DEENA TORE OUT the door after Tak and barreled down the creaking staircase. She shouted his name in desperation, certain he intended to exit not only her building but her life. She found him partway down, frozen at the sound of her voice, as he waited for her to catch up with him.
“What Deena? What do you want from me?” He sounded tired, anguished.
“What do I want?” Tears obscured her vision. “I want you to come back. Why did you leave like that?”
Tak took a deep breath. “Why do you want me to come back?”
Deena searched the expanse of his back. “What? I love you. Why would you—”
He turned to face her. “You love me? Then let’s make this thing solid. When do I meet your family?”
“Tak,” Deena shook her head. “You can’t—you know I can’t let you.” Deena sighed. “We keep talking about this. It’s not you; it’s…” Them.
“Right! We keep talking about it. And it’s going to keep coming up.” Tak shook his head in disbelief. “What is your plan here, Dee? To keep me hidden forever? And just how the hell am I supposed to feel about that?” It was exactly as his father said: she wanted more from him than he should ever have to sacrifice.
“Tak, please. I love you. But you’ve got to understand how things are for me.”
“How things are for you? This whole relationship has been about how things are for you’!”
“I know, Tak, and I love you for it. I know this is a strain for you. But this is hard for me too. There are consequences to this relationship for me.”
Tak stared at her. “And what? You haven’t decided whether you’re willing to accept these consequences, yet?”
“That’s not the point, Tak.”
“No, Deena. That is the point. You love me? Then damnit, start acting like it. I mean, what kind of watered down love is this anyway? You love Lizzie and you fight like hell for her. You prowl up and down the streets at God knows what hour, without a fucking thought for yourself. You love your grandmother and fight so she’ll show you an iota of affection!”
Deena’s nostrils flared. “Is that it, Tak? I don’t show you enough love?”
Tak shook his head. “You know what, Deena? This is such bullshit. I’m out of here.”
He turned and barreled down the stairs. Deena rushed after him.
“Don’t you dare walk away from me in the middle of an argument!”
“We weren’t arguing. I made a statement and I departed shortly thereafter.”
“What are you now, Daichi? Smug and self-righteous?” Deena shouted as they rounded the last set of stairs.
“My father’s a wise man,” he said as he reached the bottom of the staircase, “and he knows exactly what he’s talking about—when it comes to you, at least.”
He cast her a single, hard glare before taking off again. She gaped after him.
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” she cried as she quick-stepped to meet his long stride across the lobby.
“It means what I said.”
“When it comes to me?” Deena echoed. “No way. You don’t get to make some sweeping statement like that and just walk off.”
He glanced at her before shoving open the heavy double doors that led to Collins Avenue. “Fine, Dee. You know what it means?” Tak said as their argument spilled into the bustling sidewalk. “It means that he’s a hell of a lot smarter than me. He’s smart enough not to let love derail his values.” He shot her a look of disdain. “But I guess you two are alike in that way.”
Deena shook her head in desperation. “Tak, come on! You know I love you. God knows I do. I don’t know how to be any plainer than that! If we were in a perfect world, I’d already be married to you.”
Deena’s eyes filled with tears.
“Yeah, well, we don’t live in a perfect world,” Tak spat. “So, you need to decide whether you’d be married to me in this one.”
He jumped into his silver Ferrari, staving off her plea with a slam of the door. Deena watched as Tak started the car, backed out of his space and whipped a furious turn into the street. In their fury, both were oblivious to the wild SUV barreling towards him until it was too late. With the screeching of tires and the folding of metal, Deena screamed as the convertible and the man she loved were crushed.
RUBY RED LIGHTS pulsed as frantic sirens signaled the severity of Tak’s condition. Within the tight confines of the racing ambulance, Deena bit back the threat of hysteria as she took in his lifeless body, his blood-soaked clothes and swollen blue lips.
A burly paramedic strapped a pressure cuff about Tak’s arm. He paused, then frowned at the gauge. “I’ve got BP at 100 and dropping!”
Deena looked in desperation from the thin redhead with the messy ponytail to the thick man with the wire frames and wondered which, if either, could save Tak.
“90…80…75!”
The redhead clamped an oxygen mask over his face and paused.
“Shit,” she said. “We’ve got cardiac arrest.”
