Nora & Kettle (25 page)

Enjoying his captive audience, Kin says with great drama and flair, “Let me tell you both a story.”

He starts at the docks for Nora’s sake, retelling the story in classic Kin fashion, with lots of comic-book style ‘bams’ and ‘whammos’. She listens quietly, her eyes wide, her mouth open, making shocked noises and touching her fingertips lightly to her mouth at the right times.

It’s not a story to me, and hearing it again makes my stomach turn.

“…and then I fell asleep in the sun, waiting for Kettle to finish his shift. The rest is a blank until I woke up at Mount View to a pretty nurse holding a clipboard.”

My arms straighten and I lean forward in disbelief. “You don’t remember getting back home… All the weird things you were saying?” I’m talking too loudly, and Kin puts his fingers to his lips to shush me. I start to whisper. “I guess it’s a good thing. If you did, you would remember how we got back to our station and you collapsed on the platform.” I shake my head as I remember. “I screamed and screamed for help, but no one would even look at me because some rich girl had fainted on the platform just a few feet away from us.” My head falls into my hands as I remember the hopelessness of it. The fear that he would die in my arms and no one would even care. “I’m sorry, Kin, I tried to get help, but no one would listen. They gave that woman priority and stretchered her away, telling me they would come back for you… but they didn’t come back.”

Kin’s back is pressed into his chair, his head nodding knowingly. “The doctors told me they wished I’d got to them sooner, that I would have had a chance at a full recovery if they’d caught the swelling early. But listen, you can’t blame yourself. Blame the rich chick who’d probably had one too many glasses of champagne with her fancy lunch. Don’t blame yourself. You did everything you could.”

I wish I believed him.

I glance at Nora and she’s as white as a sheet, her hands pulling clumps of grass from the ground. This is a lot to take in, I guess. Her hands are covered in dirt. The smell of crushed, fresh leaves should be calming, but I feel like I’m barely holding onto the surface of the planet right now.

“After the paramedics left with the woman, you woke up, but only for a few minutes. You begged me to take you home, and I did, but I couldn’t look after you there. I knew your only chance was to get to a hospital. Even if it meant ending up in a Home, it was better than you being dead. You didn’t seem to think so, but I had to make the call, Kin.”

Kin leans into me and slaps the top of my head before I have a chance to duck. “You should know better than to listen to me.” He laughs. His eyes go to Nora’s lap, where she’s piled grass clippings and shredded roots onto her skirt without noticing, and I wonder whether he recognizes her.

She speaks, her voice a breath of barely audible air. “When did this happen?”

Kin taps his chin and says, “Oh, it’d have to be about ten days ago, right Kettle?”

I nod. “Sounds about right.”

45. BLAME

NORA

No.

There should be sinister music playing. A finger pressed down on this line in the play, this moment in time.
Here’s the big twist! Everyone gasp.

It was me. It was me.
Me. I’m the reason Kettle’s brother is partially paralyzed. I am the ‘rich chick’ who received priority over Kin. I try to think back to that day, but I can’t remember seeing him. I can’t remember anyone shouting out for help, which makes me feel even guiltier.

So many things had to fall into place for this to happen, for our paths to cross in such a way.
If.
If I hadn’t left the house at that time.
If.
If I hadn’t made the decision to go down that tunnel, to that platform…

Green juice runs through the cracks between my fingers as I squeeze grass in my fist.

“Anyway, I ended up here with tenpin and bowling ball,” he jerks his head toward the kitchen, “all because my father died serving
our
country,” Kin says with a large amount of sarcasm and I can’t say I blame him. “It’s not so bad here, really… I…”

“Tenpin and bowling ball? That’s pretty rude, Kin,” Kettle mutters. But Kin’s not listening, he’s staring at me, and then Kettle turns too. I’m under a spotlight of their gazes—one concerned, the other curious.

I squirm as their study of me intensifies.
Guilt.
Guilt is reaching up from the earth and trying to pull me under the earth’s crust. This polyester blouse is tightening across my chest. I need to take a breath, but the air feels poisonous. My lies, my life is poisonous.

I like being a part of his world. It has possibility. I feel safe. But if Kettle realizes who I am, that I’m the reason his friend is like this, he’ll throw me out and I’ll lose my place. The board will be turned up like a sore loser. The pieces will slide to the ground. I’m not sure I can go back to the start now, and I don’t want to lose my friend either.

I need to speak. I need to stop wringing my hands and losing blood from my face.

A toe touches my knee. “Kite, is it?” Kin dubiously asks.

Kettle runs his palm up and down in front of my face. “Are you okay?”

I sigh and sigh again; I forget to breathe back in and cough.

