Mar 11
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Genji Sato took the boys — Lee, Ben, and Brandon — to Whibley’s Fishin’ Spot for one last cast before the summer ended.
“It’s weird not celebrating the last day of summer with your sister,” Gen mentioned to his son next to him. “It’s her birthday today.”
“Yeah, but I think Naomi can find her own fun, Dad.”
The father chuckled, “You’re probably right about that.”
The group talked about nothing and everything for hours, including a thorough discussion on what clothes aliens might wear.
Slowly over the course of the pleasant afternoon, Brandon noticed an annoying pattern. At first, he thought he was on par with the guys.
But before long he heard Ben snicker, “Brandon, check it out. Mine’s bigger.”
“Shut up, man.”
Before he knew what happened exactly, the guys were doing laps around him! Ben had the big, happy family. Lee met his wife at age six. What did Brandon have?
Them, he realized.
Despite whatever cruel twist of fate that cursed him to be consistently striking out lately, at least Lee and Ben never made him feel like a loser for it. Brandon understood their “ride or die” promise a little better with this in mind.
Pretty soon the more Brandon lost this afternoon the funnier it became. He was the one who started the laughter that bellowed from the men over the water, scaring the fish and cracking through the depressive shell Brandon was stuck in since graduation.
In the end, it just made his own victory all the sweeter.
High school graduation wasn’t usually a big deal in Whibley with class sizes as small as they were. This year, however, the Hill twins had successfully convinced their mayor-father to let them host a grad party in the Government House ballroom which catapulted the pair into being the most popular girls of their class. They wore invisible tiaras as the unspoken and uncontested prom queens of the evening.
Meanwhile, everyone else got ready as much as they could. Not a single soul among the graduating class felt ready for the end of high school, the beginning of university, or the short liminal months that separated them from now and their unforeseeable future.
Nonetheless, grad remained a very special day for teens and parents alike!
“Lee, sweetheart,” his mother Michi Sato chuckled, “are you sure you two don’t want to open your eyes?”
Ben applauded from the sidelines. “Lookin’ soulful, man!”
With his eyes still closed, the goth son answered, “No, Mom, this is what we want. Take the picture.”
His father Gen counted down, “Oookay. Three, two…”
“Our turn next,” Ben winked. “What pose d’you guys wanna do?”
Kate asked unhelpfully, “What?”
But Brandon answered, “I got an idea.”
“Get down, Mr. President!”
The room erupted in sweet laughter.
Once Gen snapped the picture he stepped back and laughed along with the rest of the room.
Michi couldn’t help but swoon at the adorable sight. “Aww, that’s so sweet! It’s like you’re Kate’s bodyguards!”
Lifting the confused, whimpering pup up, Kate asked, “I thought the president was Winston?”
Ben scratched his neck. “Me too, wasn’t it obvious? I mean, mister president.”
“Y-yeah,” Brandon awkwardly cut in, “sorry Mrs. Sato, but I was actually referring to your dog.”
The mother felt terrible for making things awkward but thankfully there were a few knocks at the front door. “Oh good! I mean—ahem. Oh, good, that’ll be your father, Ben. Could you grab the door please?”
Max Green announced himself with, “Hey, party people! Your party wagon has officially arrived, heh. Ready to go?”
The teens eagerly shuffled out the door as Michi sighed after them, “Have a good time,” hoping all of her embarrassed anxiety might be expelled in a single breath.
“Thanks again for taking them, Max. As long as they come home in one piece, doesn’t matter to us how late things get. Have fun tonight!”
“You can count on it, Gen. Let’s go kids!”
[The couple starts with City and Colour’s “We Found Each Other in the Dark,” then they welcome crowd suggestions for a peculiar fantasy combination of Dallas Green vocals and rhythm guitar with Jimi Hendrix lead guitar mastery. Lol. Idk. Don’t ask me, I just work here.]
Ben Parker Ward was elated to call out, “Lee! You made it!”
“’Course, man!”
“Lookin’ sharp, dude! Shirt looks great on you.” (The boys coordinated outfits for the occasion.) “And, hey—new do?”
“Yeah,” Lee beamed, “got this and grad comin’ up so Jo cleaned me up.”
“Love it! I love you!”
Lee laughed along happily when he returned, “Love you too, man!”
Behind them, Brandon W. squirmed a little at his friends’ casual use of such an important phrase.
Lee’s parents caught up with them then. “Hi boys!” Genji waved.
Brandon couldn’t help but notice their sickeningly adorable matching outfits when he sheepishly waved back. “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Sato.”
Michiyo was eager to ask, “Ben, sweetie, where’s your mother? I need to thank her for inviting us.”
And Ben was eager to answer, “It’s the reception! Party time, haha! Everyone’s welcome now!”
“She’s over there by the ice cream cart.” Lee nodded in the correct direction.
As Michi and Gen wandered over to a smiling and waving Amy, Brandon kicked sand around.
