Only Uni (5 page)

“I hadn’t turned it back on until a little while ago. I’m here now, pumpkin.” He gave a grim smile and drew near.

“Don’t pumpkin me!” She took a step away. “Where were you? Who were you with?”

He had the gall to open his eyes wide in innocence. “I was picking up your grandma.” He gestured behind him.

She sailed into the room with the command of a steel battleship, her red and white scarf floating behind her like a Japanese flag. Trish cringed, wondering how much her screeching had carried and if she was in for another lecture about politeness. But no, Grandma swept past her to the nurses’ desk where she started barking questions at the bewildered women.

She hadn’t thought to call Grandma. Was she supposed to? Was Grandma peeved and ignoring her as unobtrusively as she could?

Her father knew her too well. “No, you didn’t need to call her, pumpkin. She happened to call me right after I got your message.”

Trish pressed her lips together and breathed harshly through her nose. “You should have been home, Dad.” Although if he had, she wouldn’t have gone in to talk with Mom and maybe she wouldn’t have collapsed. But he might have been there afterward to help her take Mom to the hospital. Instead of out doing all kinds of things she didn’t want to think about her dad doing.

“You took care of it so well, though.” He gave her that encouraging smile that used to make her feel as tall, skinny, and gorgeous as a supermodel.

“Stop trying to make excuses. I had to take care of everything myself.” Now she sounded peevish. Did she want to see him grovel? To make him cry? To force a confession here in the middle of the waiting room?

He leaned forward to speak low in her ear. “What do you want from me? I’m here now. What happened is between me and your mom. It doesn’t involve you.”

“Yes it does. Well, no it doesn’t, but it sort of does. Why did you do it, Dad?”

He looked off over her shoulder. And shrugged.

Shrugged!

She grabbed his lapels. “That is not acceptable!”

She smelled the sandalwood a split second before two arms came around from behind her and plucked her hands from her dad’s rain jacket. Her shoulder muscles relaxed in automatic reaction as she breathed in. The warmth from his arms seeped through his own jacket and her sweater to wrap her like a shawl. His long-fingered hands clasped hers with tenderness, his thumbs smoothing over her skin.

Kazuo pulled her away from her father by wrapping his arms around her — well, wrapping her arms around herself, too. She didn’t think he had intended to make her feel like she was in a straitjacket, but it was a nice straitjacket, anyway.

His breath made the wisps of hair near her ear flutter and tickle her. “It’s all right, babe. I’m here. I’ll take care of you.”

It was so nice to hear that. After all the stress and confusion of trying to figure out what to do with Mom, with the nurses and doctors, it made her heart crack. Heat flooded her nose, and she squeezed shut her eyes as tears gushed. She dropped her chin down to rest against his sinewy forearm, feeling the rasp of his Northface jacket against her cheek.

A part of her mind — a very small part — warned her that she shouldn’t be doing this, that she was walking down that dangerous path again. But the majority of her head and all of her hormones were thinking it was so nice to be held by male arms again, and Kazuo could be so kind when he tried.

“Trish!”

Venus’s sharp voice made her jump, cracking the top of her head back against Kazuo’s chin. She pushed against him, but his arms wouldn’t let go easily. It was like trying to peel off cobwebs. She finally jabbed him in the ribs.

Venus had struck a pose in the middle of the room, hands on hips, leaning on one leg. “Didn’t we just pray for you a couple hours ago at my apartment?” Even her unwelcoming posture didn’t deter some of the other men in the room from taking a second look.

Maybe Trish should rethink Kazuo, because he was one of the few guys who didn’t seem attracted to Venus at all. Well, it probably helped that he’d spent time in conversation with her and knew her extreme views on the general uselessness of the male species.

Lex’s look was hardly more welcoming. “Guess you didn’t need us.”

Trish chewed frantically on the inside of her lip and tasted blood. “Well, it’s been pretty rough, and Kazuo just got here . . . Wait a minute, how did you know?” She turned to look up at him.

