Yoko flinched, as though she’d been smacked. She knew exactly who her son was talking about and still couldn’t fully fathom what he’d said. In Japanese, she muttered, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do,” he said in English. “You let him leave. You let him go to Miami. You let him embarrass himself and our entire family with some woman down there.”
“Your father has always done what he wants,” Yoko said. She felt world-weary. “He probably started cheating on me before we got married. I’m sure he cheated on me in the first month of our relationship. He was still at Princeton, and I was here, training with your grandfather. I never really knew what he was up to. He wanted it to be that way.”
She remembered how Emilia had first told her about Kendall’s cheating after her fourth Wimbledon Championship,how she’d pushed Emilia’s friendship away in order to support her hope that Kendall loved her more than anyone. She imagined that Emilia was off somewhere now, reading the tabloids about Kendall’s exploits and laughing at Yoko. That, or pitying Yoko. Yoko wasn’t sure what was worse.
But I have my son, she thought.I have Liam, even if he’s being a brat right now.
“But you must have done something,” Liam shot back at her. He was on his feet, pacing the living room, his hands in fists behind his back. “You must have made him fall out of love with you.”
Yoko couldn’t help but laugh at that. “If I did, I hope he’ll tell me what it was,” she said. “Did you ask him yourself? Maybe he’ll tell you what it was. Perhaps he’ll say that I got old. Maybe he’ll say that I gained or lost weight. Maybe he’ll say I’m not the tennis champion he married. Or maybe he’ll say he got bored.”
Liam’s cheeks were enflamed, just as they used to get when he was coming down with a cold. Maybe he actually was sick. Yoko imagined nursing him back to health, making him miso soup and other Japanese recipes, just as she had when he was her little boy. She couldn’t understand why he was acting like this right now, why he was blaming her, unless he was trying to find meaning within his own life. Unless he was trying to understand himself and his actions.
She remembered that gossip column she’d read about Liam and his co-star. Something in the back of her mind clicked, although she didn’t want it to.
“Can I ask you a question?” Yoko asked.
Liam tugged at his black hair and gave her a look that reminded Yoko of her own father, who’d died so long ago now. “Yeah? What?”
“Do you love Lily?” she asked, remaining in Japanese so that Lily couldn’t eavesdrop from the stairs. (Yoko herself hadeavesdropped often when she’d been living with Kathy and Kendall.)
This time, Liam switched to Japanese as well. “Of course I love her,” he stammered. He looked irate. “She’s my fiancée. She’s my bride. She’s my everything.”
Yoko sensed something jagged about how he spoke, as though he were trying to convince himself of something he’d once understood. She wanted to tell him that it wasn’t a bad thing to fall out of love with someone, especially in your twenties, before you’d made any big commitments. She wanted to point out that Lily and Liam hadn’t picked out anything wedding-related yet. They hadn’t found the venue. They hadn’t tried any cake. Lily hadn’t fallen in love with a single wedding dress, either, despite the fact that she’d looked downright lovely in more than half of the ones she’d tried on. Yoko felt that Lily didn’t want to marry Liam, just as much as Liam didn’t want to marry Lily. But she couldn’t say it aloud. She didn’t want to be accused of projection.
Suddenly, Liam stormed toward the front door. Yoko hurried after him, her heart thudding as she watched him pull on his winter hat, gloves, and coat. She knew he wasn’t used to the winter weather after months in Los Angeles and was worried he’d freeze out there. But in Japanese, he said, “I need to take a walk. I need to think.” Yoko knew better than to hold him back from all that necessary thinking. Maybe he’d make a breakthrough. She hung back as the door cut open, bringing in swirling snowflakes and a blanket of frost. The entire mansion seemed to shake when he slammed the door behind him.
