Kira Kira

chapter 13

BECAUSE OF LYNN'S medical bills, soon my parents were getting behind on the mortgage. All they did was work. My mother came home only to sleep, and my father did not come home at all. Auntie or Mrs. Kanagawa stayed with Lynn and Sammy during the day when I was at school. My parents were so exhausted, I wasn't sure they even realized what arrangements we were making each day. Some days nobody stayed with us.

Most of the time Lynn slept, but anytime she was awake, she wanted attention. She wanted a bedpan, or food, or water, or sometimes just a little company. But sometimes she didn't know what she wanted. In fact, it seemed that at least once a day she didn't know what she wanted. That was the most exhausting thing. She would want me to read to her, and then she wouldn't like the book and would want me to read something else. And then she still wouldn't like the book and would want me to sing for her. But she wouldn't like that, either. My teacher had commented on the black circles under my eyes. A couple of mornings I even made myself coffee.

Sammy and I slept in the room with her now, because somebody needed to be with her all the time. Once, Lynn woke up in the middle of the night, the way she often did.

"Katie?" she said.

I almost never slept deeply anymore—as soon as she said my name, I always sat up immediately, no matter how tired I was. But that night I was completely exhausted. I could barely pull myself up.

"Katie?" she said, more impatiently.

"Uh-huh." I sat up. "Yeah, okay."

"I want some milk."

"Now? Are you sure?"

"What do you mean, am I sure? I want some milk."

I got up and went to the kitchen and brought back a glass of milk. I pulled her up and picked up the bolster from the floor and used it to support her back. She took one sip of milk and made a face. "Can I have water instead?"

"I thought you said you were sure!"

She looked as if she might cry. "I said I'm thirsty!" She dropped the cup to the floor. I just stood there a moment, watching her small rug soak up the milk.

I suddenly felt angry at her. "Dad had to buy you that rug, you know."

"I want water!"

I went to the kitchen and came back with water, a soapy dishrag, and a towel. I handed her the water without comment. Sammy's eyes were open wide, watching me. I cleaned up the rug.

Lynn cried out, "There's soap on this water glass!" She flung it to the floor.

I stared at the cup for a moment. Then I whipped around. "You're ruining everything!" I said. "We got a new house, and you're ruining everything! Mom and Dad worked so hard to get this house. You're ruining it!"

She looked really hurt for a moment, but then she got angry. She said, "I want milk."

I said, "No."

"I hate you."

"I hate you!"

Sammy said, "Katie?"

"Shut up!" I snapped at him, and he was still.

I finished cleaning up and got in bed. Sammy was still awake, staring at me. I told him to go to sleep. Lynn started to cry, but only for about fifteen minutes.

Then she started to make a soft, mournful, squeaky noise, kind of like "heeah . . . heeah . . . heeah," every time she exhaled. She didn't sound like Lynn, she sounded like an animal. Since she never seemed to inhale deeply anymore, her breathing was quick and shallow. She made the noise on and on, weakly. She didn't cry again, she just kept making the noise. It sounded really sad.

Sammy's face looked scared in the glow from the Rabbit on the Moon night-light Auntie Fumi had given Lynn.

I ignored my sister and brother, just lay there and listened to Lynnie in the dim light. Usually while I lay in bed, I liked to think of new things I could do for Lynnie. Maybe I could let her try my pillow to see if she liked it better. Or I could bring her a new cracker she'd never tried. Or maybe I could even find a new book that she'd never heard of and read it to her, even though she had heard of every book in the world. That night I knew that nothing I could do would make her feel better. So I lay in bed and listened to her mournful noise and didn't feel love or hate or anger or anything at all except despair.

For Thanksgiving weekend my parents needed a break from me and Sammy, and we needed a break from them. No one felt like eating turkey. My parents arranged for Uncle to take us on a camping trip. He took his kids camping almost every weekend, even when it rained. He called every Friday night and asked whether we wanted to come. We always said no. I wanted to stay with Lynn. But this time my parents made me go.

We left early on a Saturday morning. My parents seemed relieved to see us go. It made me surprised and guilty to find how glad I felt to get out of the house where everything reminded me of my sister. I felt guilty whenever I left my sister's side, but at the same time I could not be with her every moment. If I had been, I would have lost my mind. Maybe I was losing my mind. Sometimes, even just for three minutes, even when it was my turn to be with Lynnie, I had to step outside. I had to look at the sky. I had to be anywhere else but in that sad room with her.

