This is a story about a good man who loves two women. He lives the good life of a respected professor in a quiet college town on the United States West Coast. He loves his wife, his cottage garden and his academic routine. He is content. But when his new Japanese graduate assistant’s mother visits her son from Japan, the professor’s world is turned upside down. Memories that he thought he had forgotten or suppressed flood back, and his tranquility vanishes.
Genre: FICTION / Romance / GeneralModest
Kenji shifted uneasily in his chair. He drank from his cup. “You have never talked with me about Japan,” he said. “Most people ask me lots of questions. People who have been there want to practice their Japanese on me.”
David stood. He walked to the window and looked out.
“You have traveled to so many places, all over the world,” Kenji said. “You have so many pictures in your office and in your home. But you have never returned to Japan. You didn’t like Japan?”
David stared through the window. “I loved Japan,” he said softly.
“Why . . . why did you never go back?” Kenji looked intently at David.
David leaned on the windowsill. He looked outside, frowning, as if searching for something outside. Or inside.
“Maybe I’m afraid of ghosts.”
The silence was palpable. Kenji held his mug in his lap. The muffled chatter of two students in the hall rose and fell as they passed in front of the closed office door.
Kenji persisted. “I have not heard you speak a word of Japanese,” he said.
David turned from the window to face Kenji. Kenji shrank under David’s glare.
David relaxed. He leaned back and rested against the windowsill. He smiled.