In those moments, she could see nothing but Tak’s dying body and the pale hands as they worked to revive it. An anguished sob tore from Deena’s lips.
They arrived at Ryder Trauma Center under a hail of red lights and sirens. Men and women in white jackets and scrubs dashed to meet them. A flurry of hands assisted in the transfer, as Tak was hoisted from the ambulance to the hospital. Deena rushed after them blindly, padding through the smatterings of blood leaking from her lover’s body, leaving crimson footprints in her wake.
The trauma team burst through the doors of the resuscitation room and swarmed on Tak in a fury of needles, tubes, sponges, knives, scissors and white jackets. Nurses worked to cut away his clothes as Deena watched in horror—the fitted tee from Old Navy, a gift from her, faded Levis with that perfect fit, and white boxer briefs, Calvin Klein—the only kind he’d wear. Two IVs went into his arms as a tiny blonde slipped a needle into the back of his hand and retrieved multiple vials of blood. A pressure cuff was strapped to him and tape patched to his chest.
The EKG screeched to life, indicating that Tak had flat-lined.
“Call a code!” said a white jacket.
The hospital’s paging system blared to life.
“Code Blue, shock-trauma unit. Code Blue, shock trauma unit.”
“No,” Deena whispered. “Please no.”
“Code Blue, shock-trauma unit. Code Blue, shock-trauma unit.”
A chest tube was slipped into Tak. Crimson rushed to fill the plastic hose.
“God, please. Not him.” Regrets assailed Deena as hot tears streaked her cheeks. She closed her eyes and whispered a prayer wrought with grief and desperation. Never would she take him for granted again. Never.
“Though He causes grief,
Yet He will show compassion
According to the multitude of His mercies.”
Lamentations 3:31-33. Grandpa Eddie would whisper the verse as he sat on the edge of his bed clutching a yellowed portrait of his son, her father, Dean Hammond—dead by twenty-eight at the hands of her mother. And as she stood there facing the frantic siren of the EKG monitor, she whispered the verse over and over, the words pouring from her lips in a mangled mesh of desperation. Tears filled her eyes as crimson flushed from Tak’s body into the plastic container on the floor.
A white jacket turned to Deena as if seeing her for the first time. “You need to go, ma’am. There’s a social worker in the hall that needs information from you. And she’ll want to contact his family.”
DEENA THOUGHT ABOUT the life she could’ve had. Her life if she’d tried to stop her mother from killing her father, if she’d stayed with Anthony instead of going home the night he was murdered, and if she’d only agreed to let Tak meet her family. Her stubbornness and their argument had sent him barreling into the street. Her words sent him to his death.
Deena paced, as if to tread a groove in the floor. Her brain went numb, her mouth dry, her eyes a flood of endless tears. In her mind tires screeched, bones crunched, and there was yelling—so much yelling. Was it her? Was it him? God, was he really pinned by all that metal? Her stomach lurched.
They’d lived as though they had forever. And there was no excuse. Fate had given her ample warning that time and love were precious. She’d always taken him for granted, up until the last moment. She strung him along, coddling him, humoring him, ignoring his desire to have more than a cloak-and-dagger love affair. In doing so, she assumed that his friendship, his companionship, his love, were all unconditional, irreversible, and timeless. A life without Tak was what she deserved—deserved for never having the guts to love without condition or to purge the demons that haunted her. And so, she stood with an hourglass in hand, and the sand emptied out. Their time together was done.
DAICHI BURST INTO the hospital like a torpedo. His jacket was unfastened, his hair tousled, and his face a deep red.
“You!” he shouted. “What’s going on with my son?”
He grabbed the arm of an orderly near the entrance, who appeared terrified. “Takumi Tanaka! I demand to know his status!”
Three steps behind him a woman walked with her head lowered. Mounds of salon-styled curls cascaded about her shoulders as alabaster skin sheathed a long and graceful body. It was Hatsumi.
“Deena!” Daichi spotted her and shoved aside the orderly. He closed the space between them and pummeled her with questions. “Give me a status report. What’s going on? Where is he? What’s his condition?”
Deena shook her head slowly. “I—I don’t know.”
“What? Is he conscious? Is he dead?”
“I—I don’t know!”
