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One
Lee rubbed at the grit in his eyes as he let himself inside the Randa home. With traveling across the globe and all the paperwork he had to wade through, his share and then the share he knew no one else was going to do, he felt like he hadn’t gotten more than a few hours of sleep in the last few days combined. When his alarm went off that morning, it had taken him longer than usual to remember which house he was in and what he had to do that day. Before he had been able to trust himself behind the wheel of a car, he had to force more than his usual share of coffee down his throat, and now he was paying for it with the way his hands shook as he closed the door after him.
He listened for any noise in the house as he got his shoes off without tripping over his own feet, but heard nothing. Quietly, Lee bypassed the kitchen and headed towards the bedrooms. He didn’t hear any movement inside Hiroshi’s so he kept going. But the master bedroom door was wide open and empty. With a frown, Lee went to the last door in the hallway, the guest room-turned-office that had come about as soon as Keiko’s mother found her own place. Without knocking, he went inside and found what he had hoped he wouldn’t.
Lee sighed, rubbing a hand tiredly over the stubble along his jaw as he made his way to the desk pushed against the wall, pointedly ignoring the other one. His entrance sparked no movement from the figure hunched over a pile of papers.
“Billy,” he started, only drawing Bill’s attention when Lee put a hand on his shoulder.
“Hm?” Bill hummed, lifting his head from his hand and blinking up at Lee like he hadn’t seen him before. His brow furrowed in confusion.
“Did you get any sleep?” Lee asked, half sitting against the desk. He gently pushed the greasy hair off Bill’s forehead as he took in the man’s bloodshot eyes.
Bill frowned, glancing down at his watch then back at the mess in front of him. “I…. I’m almost finished with these data sets…. I’m just… slower, with my left hand….”
“ Billy .”
Bill stopped and looked back up at Lee. Expression lost like he didn’t know what was going on. And didn’t want to.
“Do you know what day it is?” Lee asked, voice low. His stomach ached. From the coffee and from the conversation.
“... Thursday?” Bill hazarded.
Lee sighed again, heavily, feeling their mutual exhaustion in his bones. “It’s definitely Friday,” he said before ducking his head to make sure Bill looked him in the eye. “And it’s Hiroshi’s birthday, Billy.”
Bill blinked. “Today?”
“Yeah.”
Bill’s eyes closed as he slumped in his seat, all the air leaving his lungs in one breath. “Fuck,” he croaked as his hands, one bandaged and one weakly still holding a pencil, came up to cover his face.
Lee’s hand reached out to cup the back of Bill’s neck, holding tight. Grounding him so he didn’t slip away completely. He bent over him and rested his forehead against the top of Bill’s head as if physically blocking off the world for a few seconds could possibly help them. “We need to get it together, okay? Just for today,” he murmured, feeling Bill shudder slightly. “Go take a shower. Put on some clean clothes. I’ll start breakfast. Okay? ”
Bill stayed silent but eventually nodded against Lee’s hold. Lee stayed where he was for a few more beats before kissing Bill’s head and forcing himself to stand, muscles protesting.
Even with the sound of running water starting, the house felt too silent as Lee made his way to the kitchen. He knew the layout of this kitchen better than his own, but it felt foreign, like it was completely new and he’d never been in it before. Everything from the last few days felt foreign. Like the life he’d lived the last few years had been the life he’d always lived. Like he’d lived more life with her than without, even if the opposite was true.
Lee suddenly gasped for air, not realizing his lungs were burning until it got to be too much. He shook his head to wake himself up, not fully discounting any need for a slap to the face, and forced himself into motion.
Breakfast was half done by the time he heard the sound of little feet shuffling across the hardwood. He looked up and forced an unforced smile onto his face at the sight of Hiroshi in his too-big pajamas.
“Hey, kiddo,” Lee greeted, walking over to set the juice down on the kitchen table and ruffling Hiroshi’s hair with his hand. “Otanjōbiomedetō!”
“Thank you,” Hiroshi mumbled, a hesitant smile overtaking his face as he ducked away, making Lee’s own smile widen.
