film of dust that floated, suspended momentarily in the air as the hotel owner twirled the fragile-looking artifact for the cameras. Two more men brought up a steamer trunk bearing the stickers of foreign ports: Admiral Oriental Lines out of Seattle and Yokohama, Tokyo. On the side of the trunk was the name Shimizu, hand-painted in large white letters. It was opened for the curious crowd. Inside were clothing, photo albums, and an old electric rice cooker.
The new hotel owner explained that in the basement she had discovered the belongings of thirty-seven Japanese families who she presumed had been persecuted and taken away. Their belongings had been hidden and never recovered--a time capsule from the war years.
Henry stared in silence as a small parade of wooden packing crates and leathery suitcases were hauled upstairs, the crowd marveling at the once-precious items held within: a white communion dress, tarnished silver candlesticks, a picnic basket--items that had collected dust, untouched, for forty-plus years. Saved for a happier time that never came.
The more Henry thought about the shabby old knickknacks, the forgotten treasures, the more he wondered if his own broken heart might be found in there, hidden among the unclaimed possessions of another time. Boarded up in the basement of a condemned hotel. Lost, but never forgotten.
Marty Lee
(1986)
Henry left the crowd at the Panama Hotel behind and walked to his home up on Beacon Hill. It was not so far back as to have a scenic overlook of Rainier Avenue, but in the more sensible neighborhoods just up the street from Chinatown. A modest three-bedroom home with a basement--still unfinished after all these years. He'd meant to finish it when his son, Marty, went away to college, but Ethel's condition had worsened and what money they'd saved for a rainy day was spent in a downpour of medical bills, a torrent that lasted nearly a decade. Medicaid kicked in near the end, just in time, and would even have covered a nursing home, but Henry stuck to his vow: to care for his wife in sickness and in health. Besides, who'd want to spend their last days in some state-owned facility that looked like a prison where everyone lived on death row?
Before Henry could answer his own question, Marty knocked twice on the front door and walked right in, greeting him with a casual "How you doing, Pops," and immediately headed for the kitchen. "I'll be right out, don't get up, I just gotta get a drink-
-I hoofed it all the way from Capitol Hill--exercise you know, you should think about a little workout yourself, I think you've put on some weight since Mom died."
Henry looked at his waistline and mashed the mute button on the TV He'd been watching the news for word on today's discovery at the Panama Hotel, but heard nothing.
Must have been a busy news day. In his lap was a stack of old photo albums and a few school annuals, stained and mildew-smelling from the damp Seattle air that cooled the concrete slab of Henry's perpetually unfinished basement.
He and Marty hadn't talked much since the funeral. Marty stayed busy as a chemistry major at Seattle University, which was good, it seemed to keep him out of trouble. But college also seemed to keep him out of Henry's life, which had been acceptable while Ethel was alive, but now it made the hole in Henry's life that much larger--like standing on one side of a canyon, yelling, and always waiting for the echo that never came. When Marty did come by, it seemed like the visits were only to do his laundry, wax his car, or hit his father up for money--which Henry always gave, without ever showing annoyance.
Helping Marty pay for college had been a second battlefront for Henry, if caring for Ethel had been the first. Despite a small grant, Marty still needed student loans to pay for his education, but Henry had opted for an early retirement package from his job at Boeing so he could care for Ethel full-time--on paper, he had a lot of money to his name.
He looked downright affluent. To the lenders, Marty was from a family with a decent bank account, but the lenders weren't paying the medical bills. By the time his mother passed, there had been just enough to cover a decent burial, an expense Marty felt was unnecessary.
Henry also didn't bother to tell Marty about the second mortgage-- the one he'd taken out to get him through college when the student loans ran dry. Why make him worry? Why put that pressure on him? School is hard enough as is. Like any good father, he wanted the best for his son, even if they didn't talk all that much.
Henry kept staring at the photo albums, faded reminders of his own school days, looking for someone he'd never find. I try not to live in the past, he thought, but who knows, sometimes the past lives in me. He took his eyes off the photos to watch Marty amble in with a tall glass of iced green tea. He sat on the couch for a moment, then moved to his mother's cracked faux-leather recliner directly across from Henry, who felt better seeing someone ... anyone, in Ethel's space.
"Is that the last of the iced tea?" Henry asked.
"Yup" was Marty's reply, "and I saved the last glass for you, Pops." He set it on a jade coaster next to Henry. It dawned on Henry how old and cynical he'd allowed himself to become in the months since the funeral. It wasn't Marty. It was him--he needed to get out more. Today had been a good start.
Even so, a mumbled "Thank you" was all Henry could muster.
"Sorry I haven't come by lately--finals were killing me, plus I didn't want to waste all that hard-earned money you and Ma paid to put my butt in college in the first place."
Now Henry felt his face flush with guilt as the noisy old furnace shut off, letting the house cool.
"In fact, I brought you a little token of my appreciation." Marty handed him a small lai see envelope, bright red, with shiny gold foil embossed on the front.
Henry took the gift with both hands. "A lucky-money envelope--you paying me back?"
His son smiled and raised his eyebrows. "In a way."
It didn't matter what it was. Henry had been humbled by his son's thoughtfulness.
He touched the gold seal. On it was the Cantonese character for prosperity. Inside was a folded slip of paper, Marty's report card. He'd earned a perfect 4.0.
"I'm graduating summa cum laude, that means with highest honor."
There was silence, nothing but the electric hum of the muted television.
"You all right, Pops?"
Henry wiped at the corner of his eye with the back of his callused hand. "Maybe
next time, I borrow money from you, " he replied.
"If you ever want to finish college, I'll be happy to front you the cash, Pops--I'll put you on scholarship."
Scholarship. The word had a special meaning for Henry, not just because he never finished college--though that might have been part of it. In 1949 he'd dropped out of the University of Washington to become an apprentice draftsman. The program offered through Boeing was a great opportunity, but deep down, Henry knew the real reason he dropped out--the painful reason. He had a hard time fitting in. A sense of isolation left over from all those years. Not quite peer pressure. More like peer rejection.