Ink and Ashes (9 page)

From Forrest’s irritated expression, he’d been trying to get my attention for quite a while. He’d texted me, but his texts had been pushed down by the girls’. He stood at his open bedroom window, arms folded against his bare chest. He shook his wet hair like a dog and adjusted the towel around his waist.

“So . . . I was thinking we should go to the dance,” he said with a voice calmer than his twisted eyebrows suggested. “Like, for real.”

“First of all, no. Second, you and me”—I pointed to him and then to myself—“are not speaking until you put some freaking clothes on.” I turned away from the window.

Although I had to admit he was nice to look at, I tried not to think of his toned abs while I waited.

Forrest grunted. I heard him scrounging around his room. A few minutes later, he returned to the window. “Dressed. Happy now?”

I swiveled my chair to face him and found him in a wrinkled black Arcade Fire concert shirt and his favorite nasty gray sweatpants.

“So what do you think?” he asked.

“I think those sweatpants have outlived their usefulness.”

“About going to the
dance
together. I mean, neither one of us has a date, so you know, we could go together and not have to worry about getting dates.” He bit on the collar of his T-shirt.

“I’d rather go with Mumps than be your pity date.”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s not a pity date.”

“Then what is it?”

“I dunno. I think it’ll be good to get your mind off everything,” he said. “C’mon, it will save me from having to ask someone.”

Even with the secrets my parents had been keeping, the cheating accusations, Chase, and everything, being his last resort was insulting. “You want me to go with you because you’re too lazy to—”

Nicholas burst through my bedroom door, lifted me from my chair, and tackled me to the bed. His Seahawks hat fell to the floor, and his hat hair alone was enough to scare me.

“Ow!” I screamed. “Get away from me.” I beat on his back with my fist.

His dark brown eyes shined with excitement as he began his usual routine. “Body slam! Bam!” He stood up and lunged at me, crushing me facedown against the mattress. From behind me, he hooked his right hand under my armpit and locked the palm of his hand on the back of my neck. “Pow! Half Nelson.” With his free hand, he tried to grab my left arm and yank it behind my back, but I wiggled that arm free.

I flipped over onto my back and planted my feet on the bed so I could sit up and break his hold. “Seriously, Nicholas. Finished?”

Forrest watched from his window, entertained.

“I’m just getting started, fool!” Standing on the bed, Nicholas’s low voice thundered and stretched to fill the room. He bounded over me and jumped off the foot of the bed, then turned to face me. Though he’d never hurt me, he usually succeeded in irritating me.

I hurled a pillow at him.

He ran and jumped back on the bed, leaning right into my face. “Say uncle! Say uncle!”

I shoved his chest, and he fell onto his back on the bed, flailing his arms and releasing cries of anguish.

“Aw, everyone knows you could kick my butt if you wanted to. So what are we talking about besides your bad hairdo?” He took the pillow I’d thrown at him and made himself comfortable.

Parts of my ponytail had come out, but like he could talk. “You should probably see yourself in a mirror before you make fun of my hair.” His hair was a combination of matted hat head and static flyaways. I pulled out my elastic, combed my hair with my fingers, and put it back up.

He sat up. “So you were talking about boys then?”

I glared at him.

“Okay, that’s fine. Don’t answer.” Nicholas got to his feet and found his hat on the floor. “But you know I’ll figure out who
he
is. Max? Patrick? Roarke? Phil? Mohinder Sharma?” He waited for me to react to one of the names as he adjusted his hat on his head.

“I don’t even know who any of those guys are,” I said.

He pointed at me. “Definitely Phil.” I released a frustrated breath, and he sat on the bed, dragging me closer to him by my arm.

“Phil? Get out of my room,” I said, shooing him away.

Nicholas jumped off the bed. “I’m going to find out who
he
is!” he shouted, leaping across the hall into Parker’s room.

“Phil?” Forrest asked.

I got off the bed and went to the open window. “Who is he?”