“Bacon’s done. Just had to wait for the birthday boy to make the executive decision on the birthday pancakes. Chocolate chips or blueberries?” Lee asked, going back to the pan on the stove and poking at the half-baked pancake awaiting a filling on top. When he didn’t get an answer, he looked back over to find Hiroshi frowning over at the container of blueberries on the counter.
“Blueberries,” Hiroshi answered slowly.
Lee reached for a handful but almost dropped them on the floor when his heart skipped a beat in his chest. His fist tightened enough that he had to quickly drop the berries into the pan, only half making it onto the pancake, so as not to squeeze them into a pulp. He busied himself with correcting his mistake, slightly burning the tips of his fingers as he pushed the rogue berries to where they belonged. When he felt like his voice wouldn’t crack, he looked back to Hiroshi and gave him a weak smile as he said, “Good choice.”
Hiroshi’s shoulders fell from where they had risen near his ears. He started to set the table, looking like he wanted to do something with his hands, so Lee let him.
It was only when he heard footsteps again did Lee realize that the shower had stopped. He tried to stay calm and not show his worry, casually flipping the last pancake over and ignoring how burnt it was as he glanced towards the table out of the corner of his eye.
“Happy birthday, Hiro,” Bill said as he walked into the kitchen, setting a present down by the table settings. The smile on his face looked genuine even if he still looked like shit. But his hair was washed, shirt mostly unwrinkled, and he had managed a shave. Hiroshi could obviously tell as his clever eyes took Bill in before thanking him like he had Lee.
All three pairs of eyes fell to the gift. No one mentioned that the wrapping job was too good for anyone present to have done it.
“Pancakes,” Lee blurted out, drawing everyone’s attention as he made a show of turning off the stove and taking the platter stacked high to the table. “Should be enough for everyone but there’s batter left if anyone wants more. Just give me a shout.”
Hiroshi’s hunger took over as he slid into his seat and started shoveling foot onto the plate he had set for himself.
Bill watched him for a beat too long before coming to with a blink. He passed Lee, hand settling on his hip and squeezing in thanks, before sitting down on Hiroshi’s other side. He took just enough food to not draw anyone’s ire, hiding behind his bandaged right hand and nondominant left slowing him down as he ate.
Breakfast was quiet. Lee did his best to break the silence as much as he felt he could, and was proud of Hiroshi for playing along most of the time. The absent voices were obvious, particularly Bill’s as he was usually hard to shut up and also physically there. The other, no one needed to mention to know they all missed it.
When their plates were almost cleared, and school out of the question since they returned home, Lee asked, “What do you want to do today, Hiro?”
Hiroshi nudged a blueberry back and forth across his plate with his fork. He glanced up at Lee and then Bill. “Do you have to work?” he asked hesitantly.
“No,” Lee said immediately.
Bill opened his mouth but shut it at the look Lee shot him across the table. His body sank in his chair a little as he turned to Hiroshi. “We’re all yours today, bud. Any ideas?”
Hiroshi finally skewered the berry as he allowed a little hope to cross over his face. “Can we go to the Natural History Museum?” he asked.
The strained smile on Bill’s face turned more real. “That’s a great idea,” he said softly and Lee wasn’t sure if he caught the look of relief on the kid’s face.
Lee’s gaze fell to the box on the corner of the table. His hand reached out, only to falter. He steeled himself before reaching for it again so he could slide it over to Hiroshi. “Ready?”
Bill didn’t look ready, but Hiroshi perked up like any kid would.
“This is from… us,” Lee finished flatly, working to keep the smile on his face as he nodded for Hiroshi to do what he was itching to do. He watched Hiroshi begin to unwrap the box, taking more care with the wrapping paper than he ever had before. He also watched, out of the corner of his eye, Bill watching Hiroshi. And picking at his bandages.
“Wow!” Hiroshi gushed, looking brighter than they’d seen him since before they had gone out of town. Lee’s chest ached with the fact that he had been so dimmed by their actions. With the fact that not everyone who should would ever be able to see the brightness again.
“Like it?” Lee urged since Bill didn’t look like he was going to say anything as Hiroshi unveiled his new telescope.
