raised her hand and was about to leave our table.

“Peking duck and shark-fin soup,” I said. “I want Peking duck and shark-fin soup.”

“Me too,” Taro said, closing the menu with finality.

All the adults’ eyes were on me. Mother had told me before that those were the most expensive items on the menu. I knew that a big spanking was waiting for me at home. Definitely, no dinner for me. I didn’t care. Let the lazy Susan turn round and round, like a carousel, carrying shining asparagus and squid slices floating in brown sauce, crispy spring rolls, steaming dumplings.  I would let the greasy soup dribble down my chin, make a big mess on the white tablecloth the way other people were leaving their tables. I’d burp so Aunt Kiku would know that her good intentions had paid off. Back at home, I’d be sent to the futon early, all by myself. I’d lie down still, like a mummy, and watch the stains on the ceiling transform.

Mischelle Moy - “Hop Lee” (2020), From Chinatown, With Love, Digital photograph
Image description: Shot from above, the photograph shows a round banquet table filled with Chinese dishes. The dishes include steamed fish, chow mein, pork chops, green vegetables, shrimp with walnuts and broccoli, and meat bao. In the foreground are small dishes of peanuts and chili oil. On the other side of the table are bowls of rice, cups of tea, and empty wine glasses. Three pairs of hands are captured in mid-action over the dishes. In the lower left corner, one pair of hands, wearing a bright red sleeve, is cutting the steamed fish by using two spoons. In the upper left corner, another pair of hands scoops up chow mein. In the upper right corner, a pair of hands, adorned with colorful rings, uses a spoon to drizzle sauce on a meat bao.

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Taro does not remember that outing. “You dramatize everything, make up stories,” he tells me.  Maybe he is right. Maybe that scene I remember so vividly did not happen.

He has turned thirty-one. The more he ages, the more he resembles Father, at least the Father in my memories. Bushy eyebrows, hooded, close-set eyes that seem to see through me, deep dimples that appear on his cheeks when he smiles. Maybe his resemblance to Father is why I am pulled back in time when we meet at Mother’s during the New Year holidays. Also, the routine is the same.  We wipe the windows together, although he hires a professional cleaner to do the bathroom and the kitchen. I send a catering menu to Mother so she won’t have to cook all the special New Year’s dishes by herself. Mother rejected our offers for a while, saying it was a waste of money. But after she had a mild stroke, Mother let us have our way. When old, obey your children, right? That’s how Mother responds to me when I call her on Sundays, suggesting she take up yoga or pilates, take cod liver oil capsules, whatnot.

Taro is in charge of the exterior while I do the interior of our window panes. His hands are like big gloves that can swipe a glass pane in one wipe. Instead of singing songs together, we catch up with each other, but we mostly chat about trivial matters. He tells me about the hydroelectric dam project he is working on, describes the water-discharge spillways he is designing. Ten tons of water per second, which forms a pure white arc of current. He asks me about my work, most probably out of politeness. So I tell him about an exhibition I am curating.

“You mean those splash paintings?” he asks me, raising his eyebrows.

“Yes, that’s my thing.”

“I never understand them. They just look like blots to me.”

“If you say so.”  

“You know I don’t mean to make light of your work. I’m just saying I don’t get it.”

“No bad intentions, right?” Another line that is becoming our family joke. I spray glass cleaner on the pane where Taro’s face is. In a reflex, he pulls away and gives me that you’ve-got-me look, reminding me of the little baby brother he was.

“Mother doesn’t seem to remember working at that Chinese restaurant.  Do you, Taro?”

“Vaguely. Wasn’t it for a short time?”

“Yes. Only a month or so.”

“No wonder. What I remember about Mother was her wearing a navy-blue suit with a pearl pendant necklace. Looked so cool compared to other mothers who stayed at home then,” he says.

“Are you talking about me? You’d better watch out. I can still hear you loud and clear,” Mother calls out from the kitchen.

“Just talking about the good old times,” Taro replies.

Mother does not say anything but starts humming a New Year’s song. Round and round she goes, repeating the refrain. Taro and I look at each other through the glass pane. We are both thinking about those moments of childhood, I’m sure. Those crystal moments we’ve shared together. But with time, they are rearranged, balanced out in different proportions, transformed into different shapes, even into shapelessness, like the blots of watercolors that blur into each other.  Nothing sharp, but soft, free to become whatever.

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Norie Suzuki was born and educated bilingually in Tokyo, Japan, where she currently writes, resides, and works as a simultaneous interpreter. She received an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College in New York. She is working on a collection of linked short stories called Echoes of Silence. Her work has appeared in Extra Teeth and Aloka.

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Mischelle Moy (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based digital artist and still photographer, with a focus on vibrant sets and post-production. As a lifelong fine arts major, she is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts with a BFA in Photography, and has been freelancing and producing since. Her artwork has been featured by Featureshoot, Fubiz, Instagram, Print Mag, and It's Nice That, with clients ranging from small businesses to large brands like Wing on Wo & Co., Omsom, Apple, and Adobe.

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