Lily tried to call her, but her phone went immediately to voicemail. Lily didn’t know what to think. She pictured Yoko’s phone at the bottom of the sea.
Liam collapsed on the sofa and put his face in his hands.
Lily felt uncomfortable in the quiet and searched her mind for something to say, something to ease the tension. “Maybe you should call your dad?”
Liam scoffed, but then reached for his phone and did exactly that. He put his father on speakerphone so Lily could hear, which surprised her. Or maybe he was too lazy to put the phone to his ear, too lazy to hold it up.
“Liam, hey! Happy Thanksgiving!” Kendall sounded happy to hear from him. Lily knew they’d fought the last time they’d talked, that Liam and Kendall had both said things they now regretted.
“Hi.” Liam’s voice was thick with a mix of fear and anger. “I wanted to know if you’ve heard anything from Mom?”
Kendall’s tone deepened. “I haven’t, no. She’s not too happy with me right now.”
“I wonder why,” Liam said.
Kendall let out a long, low sigh. “She’s probably at the store. Or out with someone.”
“Who would she be out with?” Liam demanded.
Kendall was quiet for a moment before saying, “We talked about it, Liam. We’re going to stay together. Maybe we’ll even go to therapy and try to work things out.”
Liam’s face was a scrunched tomato. Lily sat on the sofa beside him and touched his shoulder, but he yanked it away. Lily’s tongue tasted like sand and sugar. She felt sick.
“You don’t want to work things out,” Liam said to his father. “You want to run away. You want to alienate Mom. You want to make her feel even stranger here than before.”
“All I’ve ever done, I did for you and your mom,” Kendall said, speaking an old cliché that was hard to believe.
“That’s not true,” Liam shot back. “I wish it were, but it isn’t.”
Lily got back up and tried to block the sounds of Liam and his father beginning another argument. She went into the kitchen and started hunting around for some sign that Yoko had recently been there, that she’d not been a figment of everyone’s imagination. It felt bizarre that she’d left without saying anything to anyone. It felt bizarre that she hadn’t left a note.
Finally, out of the corner of Lily’s eye, she spotted a Post-it, slotted under the fridge. It looked as though it had fallen. She bent to pick it up and realized it was written in Japanese and meant for Liam’s eyes only. But Liam was in the next room, howling with rage at his father. He was less and less able to control his emotions ever since he’d returned to Nantucket. Lily couldn’t remember him acting like that throughout their past year of dating. But maybe she hadn’t known him very well at all.
Rather than bother Liam, Lily used an app on her phone to translate the Japanese text to English. She watched, incredulous, as her beautiful drawings transformed into words she recognized.I have flown to Osaka for a tennis charity event. I love you with all my heart. Please, search your own heart before you marry someone you don’t love. Yours, Mom.
Lily sat cross-legged on the floor with her back against the humming fridge. She inhaled deeply and searched her stomach for signs of her own sorrow. If anything, Yoko’s note demanded more from her than it did of Liam. Did Lily really want to be in this family? Did she really want to find herself like Yoko, running away at the age of fifty?
Lily loved Liam. Or she’d always thought she did. She thought back to the day she’d first met him, how swept up she’d felt, how sure she’d been that the rest of her life was about to begin. They’d gone on long walks through Central Park. They’d kissed with the Manhattan skyline at their backs and eaten burgers and fries and gone dancing all night. They’d talked of the children they wanted to have. But ever since the engagement, those conversations had dried up. She’d stopped thinking of the future as a sure thing—maybe because she could no longer see herself in the one she was planning for.
Liam hung up on his father and stormed into the kitchen, gasping for breath. He looked on the verge of tears. When he found Lily on the floor, he collapsed beside her and pressed his forehead against his thighs. “I hate him,” he said.
“You don’t,” Lily said.
They were quiet for a moment. Lily had dropped the Post-it back on the kitchen floor, hoping that Liam would find it himself. She didn’t want to reveal that she knew what it said. Finally, she had to point it out, faking it. “Look! What’s that?”
She watched as Liam flipped the Post-it over and read it, his red face dimming to green. It was impossible to comprehend his emotions. He crumpled the note in his fist. “She went to Japan for some tennis thing.”
“Oh! Cool.” Lily frowned. “Did she say anything about this?”
“I think she mentioned it, maybe,” Liam said. Lily knew it was a lie. But Liam didn’t want to feel that both of his parents had abandoned him on Thanksgiving weekend.
“Is that true what your dad said? That he wants to make it work with your mom?” Lily asked. She hated how tentative her voice sounded.
“I don’t know,” Liam said. “Honestly, my dad only ever does what he wants. So I guess if he wants to get back together with my mom, that’s what he’ll do.”
“What about what your mom wants?” Lily asked.
Liam blinked at her and raised his shoulders to his ears. “I can’t pretend to know what it’s like to be married for that long.”
