Cherry Blossom Baseball (15 page)

Michiko rode through the dandelion-dotted orchard along the tiny path that led directly to shore. The bicycle squeaked as she pedalled through the fishy smell of the water's edge. The surface of Lake Ontario was a blanket of fine wrinkles.

She jumped off to walk the bicycle, along the narrow stretch of beach where the sand was too soft to manage, until she reached the parking lot beside the harbour. There she remounted and headed for the school.

Billy rode up the sweep of gravel that led to the school, leaning forward like a dog on a hunt for a rabbit.

“Where did you get the bike?” Michiko asked. His was much newer than hers.

“My dad picked it up at an auction. It's a reward for that A on my report card.”

Billy ran his finger down the team list posted on the glass of the school's front door. “I made the team,” he yelled and did a victory dance in front of the window.

Michiko approached the list with caution. Striking out at a tryout was nothing to be proud of, but Eddie had told her not to give it another thought. She ran her finger down the list. There it was, her third name since leaving Vancouver. “So did I,” she said with a grin. “Or at least Mitch did,” and she did a couple of cartwheels across the grass, her long, dark pigtails smacking her in the face.

They walked across the grass to the trees on the hill and lay on the grass with their legs crossed. “I can't wait to see Carolyn's face when she finds out you're a ball player.”

“You can't tell her,” Michiko said, sitting up. “She'll try to stop me from playing.”

Billy grimaced. “You're right,” he said. “She is such a troublemaker.”

“Don't say anything to anyone,” Michiko cautioned, “not even Annie.”

“But Annie will know if you talk about going to the games.”

“Just tell her I'm your coach.” Michiko rubbed the spot above her eye where the ball had hit her. “Tell her I only want to watch — because I got hit.”

Billy nodded. Then he picked up his bike.

Michiko paused to stuff her pigtails underneath her cap.

“You better get rid of all that hair,” Billy said when she picked up her handlebars.

Michiko put a hand to the back of her head. “I'll have to think about that,” she said as she pushed off. In her house, cutting one's hair above the ear was considered shocking and rebellious. She'd just have to tie it up really tight.

“I'll race you to the Esso station,” Billy said.

SADIE

T
he
excitement of making the team turned Michiko's legs into pumping pistons. She pedalled hard to beat Billy to the gas station, and she did. After a breather, she rode home, picked up the mail, and headed for Mr. Downey's back door. “I'm back,” she called out to her mother, but got no answer. Hannah wasn't in her playpen, and there was no sign of Hiro either. She placed Mr. Downey's mail on the kitchen table beside a new Eaton's catalogue.
That's funny,
she thought.
He must have taken it from the mailbox himself.

Michiko peeked down the hallway but saw no one. Mrs. Downey's toaster sat on the counter. She couldn't resist pushing down the lever and peeking inside the silver box to see the wiggly wire elements turn ruby red. Then she closed the side door and walked to the clothesline beside the vegetable garden. But there was no sign of her mother there, either.

Mrs. Palumbo stood in her shapeless print housedress with her hands on her hips, waiting for the watering can to fill. She looked up and scowled in Michiko's direction, but Michiko could no longer contain herself. She had to tell someone her news. She ran up to Mrs. Palumbo, grabbed her hands, and swung them back and forth.

“Mrs. Palumbo,” she said, “I made the team. Isn't that great? I made the team.”

The woman furrowed her brow, making the knot of her back hairnet rise above the crevice on her forehead.

Michiko dropped the woman's hands and took the stance of holding a bat in front of the puzzled old lady. “Baseball, Mrs. Palumbo.” She swung her bat and put her hand to her forehead as she watched her imaginary ball soar into the stands. “I made the baseball team.”

Mrs. Palumbo's watery, pale blue eyes lit up in comprehension. “
Si
,” she said, “base-a-ball.” Then she took a stance herself and pretended to whack a ball with a bat. She pointed her finger and traced her imaginary ball across the sky. “Home-a-run.”