Daichi stared at Deena, his breathing shallow; his stomach nauseated. His thoughts were muddled, incoherent, as he struggled to concentrate. He was losing control. A white-hot panic brimmed beneath the surface, threatening to overwhelm him. Sweat beaded his temples as Daichi clenched his fists, piercing the palms until he bled. The pain was a distraction, and with it, he could refocus. He needed information. With information, he could make decisions, give orders, right this wrong. With information, Takumi would be all right.
Daichi turned his wrath to the women at the reception desk.
“Takumi Tanaka. Right now,” he slammed a fist on the desk. “Tell me what’s happening.”
The gray-haired woman fumbled with a folder. She was slight and mousy, cowering under the fury that was Daichi Tanaka.
“Right goddamned now!” Daichi screamed, emphasizing each word with a slam. “Takumi Tanaka!”
He watched as the woman behind the counter disappeared in search of information. With his head bowed and palms flat on the counter, Daichi took a deep breath, allowing only the slightest tremble to escape. His tears were sudden and silent, and brushed away in impatience. Eyes closed, he spoke to his long-dead father.
“Otosan, I’ve done so many things wrong. I’ve been prideful, arrogant, and abusive. I’ve taken my son for granted. Please help me.” He broke off. Swallowed. “I’m begging you.”
Daichi inhaled deeply before lifting his head. He smoothed out his suit. No further grief, no more indulgences. He turned to Deena, who sat gasping and trembling, sobbing into her hands. He watched and he marveled. Daichi had seen this expression only once before, such stark bleakness, such wretchedness—on his mother’s face when his father died.
Daichi extended a hand to Deena and gestured for her to come forward. She looked at him with distrustful bloodshot eyes, searching his face for some sign of his intentions. The embrace was a surprise.
WHEN YOSHI JOINED Daichi in the waiting room, he took a seat next to his brother and stared at the floor. A one a.m. flight out of Denver, just four hours after he’d received word of Tak’s condition, placed him in Miami at just after nine. It took a single bag of luggage, a six-hour flight, and a rental car going ninety miles an hour to get him there at eleven. But even in his haste, he’d not beaten John, whose flight from LaGuardia brought him in just before midnight.
Yoshi searched for words. His heart wanted to say one thing and his mind another. Grief crippled his thoughts. They were fractured, incomplete, like a heartfelt letter with pages missing. This was his nephew, teetering on the edge of death. The boy he’d taught to play drums and the guitar against his brother’s wishes. The boy he’d spent summers wrestling with and taken to Disneyland when his brother hadn’t the time. He loved him as if he were Michael or John, loved him more in some ways. He was equal parts Yoshi and Daichi, the better of the two without the worst. He couldn’t lose him. He simply couldn’t.
“When you prayed,” Yoshi said as tears blinded him. “When you prayed to otosan—did he answer?”
Daichi shook his head. “No.”
“He didn’t answer me either,” Yoshi said. He paused. “When we were kids, I used to think that you were invincible. I used to think you could do anything, be anything and have anything. Till yesterday, I think some part of me still thought that.”
Yoshi brushed away tears, half laughing at a fifty-year-old man who still believed his older brother was all-powerful.
“I’d give anything to still believe that right now.”
Daichi stared at the floor, his eyes shadowed with worry. “I hope you can forgive me one day, Yoshi. I’ve been a terrible brother. Always have been.”
Yoshi shrugged. “That’s not exactly true. A little rough sometimes, but not terrible.” He nudged Daichi. “You taught me a lot of things. How to tie my shoes, how to ride a bike and eat a taco at the same time, and how to get a girl to let me kiss them on the first date.” Yoshi grinned. “All very important.”
Daichi stared at a far-off point, unblinking. “I don’t know how to forgive, Yoshi. I’ve been unable to forgive you for doing as you please with your life. And I’ve been unable to forgive my wife for having an affair.”
“She had an affair? When?”
“About eighteen years ago.”
“Oh.”
“But even that seems to be my fault. You of all people know how intolerable I can be.”
“Yeah,” Yoshi said. “For fifty years now I’ve been trying to get through the door of Daichi’s approval. In that time I’ve found that not only is that doorway narrow, but sometimes it doesn’t exist at all.”
Daichi rubbed his face as if to wipe away the self-loathing.
“I’ve made so many mistakes. Left so many words unspoken. Every cross and thoughtless word, every moment of neglect and forgetfulness, it plagues me and convicts me, Yoshi.” Daichi dashed tears away. “I need a second chance. Desperately.”
