Sunday saw a flurry of phone calls from Emily and Sam and Connor’s sisters. “Let me tell you something about my brother,” Sara Beth confided to Elly. “If he knows you want something, he’ll get around to doing it, no matter how much he grumbles about it. You’ve just got to wait him out.”
All the next week Elly analyzed everything that had happened the first weekend of their marriage, when she wasn’t willing to wait him out. Wanda had confessed her part—but what she’d said to Connor, Elly could only guess. Probably something about his grandfather. You’re acting just like him, or some similar warning or admonition.
Wanda’s interference irked her, but that was beside the point. What mattered to her was that brief, fragile moment when he was frightened. But frightened by what? That he would upset her by disagreeing with her? Hardly. No, it was his chagrined imagination whispering that she would become impatient with him, grow weary of his stubbornness—
Her eyes flew open wide in surprise. No! she countered.
“You disagree, Elly?” Her uncle peered across the classroom at her. She scrambled to remember what the lecture was about. Base I passive forms? Transitive/intransitive verb pairs? “Sorry,” she apologized, folding her arms across her chest and slumping down in her chair.
When the bell rang, he asked her to stay after class a minute. “So, my niece, you don’t find Japanese syntax an engaging enough subject to hold your attention?”
“I said I was sorry. Sheez. I was thinking about—stuff.”
“No doubt. I got a call from your mother last night.”
“Scheduled your seppuku yet? I agreed to be your second.”
“Quite the contrary. She seemed pleasantly reconciled. She was thankful to June for her help. I’m curious what you said to assuage her.”
“I didn’t say anything. Why shouldn’t she be happy for me—for us?” Uncle smiled. “No reason. Just try to pay attention in class.” She bowed. “Yes, Sensei.”
Elly walked home in a bad mood. She resumed her internal argument with her husband. “You can’t lose me,” she told him, clenching her fists in frustration. “I’m not losable.” And yet she hadn’t told him she loved him. Not once. Getting married was her very practical response to their strange dilemma. It was he who’d made the leap of faith, who’d decided, contrary to his nature, that he would love her, unconditionally and forever.
She could argue that saying she loved him was contrary to her nature. Connor would understand, intellectually at least. Samurai were not known for their professions of love. Like Rie Miyazawa and Hiroyuki Sanada in Twilight Samurai. The woman never tells the man she loves him, or visaversa. That doesn’t make their relationship any less compelling or romantic. Everybody knew they loved each other.
There really wasn’t a word in Japanese she felt comfortable using. Ai, the common translation, had only come to suggest romantic affection in the last century. On the other hand, suki was what infatuated teenagers said to each other. And was how she described the flavor of ice cream she liked. She didn’t think Connor would read much depth into suki.
She loved hearing him say, “I love you.” And all the more so because he spoke it with such grace and conviction—never that awkward pause, expecting her to reply in kind.
So even if he bought the samurai argument, she didn’t. If it was only a matter of suki, there wouldn’t be a problem. She liked him unquestionably. She liked sex. Okay, she really liked sex. Now she understood why a girl would shack up with a guy, despite all the warnings about him getting the milk for free.
That should count for something—liking doing something with someone that much. And not just sex. She liked living with him, talking with him, walking with him. Liked him just being there. Despite the fact that he wasn’t a man with something to say every minute of the day.
He did his share of the chores. He put the toilet seat down—usually. He was like her father, only more laconic. (Wanda’s word, and it was too perfect not to adopt as her own.) When Connor quipped about being a consultant, he couldn’t know how much like her father he sounded. The only thing she’d ever heard her mother complain about was her father’s business trips—which confused her when she realized that moving had always been her mom’s idea.
She was fourteen when they moved from Salt Lake to Provo. She’d thrown a teenage hissy fit. “This is the fourth time!”
“You were three when we moved to Japan. That doesn’t count.”
“Why can’t Dad stay in one place for a while?”
“We make these decisions together. Frankly, your father would be happy being a barge. Tow him to a dock and tie him up at the pier and he’ll sit there until it’s time to move on.”
“So what are you?” Elly demanded. “A jet ski?”
“You think I’m a frivolous recreational vehicle?” (She said this in English and it was a lot funnier than she realized.)
“Okay, a tugboat.”
“It’s my job to push you all where you need to go.”
Looking back on her life, Elly understood the reasons. They’d moved from Hiratsuka to Yokohama so she and Emily could attend the International School. They moved to Provo to eliminate her father’s commute to BYU and give him back to them for two more hours a day. Always keeping the family together and keeping them around her, the way the daimyo kept his loyal retainers close to him.
Her mother could never have married a Japanese salaryman. Her husband must always put her first, before anything and anybody else.
Elly unlocked the back door. Connor wasn’t there. The bright gleam of brass caught her eye, the bedposts propped up against the back of the couch. The retooled fastening plates had been ground to a smooth shine. The flux from the solder left a golden patina around the tapping inserts.
The phone rang. “Yes?” she said.
“Is this the Connor McKenzie residence?” inquired a woman’s voice, crisp and secretarial.
Elly said warily, “This is Mrs. Connor McKenzie.” Anybody calling the McKenzie residence was probably a telemarketer.
“Hello, I’m calling from Evans & Thorton, a law firm here in Provo.”
“I don’t think we need a lawyer. You’re not suing us, are you?”
The secretary laughed. “No, there’s nothing to worry about. Could you hold for a minute?”
