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Until today, I thought she had died. None of the memories I have when discussing families include a conversation where he said she died. So all these years I assumed.
Lakeshia sidles beside me. “Why does your mother want our baby to die?”
Rage, instant and hot, flares inside me. Maybe this is why he never mentioned her, and if it isn’t I don’t care. She’s lucky I wasn’t at the store or she wouldn’t have walked out alive after threatening our child.
Shinji unfolds himself and scrubs his face. “I never wanted to talk about this. Grrr.” He launches from his seated position to cross the room. He stops at the wall, contemplating it in silence for a few seconds.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
He repeatedly slams his fist into the wall, creating a crater that becomes a small hole that grows larger with each hit.
Meanwhile, I stare dumbfounded, grappling with his revelation. Shinji has been my constant for so long. He’s my rock when I have no support, my light when darkness surrounds me, my heart when I think I need to be a stone. Yet all the years of knowing him, he’s still a stranger.
He switches his fist to his head, pounding his forehead on the surface. A red smear appears, and Lakeshia rushes to his side to rub circles into his back. His shoulders slump and he exhales in defeat. “I used to have a brother. We were inseparable.” He slides down the wall to sit on the floor, defeated in a way I’ve never seen him. “Although my brother and I were identical twins, our personalities were like night and day. Even our hairstyles were different. I wore mine long. He wore his this way.” He points to his closely shaven head.
Learning his brother, who he shared a face with, had short hair explains the times I caught Shinji staring at his reflection. Sorrow and regret hung from him, and I mistakenly took his reaction to be from the trauma of having his hair forcibly cut. I can’t imagine looking in the mirror every day and seeing a face I shared with someone who’s no longer alive.
“Was he serious like Takeshi?” Lakeshia wipes the last of the blood from Shinji’s face.
He shifts into a more comfortable looking position. “Believe it or not, I was the one with a temperament closer to Takeshi’s. Fumio was more like the me you know today. I changed after he died. Tried to remember him through being more like him, following his interests.”
Shinji pointedly looks at me. “The music stuff, that’s all Fumio. He loved every aspect of music. Even if he had no vision for his life, he was adamant it would center instruments.”
I swallow, silently thanking Fumio for his impact. If not for Shinji’s desire to honor his brother, I never would have met him, my life would remain colorless and joyless.
Lakeshia pats the blood from his face with the edge of her sleeve.
I join them, wanting to pull Shinji in my arms but understanding he’s not ready for comfort yet. “What happened?”
“He went to a frat party and I didn’t go with him. I wanted to study. Organic chem was kicking my ass, but if I wanted a chance at becoming a good doctor, I had to do well in all my science classes. Fumio…” Shinji’s lips twitch, but any semblance of humor from whatever memory he’s revisiting doesn’t last long. “Fumio didn’t have the responsibilities and expectations I had. We were twins but he was the baby, born fifteen minutes after me. A free spirit no one could contain.”
“I bet he got you into tons of trouble.”
He smiles at Lakeshia’s comment. “Only the good kind. Whatever Fumio was a part of, everyone laughed. But that was when we were in our perfectly protective world. College was anything but, and he learn—we all learned the price of not taking college life seriously.”
Although he may not be ready for comfort, I pull him from the wall and loosely hold him. His ominous tone portends something difficult, maybe dark, but definitely traumatic for him.
“Campus security found his body the next morning in the Quad. He’d been beaten to death because not everyone knew we shared a face.”
“Are you saying you were their intended target?” I ask. “Did they catch the people who did? They confessed?”
“Not even. The university worked hard to suppress everything related to Fumio’s death.”
“Then how do you know you were?—”
“Because,” Shinji interrupts Lakeshia, his emotions growing more bleak. “I’ve been openly bi my whole life but Fumio was as straight as they come.” When Lakeshia and I give him equally blank stares, he pulls out of my arms to hug himself. “The assholes who murdered him brutally sodomized him and they left a flute inside him.”
“Is that why your mother blames you for his death?” Lakeshia covers her mouth to silence a sob. This entire time, silent tears have dripped down her chin, but with everything Shinji has gone through getting worse the more he shares, she can’t hold back any longer.
I’m also having trouble controlling the warring instincts inside me. I want to find and destroy everyone responsible for my husband’s current state, even if everyone includes his mother.
“That and I was the older brother. One of my responsibilities was to protect him, and I failed.”
Lakeshia wipes the moisture from her face and squares her shoulders. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Takeshi is going to run you a hot bath. Then, we’re going to discuss how your brother would be so proud of the present you.”
I arch my brow at her take-charge tone. I like it. And the sexy aura surrounding her. But now’s not the time to dwell on my constant need for my wife.
She snaps her head toward the door, glaring me into action.