“He’s a senior on the football team.” Forrest put his hands on the windowsill. “Think of the stereotypical jock, and that’s Phil. Big, dumb, and thinks he’s a lot cooler than he really is.”

“It’s like Nicholas doesn’t even know me. Why would I ever like someone—”

“Claire!” Parker shouted behind me.

I turned around. Both Parker and Nicholas were in my room, Parker waving a white envelope. “It’s here.”

My fingers were already typing when I said, “I’ll text Fed.”

APM. The report came.

Dear Otochan,

Forrest is dating Olivia, and it shouldn’t bother me, but it does. It’s not like he hasn’t had other girlfriends before, but this one is different. The girls before seemed temporary, but I think he really likes this one.

Forrest is probably the most important person in my life. He gets me more than anyone I know, and I don’t think it’s just because we’ve grown up together. When I’m stressed out or worried and going crazy in my head, he has this way of making me feel like everything’s going to be all right. He has my back when Parker and Avery are being stupid, which is all the time. He remembers special dates like the day you died, and he’s one of the most thoughtful people I know.

When I get a present from him, I know it’s going to be something special. Last year, we were talking about favorite books, and I said mine is
To Kill a Mockingbird
. Months later, when my birthday came around, he gave me a vintage copy. He said he had to look all over the Internet to find it. Being unselfish and kind comes naturally for him. I wish I were more like that.

And I know he’s not perfect. I can’t stand being in his room because he’s so messy. He reads the last page of a book first, and then gets excited about the story and wants to talk to me about it. I don’t know how many times he’s spoiled the ending. He has holes in his T-shirts because he bites at the collar when he gets nervous or worried. That’s gross. And he can be really stubborn, especially when there’s something he wants. Does Olivia know all of these things?

I don’t want to be jealous, but there’s this tiny sting in my heart. Forrest and I have been friends for a long time, and we have all of these good memories. I don’t want him spending time making good memories with some other girl who’s not always going to be in his life like I will. I guess that sounds selfish.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m in love with Forrest. I know I feel differently about him than anyone else, but I also think that’s how it’s supposed to be with your best friend. Even if I knew for sure that I was in love with him, I can’t see myself doing anything about it. I’d never want to do anything that would put our friendship at risk. It’s just not worth it.

And honestly, I have no idea what being in love feels like. Someone told me you feel like you can’t breathe when you’re around him. The first time I jumped off the high-dive at the pool, I hit the bottom. But I started to panic on my way up because I couldn’t breathe, and I thought I would run out of air. That was pure torture. I’ve never felt like being around Forrest is pure torture.

When you died, I didn’t know if Mom would ever be okay. I’ve always wondered if she would marry you again if she knew you were going to die. Would she marry you if she knew it would end up causing her so much pain? She never talks about you, and when I ask her questions, I can tell she doesn’t want to say anything. Maybe it hurts too much. I don’t ever want to feel that way. I don’t want to feel like talking about Forrest hurts. I don’t ever want to feel like I can’t breathe or that I can’t think straight when I’m around him. I don’t want anything to change between us.

I hate Olivia.

Love,

Claire, age 15

THE AIR WAS
heavy with anticipation as everyone gathered in my room. If this APM was as ominous as the last one had been, I didn’t know if I was ready. I clenched the envelope and waited for everyone to get situated. Forrest sat next to me on the bed. Parker and Nicholas stood with their backs against the wall by the door. Avery lay in the middle of my carpet, and Fed sat in the chair at my desk.

I inhaled a quick breath and opened the report. Disappointment struck me even harder when I read the first page. “It says he died of a myocardial infarction.”

Avery jumped up from the floor and grabbed the file from my hands before I could read on. His eyes scanned the paper. He finished and moved on to the second page. “I guess you didn’t see the top of page two?”

Nervousness fluttered to the ends of my fingertips. I retrieved the papers from him and read.