“I was with your grandmother when she found out.”

Of course. She thought she heard Lex mutter, “Grandma’s dating ser vice never closes.”

“Hey, where’s Jenn?”

Venus waved her hand, which held her cell phone. “She called and said her mom is having problems tonight. She can’t make it.”

Oh. Aunty Yuki hadn’t been looking too good after her last chemo. Now Trish knew how Jenn felt, seeing her mother so sick.

An Asian female doctor burst through the swinging doors. “Mr. Sakai?”

Dad zipped in front of the woman in a flash. Faster than Trish had expected him to, at least. She had to practically push Grandma out of the way as she got there.

“ . . . heart attack. She’s resting now. Immediate family can see her for a few minutes. Mr. Sakai, you and your daughter can follow the nurse over there.”

Grandma’s eyes darkened. “I’m her mother.”

The doctor stared her down. “You told the nurses you’re her mother-in-law, Mrs. Sakai.”

Grandma sniffed and lengthened her neck, which didn’t do her any good since she still stood a good five inches shorter than the doctor, who looked like she relished dealing with recalcitrant people.

Trish scurried after her father and the nurse through the swinging doors.

She almost burst into tears when she saw Mom on the bed. She’d aged ten years. Trish had rarely seen her mother at rest. Her eyes weren’t darting around — instead, they stayed fixed on the TV set above her, and then lazily swung to Trish and Dad. Her hands weren’t moving like they did even when she wasn’t talking — they lay relaxed and open against the white sheets.

Man, they must have drugged her up good.

Her mom’s gaze softened at the sight of Dad, which made Trish’s fists clench at her sides. Dad could exert his charm with a look, and all was forgiven. Well, not for her.

Mom’s eyes shifted to Trish, and pain flooded them.

What? She forgave the philanderer but blamed the bringer of bad news? So not fair. Trish rubbed her breastbone. It had only pricked a little. Just a little. It wasn’t like a red-hot poker jabbed into her chest by her own mother.

They sat on either side of the bed. Dad picked up her hand — an unusual instance of PDA, probably trying to impress the nurse and ingratiate himself with his wife — so Trish took the other hand.

“Everyone’s in the waiting room, Marian.” Dad smiled at her, not too brightly, but not too sadly, either. The right amount of hopeful concern. He was such a faker. “I brought my mom, too.”

Mom turned to Trish. “Did Grandma tell you about the rumors?”

Huh? “What rumors?”

Mom sighed, a deep heaving groan that seemed to deflate her. “I heard about it today. This morning. How you were sleeping around, so Kazuo dumped you.”

“What? Dumped me? I dumped him! And I wasn’t sleeping around.” Trish’s fingers twitched. She tried to relax her grip so she wouldn’t squeeze and break Mom’s fragile bones. “Those are all lies.”

With a rasping breath, Mom sighed again. “Sweetheart . . .”

Dad leaned toward her. “You know how they are, pumpkin. Plus you and your cousins are so adamantly against going to temple. It makes people think you’re judging them.”

Trish chewed on her cheek even as her other hand rubbed at the pulsing behind her eyes. “You know that’s not true.” A pack of lies. Who’d say such nasty things? Kazuo’s friends? Except he didn’t have many friends. He was a typical artist — lonely and moody.

“They’re only rumors . . .” Mom closed her eyes. She hated things like this, because she couldn’t fix them. Especially not now.

Dad’s sad gaze took in his wife’s tired face. “Trish, why don’t you go out to the waiting room? This is upsetting your mother.”

And leave her alone with the lying weasel?

Mom’s eyes opened a crack. “Go, Trish. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Trish swallowed around the ball of fire in her throat. Prickling numbness raced down her limbs. She dropped Mom’s hand before she could feel Trish trembling. She stood. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She walked to the waiting room.

Grandma grabbed her arm. “Is she all right?”

“She’s tired, but she’s okay.” Her cousins gathered near. Trish should have felt warm with so many people crowding around her, but she shivered and shifted from side to side on stiff legs.

