“Wishful thinking?”
“My son would be your age now. But…I…we…lost touch a long time ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. A son shouldn’t abandon his mother.”
The woman stared at her feet. “He didn’t.”
“Oh,” Keishin said quietly. “I see.”
“Leaving him was the worst mistake of my life,” the woman said as though the entire restaurant had disappeared and she was talking to no one but herself.
“Why did you do it?”
“For the same reason all fools give up good things. We look at our hands and wonder what we could hold if they wereempty.” She hastily wiped the tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this. You just seem so familiar. I feel like I know you. Please forgive me. I will leave you to your lunch.”
“Do you ever think about your son?”
“All the time. I wonder if we’ve passed each other in the street or sat next to each other in a restaurant just like this one. Sometimes, I manage to convince myself that I’ve spotted him in a crowd even though I don’t know what he looks like. Loneliness and regret have a way of making you see things that aren’t really there.”
Keishin stared into his bowl of ramen. He had intended it to be the last bowl he would have at this restaurant. Two years was a long time to stand in line for a bowl of disappointment. He had told himself that if he did not find Hana that day, he was going to let her go. Hoping for nothing cut deeper than the Shiikuin’s talons. He touched the faint scar across his cheek. “Yes, they do.”
“I apologize,” the woman said. “Your ramen has grown cold.”
“It’s all right,” Keishin said. “I don’t mind.”
“I’m sorry that it was your misfortune to sit next to a silly woman who has no one else to talk to. My boss scolds me whenever I chat too long with our customers. He told me that I should get a cat so that I could have someone to talk to when I get home. You are a very patient man to put up with me.” She smiled at him. “Any mother would be lucky to have a son like you.”
“Even you?”
“Of course. Very lucky. A mother’s joy is raising a son who is considerate and kind even to people he doesn’t know. It is ahappiness that I gave up my right to know, and so I am grateful for the rare times I catch a glimpse of it.”
Keishin checked his watch and stood up. “I’m sorry. I need to go. I have to catch a train. But please, allow me to pay for your meal.”
She shook her head. “No. I couldn’t impose.”
“I insist. My mother would scold me if I didn’t.”
“Thank you.” The woman smiled. “Have a safe trip.”
Keishin bowed to her. “Have a good day, Takeda-san,” he said, repeating the name he had read on her name tag. He had expected his mother’s name to taste bitter, but it did not. Maybe in time, he thought, it might even taste sweet. “I hope that we meet again someday.”
Chapter Sixty-two
Five Years Later
College. Marriage. Kids. These were the big decisions that people believed mattered. They were wrong, of course. In reality, it was the choices that people didn’t even realize they were making that set the course of their lives. The shifts were small, even minute, but, by the tiniest of angles, they pointed one in the direction of what was going to happen next.
In Keishin’s case, everything that was going to define the rest of his life was decided the second his eyes shifted from the instant spicy pork ramen to the chicken-flavored one, then back to the pork. He reached for the bright red pack and dropped it into a green plastic basket. This was not the time to experiment with new flavors. His flight to Switzerland was at six the next morning, and the last thing he needed was a bad stomach. In less than twenty-four hours, he was going to stand in front of an auditorium filled with scientists and press and announce the greatest scientific discovery of the last five decades. He rehearsed his speech in his head. His phone rang over his thoughts. “Okaa-san?” he answered.
“Keishin, make sure that you do not eat anything spicy before your flight,” Takeda Izumi said from the other end of the line. “You do not want to have a bad stomach before your speech.”
“Don’t worry.” Keishin smiled. “I won’t.”
“I think I am more nervous than you are.”
“As someone with some authority on the matter, I can tell you that that is scientifically not possible.”
“I am so proud of you, Keishin. I love you.”
