December 1985
Dear Momoko,
Thanks for the letter. It finally caught up to me here in Portland. Paul and I decided to get married after all. He got a job at the University of Oregon, and I came here to be with him. I’m back in school, working on my master’s and teaching part-time. Rents are a lot cheaper than in Berkeley, but it rains a lot. Phoenix is one now, and he is so beautiful. I wish you could see him.
December 1987
Dear Mom,
You didn’t tell me that Lloyd had a second heart attack in ’83. Is that why you didn’t come to my graduation? You don’t have to answer that. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, I’m glad that he was okay. He sure is lucky, isn’t he? You don’t have to answer that either.
Phoenix is doing great. He’s three now, and I’ve got him in preschool, which hopefully will give me a chance to finish my master’s thesis. It’s called “Fading Blossoms, Falling Leaves: Visions of Transience and Instability in the Literature of the Asian-American Diaspora.” Basically, it’s about the way images of nature are used as metaphors for cultural dissolution.
Are you still doing the garden and selling seeds? My love of plants is purely poetic, and Paul thinks it’s funny the way I kill anything I actually try to grow. His interest is purely scientific, so we balance each other out. He’s doing well, by the way. He got a job offer in the plant-breeding program at the U of Texas, so we may have to move to Dallas. Yuck.
May 1989
Dear Mom,
Well, it’s final. I got my master’s, and Paul and I are getting a divorce. I guess I should have seen it coming. The good news is that he’s finally getting tenure, so he can pay child support. I’ll need it—the pay scale for the kind of adjunct teaching gigs I can get is for shit. Anyway, I’m sick of Texas, and I’m thinking of moving someplace with a larger Asian presence, so Phoenix doesn’t have to grow up twisted. I think I may have a chance at a teaching fellowship at the University of Hawaii, where I could work on my Ph.D. Wouldn’t that be exotic?
August 1992
Dear Momoko and Lloyd,
I’m writing to tell you of the birth of your first granddaughter, Ocean Eugenia, born on June 21—a summer-solstice child. I’m sending you a picture. She has Fuller eyes. I’m living in Honolulu now. Phoenix and I are living with Ocean’s father in a great house on the beach. He runs a surf shop. I’m still working on my degree and teaching, but it’s more laid back here, and maybe I’ve got a better attitude. Paul used to say that adjunct teaching was like any economy of scale, and you just have to treat it like farming potatoes—standardize your product, increase your volume, work the margins, and make sure your courses are cosmetically flawless. Whatever. It’s really so beautiful here, and as long as the kids are happy, it’s okay for now.
Aloha,
Yumi
February 1997
Dear Momoko and Lloyd,
Well, I haven’t heard from you for a really long time, so here’s the news: Whether you like it or not, you have a new grandson. If you want to know his name, you can write and ask me.
Yumi
P.S. This is the last one you are going to get.
December 3, 1998
Dear Cassie,
Wow. Is this really you? I got your e-mail and then your letter. Thank you for telling me about Lloyd and Momoko. I’ve been wondering what’s been going on with them, and this explains why she stopped writing. I hope they’re still okay?
Anyway, I went back and forth about your suggestion—I have some pretty complex feelings about my parents, as you can imagine—but I’ve decided I should see them. I can take a month off during winter break, so I’ll be arriving in Pocatello before Christmas. I’ll e-mail you with the date and times. Do you think you could pick me up at the airport?
It will be interesting to see each other, don’t you think? After all these years?
second
And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind . . .
—Genesis 1:12
frank
It was the first of December, and a cold wind blew off Erie. Frank pushed his skateboard into the wind, cursing it dispassionately, almost by rote so that the curses marked the rhythm of his momentum, driving him forward. Fuckin’ wind—, fuckin’ wind—, and on the fuck his foot hit the ground, and on the in’ it kicked off and came back onto the board, and he was able to glide for the duration of the wind, sometimes drawing the word out longer when he hit a rare patch of smooth asphalt, clear of potholes and gravel. The frontage road was for shit, but at four-thirty in the morning, riding his skateboard under the hazy orange glow of the road lights, Frank had the whole place to himself, and the wind was freedom.
Over beyond on the highway, the big semis careened past with a whine that sounded like missile fire, and who could blame them for not stopping in this shithole suburb of Ashtabula? Like, how could you even have a suburb of nothing? Even his McDonald’s wasn’t twenty-four hours.
Mist from the lake dulled the golden arches. Frank ollied up on the curb, then, just for practice, he jumped and ground out against the cement pylon that supported the sign, flipping the board and coming down hard. The board got away from him. He caught it and tried again, making the landing this time. It was going to be a great day. When he rounded the corner to the service entrance, he stopped short, slamming his foot into the ground.
Something was parked way back in the lot, over by the Dumpster. It was centered in the circle of light from the security lamp, but shrouded in mist. Frank skated in closer. It had the unmistakable shape of a Winnebago, boxy and inelegant, but the body of the vehicle was covered with pop-riveted patches of tin and aluminum, like scales, while its roof had been shingled with some sort of dark, rectangular paneling. A conning tower rose from the roof. It looked like a robotic armadillo, a road-warrior tank, a huge armored beetle—it was the most radical thing Frank Perdue had ever seen.
He veered around to the front. The conning tower clocked around to follow him.
“Hey!” he called out, getting ready to fly.
A door on the side of the vehicle creaked opened, and a figure emerged. He was skinny, wearing army-surplus pants and a ragged sweater with a knitted vest on top. His dirty blond hair was matted into finger-thick dreadlocks that hung down the middle of his back. His ears were pierced with a cluster of silver earrings. Frank relaxed. The