“Yeah!” Hiroshi answered, eyes roaming over the details written on the outside of the cardboard. He quickly added, “Thank you!”
“You’re welcome,” Lee said, bypassing subtly as he kicked Bill’s foot under the table.
Bill blinked against Hiroshi’s smile. “You’re welcome, buddy,” he eventually said.
“Okay, it’s still early. Why don’t you go see if you can start putting that together and let us old geezers get a nap in and then we’ll go. Alright?” Lee suggested, his own relief flooding through him as Hiroshi agreed easily, running off and leaving his empty plate behind.
“C’mon,” Lee murmured, standing to shepherd Bill up and out of his chair and towards the bedrooms.
“The dishes—”
“Will keep. You’re not going to make it through the day like this,” Lee whispered softly so his voice wouldn’t carry, hand low on Bill’s back as he guided him through the doorway, shutting it softly behind him.
Lee watched as it looked like Bill’s strings were cut as he sank down onto the bed, elbows on his knees and face in his hands again.
Lee’s heart hurt as he made himself move, made himself go through the motions of things that needed to happen, the actions quieting the thoughts rolling through his head. He stepped in front of Bill and ran his fingers through his still-damp hair.
“Let me see,” he whispered and Bill allowed him to take his hand in his with no fuss or fight. Like he had none left. Lee grabbed the untouched roll of gauze he had left on the bedside table and gently redid the wrapping Bill had barely managed to do on his own. He then nudged Bill back towards the bed, getting him to lay down without argument.
When Lee lay beside him, both on their sides, they just looked at each other.
“Lee,” Bill whispered weakly, saying nothing more.
“I know,” Lee whispered, hand cupping Bill’s jaw and catching the few rough spots he had missed, his breath stuttered through him. “I know.”
“How are you….”
“I’m just trying not to fail at my job again,” Lee whispered and held Bill as he curled forward, forehead pressing against Lee’s chest like his heartbeat was the only thing keeping air flowing through his lungs.
Two
The day had been a flurry of commotion that had snuck through Lee’s awareness between visits from the nurses and their pill cups.
Lee tore his eyes away from the guy in the suit kissing all the women on the staticky television in the recreation room. He blinked. The room was busier than usual. Maybe. There were definitely more young people than usual. Younger, at least. Some… closer to his age. His actual age? The age he felt? Not how he felt, but how he looked. Some people had brought balloons. There were gift bags.
His eyes trailed over to the calendar on the wall that a nurse kept updated. The day was circled.
“Happy Father’s Day, Dad,” a voice said in Japanese, the sound carrying across the room and drawing Lee’s attention towards a middle-aged man standing in the corner with his children, the nursing home resident in a chair before them.
Something niggled at the back of his mind. He had forgotten something, hadn’t he? Why were others celebrating? It wasn’t a holiday, was it? Not before he— The guy in the room next to his, Takashi, he was pretty good about explaining things to Lee. Didn’t ask why he didn’t know— Why didn’t he know—?
Just last year he had helped Hiroshi with his card for Bill. Or had that been a few years ago? Did he need to stop by that bakery for Bill’s favorite? Or Hiroshi’s because he hated Bill’s favorite and Bill didn’t want to disappoint the kid with his gross cake flavor and Keiko said it wasn’t his birthday so he didn’t get to pick the flavor but— Wait, no, that was before—
But Bill, Billy needed a card, even if Hiroshi was too old— The guy in the corner, he was older than Lee, but he seemed to have brought his father a gift. Lee would just have to remind Hiroshi that Billy would appreciate anything— Lee could just stop on his way home, grab a few things, maybe something he could give Billy alone—
Wait—
The rec room door opened and Lee waited for Hiroshi to walk into the room—
The ink was barely dry on both the marriage license and the adoption papers and suddenly summer was approaching.
“Uncle Lee?”
“Almost done,” Lee answered from his spot in the grass in the backyard, away from prying eyes as he cursed under his breath before finally snapping the bike chain back where it belonged. “There. Good as new.”