Yoko returned to the living room and sat for a long time, watching the snow rush past the window. Back in Osaka, she couldn’t remember ever getting snow, not even deep in her childhood. What she did remember was the surrounding mountains, blanketed in white, the ancient trees, the old-worldcemeteries, and the sense of spirits swirling in the sky overhead. Now that she’d been in the United States since 1995 (thirty years!), she’d come to terms with the fact that Americans didn’t believe in “spirits” the way some Japanese mountain people did. Her own parents hadn’t believed either. But Yoko liked to open herself up to magic. She wanted to believe in something bigger than herself. And if she believed in God—which she did—she wasn’t sure why a spiritual world was so hard to fathom.
There were so many more forces at work than anyone could guess. But what sorts of forces had brought Yoko to this grotesque marriage, where she mostly lived alone?
When her mother and father passed away, three weeks apart, as though they hadn’t been able to live without the other, Yoko had traveled with Liam back to Japan for their funerals. They’d buried them in an old cemetery next to her maternal grandparents and performed all the necessary Japanese rituals associated with death, many of which mystified Liam. To her relatives and friends, Liam had seemed like such an American little boy: loud and funny and unwilling to follow all the rules. Yoko had experienced a strange mix of embarrassment and pride. She hadn’t wanted her son to uphold rules that canceled out his amazing personality. She hadn’t wanted her son to be tied to all the things that had held her back, emotionally and mentally, when she’d been a girl. But she’d always wanted her son to understand and appreciate Japanese culture. Had she done enough to secure that?
When Liam came home a half hour later, he was blue in the face. Without talking, he removed his coat and hat and made them both tea. Afterward, he put on one of her favorite Japanese films from many decades ago and watched it with her, sipping his tea slowly. Yoko loved the movie immensely and was touched he’d remembered. She’d only just watched it with Lily, but itmeant far more to watch it with her son. That was the way things were. She couldn’t help it. Liam was her greatest love.
Chapter Nineteen
It was two days after Liam’s coming-home party, and Lily was over at her Aunt Valerie and Uncle Alex’s place, doting on baby August. Aunt Valerie was bent low, checking on the chicken potpie she’d put in the oven nearly an hour ago, while Uncle Alex was rifling through stacks of papers on the kitchen table and countertops, searching for a contract he needed to sign for his brand-new film project. Together, Valerie and Alex were frantic and alive and terribly happy, at times bickering and laughing within the span of thirty seconds. August bobbed his head and waved his little fists, watching his parents, learning from them. Lily imagined that she’d been the same, watching Rebecca and Fred Vance from her own baby seat, soaking up their personalities like a sponge.
When Alex sped off to meet a film contact at a coffee shop downtown, Valerie removed the chicken potpie, waved her hand through the steam that pumped from the crust, and said, “That man couldn’t find his nose if it were sticking out of his face.” She laughed, throwing her gorgeous hair back over her shoulders.
Lily grinned and wrapped her first finger and thumb around August’s right hand. “You guys seem happy, though,” she said.
Valerie pulled a stool up across from Lily at their kitchen island, where Lily sat before fifteen glossy wedding magazines. “We’re happy,” Valerie agreed. “We’ve had quite a year, but we’re happy.” She furrowed her brow at a particular decoration on the left-hand side of a magazine spread, reached for a pen, and circled it. From where Lily sat, she couldn’t tell if Valerie wanted to remember the candle arrangement, the pattern on the tablecloth, or the chair. The mind of a wedding planner was always working.
“So you said your three words are…” Valerie flicked back through her notebook. “Timeless, sophisticated, and…” She searched the page.
“Old Hollywood,” Lily reminded her. “I know that’s two words.”
Valerie’s smile widened. “Old Hollywood! Of course. To match Liam’s blossoming career. Well, I think we can make that happen for you. I was on the phone with the Harborview Hotel last night. They can accommodate a wedding of three hundred in late May or late September. All the summer weekends are booked up, but we’re a little late to the game.”
“I know. We should have started right after he proposed,” Lily said, wondering why she’d wanted to wait so long. Her stomach shifted with nausea.
“It doesn’t matter! I think a late September wedding on Nantucket is a dream,” Valerie said. “The slight change of seasons makes everything mystical.”
“But it might rain,” Lily reminded her.