Kazuo appeared next to her, and she felt a little spark of warmth in her heart. Not a good kind of heat, but at least she could feel something. His arm snaked around her in a concerned but rather intimate gesture.

Trish stepped away from him. They weren’t dating anymore. She had to remember that, even though she’d like to just lean on him and let him take care of her like he used to.

Wait, what was she thinking? Her behavior with Kazuo might be the very reason all this was happening. She didn’t know if God’s wrath came down on people like this — did it?

Grandma sighed. “She’s so young. Why did this have to happen to her?”

Why Mom? Why not Trish? Mom hadn’t done anything bad. Well, apart from being a staunch Buddhist and only smiling politely when Trish talked about Christ.

Maybe because God knew this would hurt Trish more, to see her mom suffer. More painful
flagellation
for her
fornication
.

Or maybe because God wanted to give her a second chance. He let the Israelites repent tons of times, right? Maybe this was his way of saying,
Now is the time for you to turn your life around, babe.

Trish sank into a chair. Kazuo tried to sit next to her, but Venus and Lex muscled in and flanked her instead. They knew her better than anyone — knew her nature, knew she needed protection from both Kazuo and herself.

Trish didn’t care who sat with her. She no longer needed someone to hold her hand.

After tonight ended, she needed some time alone with God.

FIVE

A
biologist’s work was never done.

Not when cancer cells grew exponentially regardless of whether it was a regular workweek or the holidays. Trish spent most of New Year’s Day — just a few hours after leaving the hospital — in her cell culture room at Valley Pharmaceuticals, doing damage control.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if two incubators hadn’t decided to give up the ghost over the New Year’s weekend.

As it was, three of her studies had to be trashed, and she had been at work all day trying to salvage what cells were still alive. Her boss Diana was
not
going to be happy about this, because her boss’s boss had been waiting on the results of the studies that were now in the biohazard trash bin. Emergencies piled on top of stress, piled on top of lack of sleep.

But nothing that one of Jenn’s homemade dark chocolate truffles couldn’t solve.

Finally done with work and relaxing at home, Trish sat in the dip in her living room couch, licked chocolate off her fingers, and stared at the closed Bible in her lap. She was procrastinating, but she couldn’t seem to get going. A wound-up nervousness vibrated in her hands, in her legs, in the pit of her stomach. Or maybe it was exhausted energy from her sleepless night and busy day.

She stared at her goldfish, who piddled around in his bowl on the counter top. Gonzo the umpteenth — she named all her goldfish after her favorite Muppet character.

The train chugged by outside her apartment, leaving Mountain View for Sunnyvale. What time was it? Would her roommate Marnie come home soon? She’d been gone when Trish had dashed in for a change of clothes before heading into work. Good thing she only had a short commute to Palo Alto.

What would she do about dinner? She was too tired to cook. She could go out — there were lots of good restaurants on nearby Castro Street — but she hated eating alone. And even if Marnie were home, she wouldn’t ask her along — she had given up trying to be better friends with her. When they’d first started rooming together a few months ago, she’d coaxed Marnie into going out to dinner with her a few times, but Marnie was always so quiet and closed that Trish ended up babbling like an idiot and feeling like one, too.

She really couldn’t complain, because Marnie was a good roommate — quiet, hardly any visitors except for her boyfriend, and about as neat and tidy as Trish, which was somewhere between “slob” and “a household with toddlers.” Which reminded her, it was her turn to vacuum this week . . .

Stop it. Get going.
She yanked open her Bible. She stared at the page a moment without reading anything.

Get a grip. Wait, maybe I should pray before I dive into this.
She sighed.

Dear God.

The blank walls answered her, waving dusty cobwebs in the breeze flowing from the window. She really should clean up the apartment . . .

No, she needed to focus.
Dear God —
A key rattled in the lock, then Marnie Delacruz ambled in. Her favored loose knit clothes in predominantly blues and greens made her seem even shorter and rounder than she already was. She looked like she always did — as if her pet had just died.