But Hiroshi didn’t immediately grab his fixed bike, nor did he take off for the open streets in front of the house that were waiting for him to return once his ride was ready again. The kid scuffed his feet against the grass and Lee sat down fully and bent his knees in front of him, making himself comfortable as he patiently waited Hiroshi out.
“At school,” Hiroshi finally continued, sitting down in front of Lee to poke at the king of diamonds clipped to his wheel spokes, “Mrs. Flanagan had us make Mother’s Day cards.”
“I remember,” Lee nodded, also remembering that he had been glad that hadn’t been a holiday when he was a kid so he had one less day to disappoint his mother.
“That isn’t fair, is it?” Hiroshi continued. “For dads?”
“Well, that wasn’t something we did when I was your age….”
“But… I should make Dad one, too, right? Since he adopted me? Since Mama got something?”
But, that wasn’t right, Hiroshi wasn’t that young— He had made that holiday up, but now there were balloons— But Hiroshi had stopped all that, after Keiko—
Keiko gently nudged Hiroshi and he was turning towards Lee, holding out something else. It looked like a card but was different from Bill’s. Though the shy smile on the kid’s face was the same.
Wait— That was a while ago. Too long ago.
Lee still needed to make sure the day was right. That Billy felt appreciated. Billy hadn’t expected anything, it was all a surprise, but the look on his face had been worth it.
The old man in the corner smiled. He looked nothing like Billy but that’s all Lee saw.
Three
Bill shoved open the front door with his shoulder, arms laden with folders. He made it to the dining table before they seemed to explode out of his grasp, the sharp thumps not helping the headache he had been nursing all day.
On his way to the bedroom to get rid of his tie, a noise from Hiroshi’s room gave him pause.
“Hiro?” Bill asked, brow furrowed in confusion in a way that didn’t help his throbbing head as he ducked into the room to find Hiroshi at his own kids-sized desk. Bill glanced at his watch and then back up. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”
Hiroshi didn’t look up from whatever he was working on, one hand gripping a pencil and the other fidgeting with something that made a flash of gold catch the light. “I didn’t feel good,” he murmured.
“Did the school—”
“They called Mimi. She came and got me,” Hiroshi shrugged.
Bill loosened his tie further. “Is it a stomach bug again?” he asked.
Hiroshi shook his head. The gold flashed in and out of the lamplight.
“Do you have a fever?” Bill asked, frowning. It had been a while since Hiroshi was last sick. If he thought about it, he would have realized he had yet to handle such an occurrence fully on his own. But Bill had been picking and choosing what he devoted his mental energy towards lately.
He continued into the room so he could stand beside Hiroshi to check his temperature. When the kid looked up at him, he didn’t look sick, or pale, or in pain. He looked sad. Frustrated. Disappointed.
Hiroshi set the pocket knife on his desk, the sound against the wood reverberating through the room as he copied Bill’s frown, saying nothing. Because he didn’t need to. Bill’s eyes fell to the knife and he realized what day it was. How many days had passed since Hiroshi had been gifted that knife. For what was meant to be a temporary amount of time.
It wasn’t a stomach bug, but Bill’s stomach churned anyway.
Drawing his hand back from Hiroshi’s forehead, he clenched his fists at his sides, the fingertips of his right hand digging into the scars on his palm.
He took a step back, away. “I have some work to finish,” he said, voice forcefully calm. “Let me know when you’re hungry for dinner.” He left the room while Hiroshi sighed at his retreating back.
Bill bypassed the bedroom, that empty place where he went to bed alone and woke up alone. Every morning. Day in and day out. When he made it from his desk, at least.
Entering the home office at the end of the hall, it felt emptier and lonelier than the bedroom, somehow. Where the open expanse of his mattress would always feel too vast, he forced himself to deal with the isolation while he had a pencil in his hand. Bill had done his work alone before and he would do it alone now. Numbers and maps and theories filled the empty gaps.
Only work could stop him from ruminating on the fact that he had forgotten the unforgettable. Let it slip his mind. Or, it was never out of his head, never far from his thoughts. He just… hadn’t realized what day it was. But Hiroshi had. He’d live with those dates long after Bill was finally gone as well.