Ben asked, “Uhh, Brandon? Somethin’ wrong, bro?”
“Huh? No.”
“Whatever you say.”
Richard approached the teens next and greeted them with his cool, deep voice: “Hey kids, you ready for our little gig tonight? Think Max is gonna kick things off soon.”
Ben enthusiastically answered for all of them: “Oh yeah! We’re so stoked, Dad!”
“Guess that answers that, hey?” he chuckled in Brandon’s direction, who smiled weakly in return unsure how else to reply.
Likewise, Lee also felt a little starstruck looking up at Richard Ward in his newly married radiance.
“Rich!”
It was Claude Rousseau and his family Sophie, Jonathan, and Deryck.
Richard left the teens with a brief, “Excuse me, kids,” and happily greeted the latest new arrivals behind them: “Rousseaus! Glad you could make it, just in time too.”
Meanwhile, Ben asked his friends, “You guys wanna stay here and be close up, or go on the deck for a better view of everythin’?”
“I don’t care,” Brandon answered with melancholic honesty.
“You better make the call Ben,” Lee told him.
“Ground zero it is then!”
“I’m petting him! I’m petting him!”
The terrier hummed a soft growl from his small chest.
“Well done, son. I think he likes you.”
Naomi Sato laughed and shook her head a little. “I can’t believe Winston likes Lee first already, that’s just so typical.”
With a head shake of his own their father Genji replied, “How can that be? Winston likes everyone the same, we only just got him.”
“My replacement more like. At least Lee will have someone his own size to talk to for a change.”
“You’re being mean!” Lee whined.
Gen frowned. “I agree, that wasn’t very nice.”
“Oh, well! I gotta go now anyways,” she said getting up.
Just as the three of them stood in unison, Gen crossed his arms and said, “Just a second Naomi. Going to the farm again?”
“Yeah,” she shrugged.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time out there. How come Dallas doesn’t visit you, hm? Why is it that you’re the one always going over there?”
She avoided eye contact when she answered, “It just makes more sense this way.”
“A-huh. You’re not doing anything you’re not supposed to, right?”
“Dad.”
“College starts soon, you know that, right? This ought to be the last time before—”
“—before I move to RBU, I know. Can I go now? I’ll be back in time for dinner.”
As Genji Sato and his aunt Naoko Sakamoto stood over his mother’s gravestone, Gen tried to reconcile his feelings out loud: “Maybe this is a kind of forgiveness, too.” They had made the uncomfortable decision to bury Sandra between her husband Haruki and her mother Mimi Sakamoto, the symbolic pillar causes of their family’s near-destruction. While Gen strongly believed his mother indulged in ignorance as a bystander to his father’s crimes, it also pained him to think that she would be eternally stuck between the two worst people to her. But then, “She tried her best, I think.”
Naoko didn’t comment on her nephew’s sentiment. There was plenty that could’ve been done differently, plenty that still haunted her despite being newly absolved for the shared sins as Haruki, but it was hard to deny that Sandra’s efforts at the end of her life had actually helped set their family on a better path.
“I’m sorry Keiko didn’t want to be here,” Naoko said quietly. Her sister had a heart attack, sudden and deadly just like what brought down their mother Mimi. Naoko’s own heart now gripped a dreadful fear of inheriting this destiny too. Here one day, gone the next; life is too short for grudges! How could she make Keiko realize just how little time they all have together?
Gen scratched his head and mumbled something sounding like “hmm” instead of responding. He was on an internal quest to remember every good memory he had of just him and his mother. There were a few, but not many, so guilt began to seep into his mind over wasting so many years estranged.
“Got anything to add?” Michiyo Sato asked flatly.
Her husband Genji scrambled: “Hm? What?” He worried she was mad at him for snacking before supper.
“Laundry,” she explained.
“Oh! No, I don’t.”
Entering the adjacent living room, Michi was greeted with her children fighting.
Lee cried, “But it’s myyy turrrn!”
“Shut UP! God!” his sister groaned.
Their tired mother pleaded, “Naomi, let your brother play too please.”
“Fine, but only after my turn’s over.”
Lee whined, “What!? But Mom said I can play!”
“I’m almost done, just wait.”
“But I’ve been waiting!”
Michi listened to the siblings continue to bicker even as she entered their basement laundry room.
Then she heard Gen try to intervene: “Hey, what did your mother just tell you two?”
“Ha-ha,” Lee taunted.
“Ugh! You guys always take his side.”
“You know that’s not true, Naomi.”
That’s when she heard a loud, ominous thud come from Sandra Sato’s bedroom. Michi froze in silent terror waiting for another sound to calm her racing heart, but all she could hear was more commotion upstairs:
“Booyah! That’s what’cha get, yah little twerp.”
“Don’t call me that!”
“Play nice,” their father sighed.
“Sandra?” she asked timidly. But much to her discomfort, there was no response.
“Oh no!”