“That's right,” Michiko said as she tapped her chest. “I'm going to hit a lot of home runs.” Michiko could picture a small shelf of trophies like her Uncle Kaz's.

To her surprise, Mrs. Palumbo's whole face transformed. She smiled so wide, the straight lines at the corners of her mouth disappeared. She raised her gnarled hands and patted her chest. “
Mi filio,
” she said, “Antonio, base-a-ball.” Then, as if she suddenly remembered something sad, her smile dropped and she turned to haul the can into the garden.

Michiko went back to retrieve her bike. She thought about the Eaton's catalogue. Maybe she could make enough money picking strawberries to buy a pair of running shoes. She pushed her bike toward the shed just as her mother's angry voice rose from the open front window.

“Not talking about it doesn't make it go away. Isn't that what you told me yourself?”

Michiko froze.

“I am not talking about it anymore,” a voice Michiko could barely hear replied. “Besides, it wasn't as if I was really married.”

“What exactly is that supposed to mean?” Eiko screeched so loud that Michiko gripped her handlebars.

“You know exactly what I mean,” the soft voice said. “There was no formal consent, no go-between conference, gifts, or dowry accepted.”

“So
now
you decide to be Japanese. All your life you fight your heritage, and now you've decided to embrace it completely. What have you become, a
ronin?
Wandering the countryside without your
shogun
master? You were married by a minister in a church. Are you telling me that doesn't count!”

It was Aunt Sadie! But it didn't sound as if her mother was too happy about it. Michiko laid her bike on the grass and tiptoed to the kitchen door. Sadie's purse, a green snakeskin box that had a gold triangle-shaped clasp, sat on the table.

“Mom,” Michiko called out. “Guess what! I made the team!” She let the screen door slam as she went inside, something she wasn't supposed to do. “Hey, Hiro,” she called out. “Are you going to watch me play?”

When her mother entered the kitchen, Michiko pretended not to notice her flushed face.

“Don't be so noisy,” she said. “Hiro and Hannah are with your father.” Her mother filled the kettle and placed it on the stove. “Go and find them. Tell your father we'll have tea.”

“Is that Michiko?” the voice in the living room said.

Michiko looked at her mother and raised her eyebrows.

Eiko rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Yes,” she said. “It is your Aunt Sadie, unexpected, unannounced, and unprepared.”

Sadie gave Michiko a hug and then held her at arms' length as if she needed to see what was different. But instead of warmth, Michiko got a feeling of boniness. Aunt Sadie had always been fashionably slim, but she'd never felt like a skeleton before. This was definitely not the lady who wouldn't dream of going anywhere without lipstick. She had small lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes. Not only was her lipstick missing, it was as if she had given up her flowery scent altogether.

Eiko forced her face into a smile. “A letter came from Kaz,” she said. “Edna sent it.”

Sadie said nothing. She paid a great deal of attention to her hands, adjusting her gold wedding band. Then she turned to look out the window and gave a tinny laugh, the kind that sounded like there were tears behind it. “That's nice,” she said.

Eiko removed the letter from the pocket of her apron and slid it across the table.

Sadie turned it face down.

That evening, Michiko watched her aunt sweep Hiro off his feet to say goodnight. He squirmed in her arms until she lowered him to the floor. Then she leaned over the crib to kiss Hannah. Sadie took a deep breath. “How I miss that baby smell,” she said with a deep sigh.

After her homework, Michiko tiptoed into the kitchen with their spare blanket and pillow. Sadie was to sleep on the couch in their living room. She had offered to give up her bed, but her mother shook her head. Michiko watched her aunt pull off her earrings and place them on her handkerchief beside Kaz's letter.

“Aren't you going to read it?” Michiko asked.

“I don't have to,” Sadie said. “I know what it says.” She rose from her chair and went to the stove. She held the envelope to the burner, and then she carried it to the sink to watch the flames consume it.

Michiko watched in horrified silence.

Sadie turned to her and gave her a tired smile. “Good night,” she whispered.