The office was cold. Had it always felt that way? Or was it just him? Because it was just him .
The calendar tacked over his desk was months out of date. But it had felt both longer and shorter.
A year had gone by.
It felt like yesterday. It felt like decades ago.
He felt bogged down by time. He felt old.
The world was moving past him at incredible speeds. It was moving past him, beyond him. Bill was just trying to help. They had always just been trying to help. To be heard.
Now a year was gone and no one was listening to William Randa anymore. Not about what he knew. Not about what he didn’t know.
He failed those that had listened.
He didn’t blame Hiroshi for being uninterested. But just as Bill couldn’t turn off the clock, he couldn’t turn off his brain, his questions, his need. He couldn’t stop what they had started. It kept going just like the world kept turning around him.
Four
“Paper calendars aren’t used much anymore, are they?”
Hiroshi startled slightly, head snapping up from his coffee cup as he looked through the open floor plan towards the living room where he hadn’t noticed his mother sitting. He shook his head to wake himself up and finished pouring his much-needed coffee.
It still took some time every morning to remember that his house, or the place he was currently choosing to stay, was not empty. To remember who the other person was.
“Not really,” Hiroshi answered, the familiar rhythm of speaking to his own mother in their native tongue sneaking up on him as if it hadn’t been decades since he last had, until the last few weeks that had shaken his life up even more.
Grabbing his mug, he walked around the kitchen counter towards her. His steps faltered when he realized that she was sitting on the ground, looking at a photo album on the coffee table he hadn’t opened in recent memory. “Where did you find that?”
“I couldn’t sleep, so I looked through your unpacked boxes,” Keiko said unapologetically as she untucked a particular photo from the tiny corners, the picture itself relatively pristine due to Hiroshi keeping it hidden away since he inherited it. “Do you remember this day?”
Hiroshi’s grip on his mug handle tightened as he folded himself onto the cushion across the table from Keiko. He kept his gaze from the other photos he didn’t want to see but dutifully looked at the one his mother was holding out. Based on her attire, it was a wedding photo. He was in it, in Uncle Lee’s arms, standing beside his parents.
“I remember this one being on the mantle,” Hiroshi said after his eyes had taken in their fill. “I remember hating what you made me wear.”
Keiko smiled as she brought the photo back in front of her, eyes tracing over the occupants again. She looked tired and wistful and so lost.
“It’s our anniversary,” she said, the corners of her mouth straining, not looking away from the photo. Hiroshi could see her thumb twisting her wedding ring back and forth around her ring finger, the metal untarnished by the years that had passed. “61 years. Technically. I think that is why I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t the night before our wedding, either.”
“Were you nervous?” Hiroshi asked impulsively, watching his mother’s face. He didn’t think anyone had told him much about that day before, not that he could remember. Not that he had thought to ask when he had the chance.
Keiko tilted her head slightly, eyes jumping between the black and white figures. “I was worried we were hurting Lee’s feelings. I was worried about you. I didn’t want you to be unhappy. But I wasn’t worried about getting married again, no. It felt… right. Were you nervous?”
Hiroshi set his mug on the table as Keiko finally looked at him again. He expected scorn but he just found acceptance. Not the easy kind, but the one of resignation without the power to change things.
“Yes,” he answered honestly. Both times. For a myriad of reasons he never attempted to examine.
“Caroline didn’t know what to say to me,” Keiko started, forcing Hiroshi to keep up with the apparent subject change, “but I think she was trying to make me feel better when she said that those that leave us are never truly gone. I don’t know if she was referring to me, or Billy and Lee… but she may have a point. Metaphorically, at the very least.”
“Like… heaven?” he asked with the skepticism of a scientist.
Keiko shook her head, looking down at the photos in the album again and all the smiling faces. “About ghosts. About the ones that you can’t, or won’t, forget.”
And Hiroshi had tried. But they never seemed to leave him alone either. They kept on returning. In his thoughts, in his dreams, in real life. In his repetition of their mistakes.