“We all do, Daichi. We all do.”
A balding white physician with the face of a cherry pie stood before Deena and the Tanakas in the waiting room a full fifteen hours after the accident. He introduced himself as Dr. Frank Moore and offered a hand as ruddy as his face. He looked from Hatsumi, who continued to dab the corners of her eyes, to Daichi, red-faced and stiff, before turning to Deena, who held her breath, hands clasped in anticipation. He recognized her as the woman he’d thrown out of the resuscitation room hours ago.
“Mr. Tanaka,” Dr. Moore began, “arrived with cardiac arrest after enduring blunt force trauma to the chest. This resulted in a massive hemothorax, or in laymen’s terms, blood in the chest cavity. After we performed resuscitation and an emergency thoracotomy, we located and stopped the bleeding. In addition, he suffered a break of the right fibula and tibia and several contusions and lacerations.”
“So he’s alive?” Daichi said.
Dr. Moore grinned. He loved being the bearer of good news. “And awake, no less.”
Deena shrieked with delight and hugged first Kenji, then John. Hatsumi clasped a hand over her mouth and stifled a sob. Daichi stared at Dr. Moore distrustfully. It was his brother Yoshi who swept him into a bear hug, the first they’d shared since adolescence.
“My God. Can we see him?” Deena asked.
The doctor frowned, shaking his head. “He’s in ICU. Right now, what Mr. Tanaka needs is lots of rest. We’ll monitor him tonight, and we expect he’ll be able to see you tomorrow.”
THE ICU ALLOWED two visitors every two hours, for a total of fifteen minutes. Visiting hours began at ten a.m. and ended promptly at eight p.m., allowing each patient a maximum of ninety minutes of company a day.
At ten a.m., Daichi and Hatsumi rushed in, eager to see their son, and thereby relegating Deena to a spot in the waiting room. It was then that the influx of Tanakas arrived—Grandma Yukiko, in on the red-eye from Phoenix, Asami and Ken, who drove all night when they could find no flight out of Atlanta, and Mike, who made three connections to get from Seattle to Miami in eight hours of travel time. That was in addition to Kenji, John, Allison, Yoshi and June, all of whom had arrived within hours of the accident. By the time visiting hours ended at eight, Deena found herself still sitting in the cramped quarters of the waiting room, but this time considering the possibility that Tak wouldn’t see her.
She returned the following day only to watch it unfold as the day before. She arrived early, resumed her spot in the hard-backed chair near the lone water fountain, and watched as Daichi and Hatsumi lead the usual procession of Tanakas. Tak was angry with her. He had to be. He had to know she was there. Why wouldn’t he ask for her?
“Deena?”
A nurse approached her, piercing her thoughts.
Deena followed the nurse down a brightly lit hall and into a spacious private suite. Bright lights, stark white walls and polished linoleum illuminated the room. In one corner was a leather recliner, in the other a matching couch. A small table with magazines sat at the arm of the sofa. A twenty-seven-inch television was mounted on the wall. He was there, in the center of the room, as an IV and chest tube protruded from his body, and a medical monitor recorded his vitals. His face and arms were covered in bruises, his leg in a cast, but he was alive.
She was eager to hear him, to feel him. But as Deena rushed to his side, a single bruised hand stopped her. She drew back, confused.
TAK CLEARED HIS throat, attempted to shift his body for comfort, then thought better of it. The words he spoke were hoarse and wreaked havoc on his chest, but he would say them nonetheless. They would be the first words he spoke to her, in this, his new life.
“I love you, Dee.” He cleared his throat and pushed on despite the pain. “I’ve never doubted that you were the woman for me.” He paused. “I want to share my love and my life with you, and if you’ll have me, I want you to be my wife.”
With effort, he opened a hand to reveal the Tanaka family ring. His father purchased the band of white gold when he sought his mother’s hand in marriage. Perched upon it was a polished natural pearl more than seven generations old. The lone valuable of a once wealthy family, that pearl had seen the docks of America at the turn of the twentieth century, been buried in haste with the forced internment of Japanese Americans, and would adorn the finger of one more Tanaka woman, as long as Tak got the answer he desired.
Her answer was a whisper, soft yet clear nonetheless. It was the word which had been in her heart all along.
Yes.