The next morning, the distant murmur of the radio punctuated by her father's cheers told her he was celebrating the highlights of yesterday's ball game. Her aunt's voice came from her mother's bedroom across the hall as she sang to Hannah. The banging coming from the other side of her wall meant Hiro was playing with his cat.

When Michiko came into the kitchen, Sadie was sitting at the kitchen table in her mother's wine-coloured dressing robe with Hannah on her lap. Michiko studied her aunt's face in the bright daylight. She had dark circles under her eyes and did not bubble over with her usual fun. Her feet were bare.

Michiko remembered the time her aunt had stopped by their house wearing a red satin dress and glittering necklace. Sadie had let Michiko try on her black patent high heels, and Michiko couldn't stop turning them one way and another to admire their shine.

“Did you bring your wedding shoes with you?” Michiko asked. Her aunt had worn the most beautiful pair of white satin pumps on her special day.

“I couldn't,” Sadie said, turning to her without a smile. “I only owned part of them.”

“What do you mean?”

One hand went to her aunt's face while the other fingered the robe. “Before I got married, four of the teachers discovered we all wore the same size shoe. Each of us put in $1.50 to buy those satin pumps. Whoever got married next wore them.”

“Who got them next?”

Sadie shrugged. “Someone who is more suited to be a wife.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Eiko asked, putting down her cup with a small thud.

Sadie fingered her hair. “I told you I am not talking about it anymore.”

Sam withdrew his attention from the radio and came to sit at the table. He rattled his teacup. Eiko reached for the pot and refilled it.

Sadie pushed a bowl of dry cereal toward him.

“Where's my rice?” he asked.

“This
is
rice,” Sadie said, “toasted rice cereal.”

Sam lifted the spoon to his mouth. “Pah,” he said, pushing the bowl aside. “It tastes like crackers. Give me a bowl of rice.”

“I am not preparing rice for breakfast anymore,” Eiko said, pushing the sugar bowl toward him. “Try it with a bit of sugar.”

Sam shoved the bowl of sugar away. “A meal without rice is not a meal.”

Sadie pushed it back. “Do you like your children being laughed at by others?”

Sam frowned. “No.”

“They are Canadian,” she said quietly. “Canadian children eat cereal for breakfast. Pour some milk over it and see what happens.”

Sam poured milk over the crispy nubs in his bowl and perked up. He put his ear to the bowl. “Listen,” he said. “The cereal is talking.”

“What?” Hiro said, his slice of toast stopping halfway to his mouth.

“It is saying, ‘Don't eat me, don't eat me.'”

Michiko leaned her head close to her bowl of cereal. It was true. Her cereal was also making a faint crackling sound. “It's asking me how long you are going to stay, Aunt Sadie.”

Hiro looked into his empty cereal bowl, puzzled. “Why did it talk?”

“So you won't be lonely at breakfast,” Sadie said. “Mine just said, ‘I'm going back on Saturday.' That is if Sam can give me a lift?”

“He's going to drive you to B.C.?” Michiko's mouth fell open.

“To Toronto, silly,” her aunt replied. “That's where I live.”

“You do?” Michiko had no idea her aunt had been so close all this time.

“I got a part-time job in a department store,” Sadie said, refilling her own teacup. “In fact, I was just suggesting to your mother that you visit me at the store.”

“Really?” Michiko asked, turning to her mother. She couldn't believe her ears. Her aunt had just invited her to go to Toronto.
I'll bet Mary's never been to Toronto
, she thought. But when she saw her mother's tight face, she knew it was not the time to talk about it.

Eiko rose to the sound of a knock at the door.

Mrs. Palumbo stuck her head in the door and beckoned Michiko outside with her long, bony finger. From behind her back, the woman pulled out a pair of beat-up black-and-white shoes.

“
Scarpe,
” she said, handing them to Michiko. Then she took a stance and pretended to whack a ball with a bat. She pointed her finger and said, “Home-a-run.”

Michiko threw her arms around the woman's aproned waist and hugged her tight. They couldn't be more perfect. They were boy's runners.