In addition to Sammy and me, Uncle was bringing his family, my friend Silly, and his friend Jedda-Boy, a local land surveyor. Silly and I rode in the truck with Uncle. Amazingly, it was the same truck he had driven us to Georgia in years earlier. It didn't go more than twenty-five miles an hour, so Jedda-Boy's truck lost us in the first ten minutes. Unfortunately, Uncle had never been to our destination before. We were going to one of Jedda-Boy's favorite campsites. Uncle got lost and refused to stop for directions because, he kept saying, he knew the way, which he obviously didn't.

At one point we went down a small road that ended at a cliff. The truck got stuck and wouldn't back up. I could literally see down into a canyon before us. If we went forward, we would fall to our deaths. Then Lynn would miss me and might get sicker. Uncle wanted Silly and me to sit in the truck bed to get better traction. So she and I got in back and prayed that my uncle wouldn't go forward by accident.

The truck revved and revved and shook and shook, but it was still stuck. Then Uncle tried to explain to me how to use a clutch, so that I could back up the truck while he and Silly sat in the bed, since he was heavier than I was and would give us better traction. I couldn't figure out the clutch. In fact, at one point while I was learning, the truck jolted forward several inches. Uncle screamed a scream as high-pitched as a girl's and rammed his foot on top of mine on the brake. He taught Silly instead. She was like Lynn in that she could do anything, including crazy stuff like learning how to use a clutch.

Uncle and I climbed in back. Silly turned once to look at us. She crossed her fingers and then turned forward. The truck shook and rattled, and then we backed up.

Uncle was sweating. He seemed to think we would all be dead if he hadn't slammed his foot on mine. My toes still hurt. He looked at me with new respect, I guess over just how much trouble I was capable of causing. He got in and started driving again. We pulled around a corner, and I felt myself totter uncertainly and then lean into the door. He'd told me the door came loose sometimes. I tried to stop myself, but the door fell open. The next thing I knew, my back was scraping along rocks on the roadside.

Unbelievably, no one noticed, not even Silly. They rolled merrily along while I lay on the road and watched the truck recede. I screamed, "Wait for me!" In a moment the truck came slowly down the road from the opposite direction. I saw Silly point at me excitedly, and the truck pulled over. I got in the truck and refused to talk to Uncle Katsuhisa. My shirt was torn in back. Basically, there were already about a thousand things I could snitch on Uncle for if I wanted.

He seemed to realize that, because he handed me a piece of rice candy and said, "I'd like to give you this." I continued to shun him. "All right, then, here," he said. He handed me the whole pack of rice candy plus a Hershey's bar. I took the rice candy, handing the Hershey's bar to Silly.

"Now, don't you tell your parents you fell out of the truck."

"I won't."

He shook his head. "I still remember when I could bribe you for half a stick of gum."

At the campgrounds Jedda-Boy had already set up camp. When I started to tell the story of the cliff, Uncle frowned at me, so I didn't say anything. He smiled innocently at Auntie Fumi.

David, Daniel, Silly, and I ran off to play a game we called Hunter and Hunted with water guns. At first I hadn't felt like playing, but they begged me. Silly and I chose to be the deer first; David and Daniel would hunt us with their water guns. I found I loved pretending to be a deer, loping through the forest as the boys counted to one hundred. Silly and I moved as quickly and quietly as we could. We had to balance our movements between speed and noise. Silly was like an animal, with perfect animal instincts about where to go and how to move gracefully. We heard David and Daniel call out, "Here we come, deer!"

I thought I could feel the blood rushing through my body. For a moment I forgot I was human. We moved very quietly. Then we stopped moving and just listened. We couldn't hear a thing. Suddenly, there was a huge crashing nearby, and we crashed away in the opposite direction. I found myself laughing crazily as I ran. I felt so free!

Silly and I split up in different directions. I heard Daniel yelling, "I'll get Silly!" I ran desperately through the woods. There was a sudden open area, and I ran and ran across. I felt like a real deer, graceful and fast. I saw an arc of water by my side. It missed me! Then water splattered on my head. I collapsed to the ground and groaned the way I thought an animal might. David ran up and put his foot on my stomach and pounded his chest and said, "For I am the greatest hunter alivel"

We turned to watch Silly running into the woods chased by Daniel. In a minute he came out of the woods looking confused. He stood still to listen. David and I helped him look for Silly. About ten minutes later we still hadn't found her. Daniel yelled, "Ollie, Ollie, ocean free!" Silly appeared right where we'd just come from. I was so proud of her.

