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Chapter 28
- Red Hen Press
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Julie Shigekuni 249 Chapter 28 Hideko’s Friday afternoon out plan aimed at putting Elinore in better humor had failed, to the point where Elinore suspected that not only had she been a bad mother, but that she’d brought irreconcilable problems into her parents’ lives as well as her daughter ’s. Through the wall, she listened to Hideko and Jun argue in restrained hush tones that persisted late into the night, followed by her mother’s circumspect, and often accusatory, behavior in the morning. At the end of the day, after Naoko had been put down for the night, she and Hideko sat together in the den, amidst toys that neither had the energy to pick up. Since Jun’s departure the week prior, Elinore had been making her way through a pint of Ben & Jerry’s mint oreo chip ice cream by the spoonful while Hideko continued her nightly consumption of oranges, the scent of which had begun to burn in Elinore’s throat. The news magazine shows blurred together like a never ending string of commercials humming along in blue darkness until the night that Hideko, with a dramatic wave of the remote, shut down the power. Using uncharacteristic resolve, she commanded her daughter ’s attention by positioning herself in front of the set. “There’s something I need to tell you,” she announced. “Your Dad and I talked about it when he was home and debated whether or not to say anything. Now I think I will.” Unending Nora 250 Elinore sat up, bracing herself. But instead of launching into the rebuke she had expected, Hideko popped a wedge of orange in her mouth. “Boy, the oranges are really tart this year!” she said, grimacing between bites. “Are they?” Elinore said, figuring it best to go along with her mother. Hideko made a sour face. “Your father dated Asako Hori for several years, and he had a daughter with her just over a year before we had you.” “What are you talking about?” Elinore looked down at Naoko’s blocks whose alphabet letters painted in bold primary colors created a jumble of sounds out of the zoo animals huddled together at her feet. “It’s not anything you have to worry about,” Hideko said. “Only a few people know or even remember anymore, but just in case, I wanted you to hear it from me.” The pressure in Elinore’s head moved quickly down to her gut and transformed into an ache in her bowels, the information she’d received a moment ago threatening to leave her. “Why did you never tell me this?” she asked, raising her voice and rising to her mother’s eye level, then sitting back down again. “I don’t understand why you’re telling me this.” “I guess I waited too long,” Hideko said apologetically, making Elinore instantly sorry for having raised her voice. “Sorry that I waited so long, neh.” Elinore watched the distinct movement of her mother’s mouth, masticating orange slices as she spit out words along with occasional bits of pulp and seed. “Dad’s someone else’s parent?” “Elinore, no, that’s not what I’m saying at all.” What was clear was not that Hideko had waited too long, but that neither she nor her mother had ever been the person she’d thought they were. Elinore wanted to convey her incredulity, to speculate whether it was possible to trust anyone to be who they said they were, shame Hideko for making her into the real [18.208.172.3] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 19:49 GMT) Julie Shigekuni 251 live emperor in Naoko’s fairy tale book, parading through life exposed. But she guessed that analogy didn’t quite work. The woman standing in front of the T.V. was undeniably her mother, the man off in Kansas City her father. And yet Hideko appeared wholly unperturbed by the notion that for an entire lifetime her daughter’s birth origins had been kept a secret by people Elinore didn’t even know—and some whom she did. Elinore glared at her mother, who might have hopped live off the television screen, and at that moment realized who Asako Hori was. “Are you saying that Melissa Hori and I are related?” “Yes.” Hideko nodded. Then, pointing to Elinore’s lap, she said, “Watch that container, will you? Maybe you’d better put it away before you stain the couch.” Elinore got up and walked...