The manner of death is: UNDETERMINED

Parker walked over to the foot of my bed. “What’s the difference between cause of death and manner of death?” he asked. “How is it undetermined if they know he died of a heart attack?”

Nicholas reached for his phone in his back pocket and typed something. “ ‘The manner of death explains how the cause of death arose. It is classified as accident, homicide, suicide, or undetermined.’ ”

Parker took a step closer to Nicholas and looked at the phone. “Maybe he took some pills that accidentally caused a heart attack.”

“Or maybe he took some pills knowing it would cause a heart attack,” Avery said and sat back down on the floor. “It’d be hard to tell the difference.”

Neither of those was something I wanted to think about.

“There’s got to be a way to find out,” Parker said.

Nicholas’s voice was soft. “Is there a reason you guys need to know?” he asked. “If you think about the reasons for it to be classified as undetermined, none of them are going to make you feel better for knowing.”

Parker clapped him on the back. “You’re probably right.”

I fumbled through some more pages and realized I hadn’t seen the worst of it. Under identifying marks, the heading Tattoos caught my attention. Following that was page after page of pictures of my father’s body. Some focused on close-ups of his arms, his legs, his back. Some showed his full body from different angles.

I blinked and blinked again:

• There is a dragon covering all abdominal quadrants
  
• A koi covering the chest
  
• Tiger extending from the right shoulder down the right arm just past the elbow.
  
• 5 black rings circling biceps of left arm
  
• Cherry blossoms on the right mid pelvis
  
• Japanese kanji on the left anterior mid pelvis
  
• Seascape on the right thigh to the right calf
  
• Samurai warrior on the left thigh
  
• Mountain landscape covering both the upper and lower back regions
  

OPINION: The cause of death is due to the effects of heart failure resulting from myocardial infarction. Manner of death is pending toxicology report.

UPDATE: Due to the appended toxicology report, the manner of death has been amended to UNDETERMINED.

I flipped to the toxicology report but didn’t understand what any of it meant. Parker walked to the bed and slid the report from my quavering hands.

He read the page aloud. I gripped the chain of my necklace and slid the bead back and forth. Parker’s face paled, and for once in his life, words escaped him. My shoulders felt like they were weighted by boulders.

Reaching over, I yanked the report from Parker and threw it across the room as I collapsed against my headboard.

“What’s wrong?” Nicholas asked.

“The tattoos.” Avery’s voice barely wavered, but his dark eyes narrowed. “We didn’t—it’s just that this is the first time we’ve ever known about them.”

In that moment, I envied Avery’s ability to act like nothing affected him.

Forrest slid off the bed and gathered the papers and pictures strewn across the floor. “How could you not know your dad was covered in tattoos?” He came back to the bed and sat down.

“When I think of him,” I said, “the only things I can picture him wearing are long-sleeved shirts and pants or board-shorts that went past his knee.”

Parker scrunched his eyes. “He never took us swimming.”

Fed rolled the chair closer and leaned over Forrest’s shoulder to look at the report. “He was a member of the yakuza,” Fed whispered, voicing the thing I couldn’t bring myself to say.

My brothers and I had seen enough Japanese action movies with Grandpa to know the true significance of irezumi. Most Japanese people didn’t get tattoos like that because of their association with corruption. Sure, some people might nowadays, but if they flaunted them in public, people would probably treat them like thugs. Multiple vivid scenes flashed through my head.

“Our father might have been a member of the Japanese mafia,” Avery said in a way that sounded like he was trying out the words so he could get used to them. “The five rings on his arm probably mean he killed five people.”

As if Fed couldn’t help himself, he added, “Fujibara has three rings, which is surprising since he’s a flying monk.”

My heart dropped to my stomach.
“Tokyo Tango.”

My brothers nodded.

“It’s a movie we always watch when we go to Hawaii,” I said. “There’s a prison scene where they talk about the ring tattoos. They don’t necessarily have to represent murders though. They can represent major crimes committed.”