Then it was the boys' turn to be the deer. They went to hide. We didn't chase them. Instead, we returned to camp to play cards in our tent. We were so funny! When the boys finally figured out where we were, they refused to speak to us. So we refused to speak to them.

David said, "How can you not speak to us when you're the ones who played the trick?" But we didn't answer because we weren't speaking to them!

When night approached, Uncle made us a fire, and I lay near it and felt the heat on my body. I stared at the sky, as I had done so many times with my sister. I was surprised to realize that I hadn't thought of my sister for nearly an hour—the whole time we were playing and about half an hour after. That was the longest I hadn't thought about her for a while. I felt refreshed, as if I could now sit with her for ten years straight if necessary to help her get well.

Auntie and Sam sat next to me. David, Daniel, and Silly were playing some game. Uncle and Jedda-Boy took a couple of surveying instruments and discussed mud and sand and other important surveying matters. Jedda-Boy was talking about how once when he lived in Nevada, he got helicoptered to a secret location to measure some land. The land was in the desert near where nuclear bomb tests had been held. He finished the job even though the area was probably radioactive, because a self-respecting surveyor always finishes a job no matter what it involves, including, he said, wild dogs, gunshots from angry neighbors mixed up in a property dispute, snakes and alligators, and radioactivity.

I said quietly, "Auntie, when is Uncle Katsuhisa going to quit his job at the hatchery and become a land surveyor?"

She pushed back my hair and said sadly, "Sweetheart, nobody in Georgia is going to hire a Japanese man to be a land surveyor."

"How do you know?"

"He's been turned down for five jobs."

"But he can be whatever he wants. Lynn is going to be either a rocket scientist or a famous writer."

"It's different for you children. You're younger, the world is changing."

Jedda-Boy was talking loudly. "The first time I got chased by an alligator, I was scared, I admit that. But I finished the job later."

Sammy smiled serenely and looked at the beautiful sky. Lynn liked to say the stars were the ultimate thing you could describe as kira-kira. The second most ultimate thing was the way the sun glittered off the ocean. Of course, she had never seen this, but she could imagine exactly how it would look.

Uncle came and sat down with us. I said, "Uncle, can't you become a land surveyor?"

He drank from his canteen and wiped his mouth. He didn't answer for a long time. Everyone was quiet. After a time he said, "I remember that when I was a boy, I thought I was going to grow up and map the world."

Auntie stroked his face.

Uncle saw Sammy gazing at the sky, and he looked at the sky too. "Would you look at those stars! I can really see how the ancient Egyptians or whoever the hell it was said, 'Goddamnit, let's name those goddamn stars and go down in history!'"

I didn't know what the ancient Egyptians had said, but I doubted they had said exactly that.

Uncle's face got wistful as he stared into the sky. Auntie kissed his face. He put his arm around her, and they leaned against each other. I saw in their faces how happy they were, and sad, too, because Uncle Katsuhisa would never be a land surveyor.

New Year's is the biggest holiday of the year for the Japanese. Every year since we'd lived in Georgia, Mrs. Muramoto held a big party. She served sake and mochi and a couple dozen different snacks. We would usually stay until about ten and then go home. Just before dawn I would get up and write down my hatsu-yume, first dream of the new year. Then we would meet the other families and go to the empty lot nearby with our lawn chairs to watch the sunrise. Watching the first sunrise is the traditional way to celebrate New Year's in Japan. The last few years, though, nobody had bothered getting up for the sunrise. The fathers were all too tired for such a celebration.

Mrs. Kanagawa stayed with Lynn and Sammy while I went to Mrs. Muramoto's for just half an hour before returning to sit with Lynn. Mrs. Kanagawa told me Lynn had been very peaceful. We made quiet small talk about the party, and then Mrs. Kanagawa left. Lynn continued to sleep, her breath catching heart-breakingly, as if breathing had become a hardship for her body. Her hair had grown stringy. I moved a strand of hair from her forehead, then pulled a chair to the window and spied on Mr. and Mrs. Miller's party next door. It was quite a bit noisier than the party at Mrs. Muramoto's. Everybody seemed drunk. All at once the men started to put bows on their foreheads and run out the front door. I had no idea what they were doing. I hurried into the alcove and peeked out our front window. The men ran down the street shouting "Happy New Year!" with the bows on their foreheads. Even though I was in a sad mood, I couldn't help smiling at these crazy white people.