He had woken up every morning for the last few days to find he was sharing his space with a ghost. But this time he wanted to embrace it in ways he had spent decades rejecting, while half expecting it all to be a dream by the next morning.
He wondered if his mother wasn’t sleeping because she feared the same, waking up to something else unknown. Or if she hoped for her own ghosts to return. That they would come back if her dreaming ended. Or, if none of this was real, that they’d linger if she never woke up.
Keiko set the wedding photo on a stack Hiroshi hadn’t noticed. He could see the single photo he had of his high school graduation, with Dad at his side. Probably the last photo he had with Bill, if he thought about it.
“You worry about missing the special days. You don’t even think about missing all the ordinary ones. And those are the ones that need you most,” Keiko said, the saddest smile Hiroshi had ever seen adorning her face as she absentmindedly straightened the photos in her hand.
“What are you going to do with those?” Hiroshi found himself asking. He figured they were more hers than his. He had no right to keep them from her, not after neglecting them for so long.
“Find frames for them. Put them up,” she answered, gesturing around the empty walls that felt confining and endless at the same time. “So they can look down on us.”
“Dad and Uncle Lee?” Hiroshi asked, unsure if he could handle the constant reminder of all that was left unsaid.
Keiko’s gaze was lost again. Lost in the past. Lost in the future. “The good memories."
Five
The house was quiet. The fire warm; its glow the only thing lighting the three sitting side by side on the tiny couch.
“We should get going….”
Keiko hummed as she took a sip of her wine, finishing the glass and letting one of them take it from her to set out of the way. She felt warm from all angles: the fire in front of her, the wine inside, and the two men pressed on either side of her, reminding her that they were there. As if she could forget.
“Don’t want to scandalize the neighbors,” Keiko agreed, but didn’t move.
“Or your mother,” Lee replied, setting his own glass down on the coffee table.
Keiko eyed the leftover dessert plates, mostly empty and needing to be washed. Instead of the chores that needed to be completed, all she could think about was the cake that Bill and Lee had somehow smuggled into her home without her knowing. How excited Hiroshi had looked at the surprise. At the feeling in her stomach at the sight of the fruit atop the cream adorning the outside of the confection. How they had sang to her in Japanese, some better than others, and how she didn’t remember telling either of them that blueberries were her favorite.
“We will just have to be quiet, then,” Keiko said, voice low as she looked away from the table towards Lee, his eyes already on her. His arm rested along the couch behind her so her head rested against him when she settled into the cushions. His thigh pressed into hers from the left. Bill’s from the right.
“Did you have a good birthday?” Lee asked softly, his free hand tucking a loose strand of hair back behind her ear and lingering against her cheek.
Keiko smiled. “I did,” she whispered, eyes dropping to Lee’s mouth where the corner tilted up into a smile.
“Good,” he answered as he closed the miniscule space between them, hand cupping her cheek as he kissed her softly and slowly, just as warm as the firelight.
“I can’t say I was expecting this as an early birthday gift,” Keiko admitted when they separated, not moving far.
Lee smiled at the reference to whatever they had started between them not even weeks prior. It was something unexpected, but hopeful. Promising. The cogs fit together like a well-made machine, working as intended even if the final product had not been in their long-term plans. But it worked. They worked. And that felt like as much of a treat as the birthday cake in her favorite flavor.
“I can’t say I’ve ever been someone’s gift before,” Bill said from her other side, drawing both of her and Lee’s attention towards his own calm smile.
Keiko did not have far to move as she turned Bill’s way, catching that while Lee’s arm was around her shoulders, his hand was lazily drawing patterns on the back of Bill’s neck.
“Not that that means you can return my actual gift,” Keiko said, making Bill laugh as she rested her cheek against Lee’s arm.
“Wouldn’t dare.” Bill smiled at Lee over Keiko’s shoulder before ducking down to kiss her too, taking his time with one hand warming her knee while one of hers slid to meet Lee’s against his neck.
“We’ll just have to work harder next year to top it,” Lee whispered into her ear, making her smile into Bill’s kiss at the thought of another birthday like this one.
And all the ones to follow.