Kin’s toe is still on my knee, and he taps it once. I look up into his dark eyes, the sun splintering through the branches of the willow behind us. They’re stars. I blink. Stars caught in the net of rope-like branches.
Stars are like secrets. They need to fall. Let them fall.

Kin squints and leans forward, his finger pointed accusingly at my nose. “I know you,” he says and the stars start tumbling to the ground, burning holes in the lawn and singeing my skin.

I flinch.

Kettle glances at me sideways. Kin’s finger still lingers in the air and I gulp, waiting for it to turn to a fist. I close my eyes. Anger equals yelling equals violence. That’s what I know.

I hear Kettle sigh deeply, exasperated. “Kin,” he starts with a worn sound to his voice.

“You. You’re the girl I was going to marry!” Kin exclaims, hands up in the air, like it finally all makes sense to him.

My eyes pop open. “What?”

Kin stands and we stand with him. He’s laughing, holding his stomach with one hand, the other supporting himself on the chair. “That little girl you were with snapped my suspenders. Kettle, remember?” Kettle nods like he does remember. My mind tracks back to that day, and then I stare at Kin more closely. The memory unfolds. Inside is a box full of lightbulbs. One lighting up for every lie I’ve told and every truth-bearing word they utter. I remember him. I remember Kettle too. A voice rich and dark like hot-poured coffee.

I place a hand on my heart and whisper, “Oh.”

“Yeah.” He looks me up and down, smiling. His handsome face is painted with a new emotion I don’t recognize. “Pretty girl like you… After our encounter, I thought I would seek you out… show you a good time… and then, you couldn’t help but fall in love with me.”

Kettle snorts and shoots Kin a look so dirty that he stumbles back a little and falls into his chair.

Relief doesn’t feel as good as it should. They don’t know it was me in the subway, but that doesn’t ease anything. Not a thing. My hand goes to my throat, which feels hot and flushed like I’ve fallen into poison ivy.

Kin is still talking, a big, amused smile on his face, “We would have beautiful mixed race babies you and me. They’d look like Kettle…”

My head snaps to Kettle, who crosses his arms and snaps, “Shut up, Kin.”

How do I make this better? How do I stop this strangling feeling?

Kin ignores him. “We’d be in the Times. High-society girl marries homeless Nisei,” he teases, but I can barely hear him. I’m seeing that day through Kettle’s eyes. Watching me being stretchered away while his brother lay dying on the platform. It’s killing me. I’ve hurt the only person who’s helped me.

His kindness will turn. It will turn.

“Kin, shut your trap,” Kettle warns, his voice rising in volume.

The words written in my mother’s will rise from the grass in smoky wisps of vapor.
Until I turn twenty-one or marry
, whichever comes first. That money could help us all. It is a clear solution. Marry Kin. Get the money. Take care of him, the boys, and Kettle. That would make it right.

“We could, you know,” I whisper, my words as tiny as the dewdrops kissing the skin of my legs.

Kin stops laughing, confused. “Could what?”

“We could get married,” I say warily and with regret.

More laughing from Kin. Kettle is silent but for his angry breathing mixing with the swish of the sad, sad willow branches.

“When I marry, I stand to inherit a great deal of money. It could help all three of us. It could solve a lot of our problems,” I say unconvincingly.

Kettle takes a deep breath in. He’s learning this all for the first time, and I can tell it’s upsetting him.

I turn to him. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,”
I’m sorry I’m lying to you, all the time.
So. Many. Lies. But maybe if I do this, my father’s identity won’t be as big a deal. Maybe.

Kin’s eyes light up. He puts a hand on his heart and says in a breathy, feminine voice, “This is all so sudden.” Then more seriously, “Well, I do turn eighteen in a few days’ time.”

How did we get here so fast?

Kettle blows air through his nose slowly, and I count to ten. I don’t know why we’re both looking to him for permission but somehow, that’s where we are.

“No,” he says. “No way.” There is a look being exchanged between the two of them, a silent conversation and an understanding. Kin shuts his mouth and tries to stop grinning.

Kettle faces me, looking like a disapproving father, tapping his foot and shaking his head.

“But it could be the solution to all of our problems,” I say, only half-believing my own words.

He shakes his head again. From the kitchen, Miss Anna shouts, “Cookies!” Our heads all swing in the direction of the house and then fall back on Kettle.

Kin smirks. “Cookies sound good, don’t they, Kettle?”

Kettle won’t move. “You’re not marrying Kin,” he states flatly.

Kin’s eyes go from Kettle to me, Kettle to me. “Well, well, well…”

I blink at Kettle and open my mouth to speak. He puts his hand up in my face, blocking my view of everything. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re not marrying me either.”

I frown. He’s being unreasonable. Not thinking it through.
Am I?