I went into the kitchen and called my parents at the party and told them Lynn was sleeping peacefully. Someday when Lynn got better, we were going to get her a phone for the bedroom. Gregg and Amber both used to call all the time, so when she got better and made more friends, she would need a phone.

I put on my pajamas around 11:30 and lay on the floor next to Lynn's bed. The Rabbit on the Moon looked so pretty shining in the outlet.

"Katie?" Lynn said softly. She hadn't talked all day.

I sat up. "Yes?"

'You have to try to get better grades. Promise?"

"Okay."

"You should go to college. Promise?"

"I'll think about it."

"Promise?"

'Yes."

"Take care of Mom and Dad and Sammy."

"Okay, I promise." I hesitated. "When you get better, you can help me take care of them."

"Okay, I promise." She laughed very softly, almost soundlessly.

The phone rang, and she seemed to perk up a bit. But it stopped after just one ring, and she seemed to deflate. It was amazing that as sick as she was, she could still be interested in something as small as the ring of a phone.

She groaned suddenly. "Can we open the window?"

I jumped up to open the window. She closed her eyes, and I sat next to the bed and stared at her. Her skin looked almost purely white, like the white of the ghost of Brenda I'd seen at the swamp. She opened her eyes again.

"It's too dark in here," she said.

I turned on the light. A little brown moth flitted in. It wasn't big, not even an inch long. It landed on the ceiling. Lynn stared at it. Then it flitted toward the lamp and away again. Lynn kept watching. For a moment the party next door quieted down. Our room was so quiet, I could just make out the sound of the moth's wings. Lynn didn't move, except for her eyes. Her eyes moved this way and that as she watched the moth. It was strange because although her eyes showed no emotion or interest, she must have been interested in order to be watching the moth so closely. She couldn't take her eyes off that little bug as it sailed across the room and back again, across and back. And then I thought I saw something in her eyes, some emotion or interest, but I wasn't sure what it was.

The moth settled down, and she went to sleep. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep on the floor with the lights on. I didn't like to sleep in my bed because it was too far from Lynnie, several feet away.

For some reason my mother didn't make me go back to my cot that night. I couldn't sleep deeply, so I didn't have a hatsu-yume. When it was almost sunrise, I sat up and watched Lynn sleep for a few minutes. Then I took a lawn chair and a blanket down to the empty lot on the corner. I was alone. I thought about getting dressed, but I wasn't expecting to see anybody. I stared east, at the giant tire over the tire store across from the lot. The giant tire looked just like the giant doughnut over the doughnut store on Main Street, except that the tire was black and the doughnut was brown.

It was cold out. Here are the sounds I heard:

We lived below what Georgians called the gnat line, meaning all the gnats in the world lived in town with us. My uncle claimed that more bugs lived per square mile in southern Georgia than anywhere in the state. Even in winter, there were bugs.

Those were the only noises.

Here are the things I saw:

I cried and cried. For a while as I cried I hated my parents, as if it were their fault that Lynn was sick. Then I cried because I loved my parents so much.

Then I didn't feel like crying anymore. I just felt barren, my eyes felt dry. The sky was still gray. Everything was gray, the sky and the store and even my hand when I held it out in front of myself. I wondered if anyone else in history had ever been as sad as I was at that moment. As soon as I wondered that, I knew the answer was yes. The answer was that millions of people had been that sad. For instance, what about the people of the great Incan city of Cuzco, which was ransacked by foreigners in the sixteenth century? I wrote a paper about that for school. And then there were all the millions of people in all the many wars throughout history and throughout the world, and all the millions of people with loved ones killed by millions of other people.

A lot of people had been as sad as I was. Maybe a billion of them had been this sad. As soon as I realized this, I felt like I was no longer a little girl but had become a big girl. What being a big girl meant exactly, I wasn't sure.

I watched a swatch of the sky turn red. The red spread like blood in the sea: red, red, red, and then less and less red, until there was only blue left. I squinted as the sun rose. I must have fallen asleep, because when I woke up, my father was carrying me into the house. Sam walked beside us carrying the lawn chair, which seemed almost as big as he was.

Inside the living room my father laid me on my cot. "She's gone," he said.