Connor’s toy Mustang had ended up on her side of the desk. She used it as a paperweight. She drove the car across the desk the way her brother Sam did with his Matchbox cars as she listened to the hold music.
The wait music clicked off. “Mrs. McKenzie?” a man’s voice said.
“Yes,” she said, putting down the toy car.
“This is Tom Thorton. I—”
“I think you should speak to my husband when he gets home.”
“In actuality, I wished to speak to you. I don’t mean to be rude, Mrs. McKenzie, but I do have to confirm that I’m speaking with the right person. Let’s see—your maiden name is Elaine Chieko Packard. You and Connor Carroll McKenzie were married on August thirtieth of this year?”
“Yes, that’s right. A whole week and a half ago. What’s this about?”
“I’m the estate executor for your husband’s grandfather, Mr. Connor McKenzie. Though I can’t address the specifics of the bequest at this time, I can assure you that you have nothing to worry about.”
“So you say.”
Mr. Thorton chuckled. “I’ll get back in touch with you in a week or so. In the meantime, if you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to give me a call.”
Elly tore a sheet of paper out of her notebook and wrote down the firm’s address and number and parked the car on it.
Connor had no idea what in his grandfather’s will could possibly pertain to him or them. “When he sold the house to Lynne and Glenn and distributed the proceeds, I assumed that was it as far as the grandchildren were concerned.”
Wanda confirmed that Wallace Evans had set up a living trust for her father when he sold the house. The firm had also executed his will after his death. “But I’m in the dark about this as much as Connor, I’m afraid.” She said, “By the way, how did the bedposts turn out? That’s what you needed the car for this morning, I assume?”
“They’re beautiful,” Elly said.
Connor nodded. “Nathan did a good job. I wish I’d thought of this in the first place.”
“Yes, but then we wouldn’t have had so much fun.”
“I promise to come up with more interesting things to do on a Friday night than put bed frames together.” When she started to contradict him he said, “Okay, more entertaining. Which reminds me, After Life is playing at International Cinema. Want to go see it Saturday?”
“Are you asking me out on a date?”
The question made him stop and think. “Yeah, I suppose so. Yes.”
She beamed. “Oh, good. It’s been years since I went on a date.”
The look that passed across his face told her he’d stumbled onto an aspect of their relationship that hadn’t occurred to him before, which he at once filed away under things that make Elly happy.
It was a five-minute walk from the International Cinema theater to the Wilkinson Center. Not long ago, ice cream at the Cougareat would have struck Connor as an unbearably tacky way to end a date. He’d since come up with a new rule: anyplace with Elly was a place worth hanging around.
“A pretty good date so far,” was Elly’s opinion.
“Already being married is a great improvement on the institution.”
“I gather you didn’t date much before. Not even in high school? Howabout when you came to BYU?”
“I couldn’t see the point of getting into a relationship when I was go ing on a mission in a year.”
“I do know a thing or two about the jerks who don’t wait for their girlfriends. Still, you waited for me. Sort of. I was on my mission when we met, remember.”
They walked through the Terrace Court to the Cougareat and stopped at the BYU Dairy counter.
“Though I am concerned about my reputation.” Elly grinned. “I just realized I’m going to sleep with you on our first date.”
Connor started to laugh, stopped, cleared his throat. Instead of asking for their orders, the girl standing behind the counter stared at Elly with a wide-eyed expression. Elly looked at Connor, who looked back with a very straight face, and then at the girl. “Oh—! We’re married. Really.” She started to giggle, which didn’t do her credibility any good. “A joke,” she said to the girl.
The girl nodded. But then her gaze fell on Elly’s left hand and her eyes narrowed. Elly frantically waved her hand as if to bat away the implicit accusation. “Connor!”
“We are married,” he said, in the serious tone of voice reserved for such declarations.
The girl looked disappointed. She said, with the sternness that eighteen-year-olds must often adopt when dealing with inappropriate behavior by their elders, “We close in ten minutes.”
So they got their ice cream and found a booth. Elly was quiet for a moment. “So,” she said, brushing aside her bangs. “What memory would you preserve if you could choose only one?”
In the movie, after the protagonist died, he was allowed to select only one scene from his life, one memory that would stay with him throughout the rest of eternity.
“This one,” Connor said. “Right now. I would memorize your face.”
“So if it all happened again, in another life, you would find me?”
“With your great-great-grandfather’s help, if need be.”
“I like Takashi’s solution about the group photograph. That way I’d remember everybody.”
“You’re right.”
She shook her head. “No, you don’t get to change yours. You only get to think about me. Which reminds me—ah, Julie, that was her name. Whatever happened to her?”
“She got married.”
“That’s nice. Were the two of you ever an item?”
“No. There wasn’t any there there. One of the reasons I went to Japan over Spring term was because I couldn’t think of a good way to end it.”
“That’s nice. Maybe not nice. But the dragon is jealous of her treasure.”
“About this dragon—”
A student wearing a blue vest with “BYU Janitorial” stenciled on the back pushed a cleaning cart past the table.
Elly said, “I think they want us to go.” She sighed. “Tomorrow I have to start being a role model.”
“Keep up with the asides about us sleeping together on our first date and you won’t be for long.”
Elly laughed. “Well, it’s true. A role model should be truthful, no?” She glanced at the BYU Dairy counter. “I don’t think our ice cream girl was convinced. It’d be embarrassing if she turned out to be in our ward.” She hooked her arm through his. “I’ll try not to mortify you in the future, okay?”
“I’m not mortified.”
“Then I’ll have to try harder not to.”