The smell of chocolate chip cookies wafts over from the trays the women are carrying around the yard. “Well, there goes your chance to marry up in this world,” Kin says to me with a wink, pointing to the sky.

Kettle snatches a cookie from the tray and snarls at Kin. “Don’t wink at her. Just… don’t.”

It makes us both giggle, even though I know there’s seriousness to come.

Kin and I take a cookie each and nibble at them, melted chocolate smudging our fingers. “Thanks, Tenpin!” Kin says with a smile.

Miss Anna giggles and slaps at him with her praying mantis arms. Then she looks at Kettle and me. “He has a nickname for everyone around here.”

Kettle laughs, and I love the sound of it. “I don’t doubt it.”

The subject of marriage is dropped for the moment, although I can see it typing lines in Kettle’s brain. We talk about the ladies who run the place, Kin’s rehab, when he might come home. I observe them, saying little. Their interactions are easy. Brotherly. And my heart aches.

Frankie, I miss you so much.

“I can’t come home. At least, not to that home,” Kin says sadly. “Kettle, you know I won’t be able to get around down there. If I came back to the city, it would have to be to a real apartment. Preferably Eastside, ground floor, great view, hardwood floors…” he jokes.

He doesn’t mention my suggestion of marriage again, but I know he’s thinking about it. He’s hinting to Kettle.

“You’ll be fine. We’ll make it work, once you’re better,” Kettle says, lightly punching him in the arm. The action makes me flinch, and Kin catches my response. There’s something in those dark eyes. They see more than his mouth lets on.

When it’s time to leave, the ladies make us promise to visit again soon.

Kin manages to walk us to the door, taking a break halfway down the hall. It pains me to watch him struggle and to watch Kettle’s reaction to that struggle. I might as well have kicked him in the stomach.

Kin leans his tall frame against the doorway and smiles.

“I’ll come see you on your birthday,” Kettle promises.

Kin looks over the top of Kettle’s head and down on me. I blush. “And you? Will I see your beautiful face again, Kite?”

“I hope so,” I say with a weird flutter in my voice.

Kettle stalks past us both, makes it to the first step, and then swings around. Quite suddenly, he rushes Kin, throws his arms around his neck, and hugs him tightly. I hear him sniff and then they break apart. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he says.

“I’ll see you soon,” Kin promises.

We turn and walk down the path. When we reach the gate, Kin shouts, “Goodbye, future wife!” He chuckles as the door closes.

***

Kettle’s silence is unending. It eats at me, takes pieces and won’t give them back.

The boys eat noisily at the card table. Kettle sits on his bed, hands clasped between his legs, just staring at the wall. The arch over him makes me think of an upside-down horseshoe, all the luck just tumbling out.

I find a drink in the grocery bag and take it over to him. It drips with condensation, and water slips from the bottle and onto the leg of his pants.

He grabs the bottle, muttering, “Thanks.”

I sit down on the chest, the one full of all my mother’s things, and sigh.

“I can’t marry you,” he says.

“I know.” I stare at the floor. I don’t really want this anyway. So I shouldn’t be disappointed.

“It’s just, it’s not how things are done. It shouldn’t be like this. If we were going to… I would ask… and…” I fill in all the missing words, but I find myself more confused. He flips the conversation. “That girl, the one who flicked Kin’s suspenders, who was she?”

“My sister,” I say softly, trying to close the door before all the lies come flooding out.

He sighs, disappointed. “You didn’t need to lie to me about her. I kinda guessed she might be.”

“If you knew, why didn’t you say something?” I ask, my lies resist, but they’re being forced open. One down, two to go.

“I figured you’d tell me when you were ready,” he says. “Is she still with him? Your father?” He cringes when he talks about him.
Will that change?

My voice is weak, cracked, “I don’t know where she is. He took her away.”

Kettle’s dark blue eyes shine like the sun bouncing off the deepest sea. “I can help you find her. You helped me. Let
me
help you,” he says, and my heart wants to reach for the hope he’s offering, but I just can’t. If he knows her name, my name, things will change. I now realize how stupid it was to suggest marriage. Once he and Kin learned who I was, it all would have evaporated. I’m the daughter of their defender, one of the men fighting for justice on behalf of the Japanese Americans who were interned during the war.

If I married Kin, there would be so many questions I wouldn’t be able to answer. The truth about my father and what he’s done to me could come out and the compensation case would be ruined.

I shake my head. “That’s not necessary. You’ve done so much for me already. More than enough.”

His hands are aflame, his eyes so earnest when they look at me. “Nora, what’s going on? Why won’t you let me help you? We need to find your sister and expose your father for the monster he is. The son of a bitch should be in jail.”

“You don’t understand. It’s not that simple.” My legs are matchsticks glued together. They buckle, they break.