“Claire,” Avery said, gesturing a hand at me. “How many yakuza movies have we seen? A million? And how many times have the rings represented something other than a murder? Maybe one in never?”

I didn’t want to think about it. Was there any other explanation? I couldn’t think of one.

Parker took the report from Forrest and adjusted his glasses. “It says there was an amputation above the knuckle of his left pinky. And under Clothing and Belongings one of the items listed is a prosthetic finger.” He turned to Nicholas and clarified, “Finger-cutting is a form of punishment for wrongdoing.”

“It’s called yubitsume,” Fed said. “When a trespass has been committed, the offender cuts off the tip of his own finger and presents it to his boss to show penance.”

No one said anything, so Fed continued. “The roots of finger-cutting stem back to the old samurai days when the way of the sword ruled Japanese life. I read all about it in—never mind.” He disappeared into Avery’s room and came back with two sheathed swords. He handed one to Parker. “Take a swing at me.”

Avery scooted closer to my closet so he was out of their way.

Parker wound the sword like a baseball bat and swung. Fed blocked the blow with his own sword, but the force almost knocked his scrawny body to the ground.

Fed had Parker lift his pinky from the hilt and try again. This time Fed barely moved when Parker’s sword connected to his. “Now try it without your pinky
and
your ring finger,” he said.

Parker swung again, but the two swords hardly even clinked together.

“Weakling!” Avery shouted. “Parker’s just not used to playing with swords that long.”

I scowled. “Avery, what’s wrong with you? You like act like this whole thing is a big joke.”

Parker threw the sword to Avery. “You try it.” Avery rose to his feet.

Fed positioned himself in a fighting stance. “Hit me as hard as you can, but lift all your fingers except your pointer finger and your thumb.”

Without a good grip, Avery almost dropped the sword.

Fed mumbled, “Who’s the weakling now?”

Nicholas walked over and thumped both of them on the back of the head.

Avery threw the sword to the ground. “Whatever.” He paraded out of the room.

Fed rested his weapon against the wall and sat in the chair. “The warriors would lose a finger, starting with the pinky finger, for each thing they did wrong,” he said. “And when this happened, it weakened his grip on the sword, which meant he couldn’t protect himself very well. With each finger he lost, he got weaker and was forced to rely on the rest of the clan for survival.”

Had my father gotten entangled in this warped way of life? Was this what my parents were hiding with their lies?

“We need to confront Mom,” Parker said.

“She’s going to avoid all of our questions and blow us off again,” I said. “We need more proof, so she can’t make up more stories. When we know for sure, we can talk to her.”

Fed’s body went rigid. “Do you think your mom knew about the tattoos? What if she didn’t even know he was in the yakuza?”

“Whether he was in the mob or not,” I said, “I’m pretty sure she would have seen the tattoos. She did have
three
kids with him.”

Fed laughed. “Oh. Yeah.”

Parker shuddered. “Gross.”

Fed sprung out of the chair. “Claire, what if it’s a fake report?”

Parker waved a picture. “This is his face. It’s not someone else.”

“What if he made a body look like him?” Fed asked.

Nicholas took the file from Forrest and pointed the stack of papers at Fed. “Why would he fake his own death?”

Fed lowered his head. “Because he was in the mafia and in episode—”

“Fed.” Nicholas narrowed his eyes. “If you start talking about
Yama Katana
and Kaito and flying monkeys and prophecies and crap analogies, I swear I’m going to pummel you.”

“Flying monks, not monkeys,” Fed mumbled. “I’m just trying to be helpful.”

Nicholas set the report on my desk. “We’re crashing here tonight.” He left the room, and Parker and Fed followed. I couldn’t count the number of nights we had all camped underneath the stars on hot summer nights. Or the times we had slept in the family room together on the couches and floor for all kinds of reasons. A lost soccer game, the time Parker broke up with his girlfriend, Forrest’s speeding ticket.

And now, learning our father might have been in the Japanese mafia.