All The Things We Never Said

I

Kai

"Kai," my mother hisses, so low that I'm sure my sister and dad can't hear it through the screen on our video chat call. "Knock it off." Im not quite sure what she means until her eyes flicker down to my hands, which are tapping against the sides of my chair rhythmically. I made a new beat last night, and I can't get it out of my head.
I ignore the way her annoyed gaze pierces me out of the corner of her eyes, staring up at the ceiling of the living room. She returns her attention to my father, speaking to him in our native tongue. We only speak English here at home, so the fluid Japanese tumbling from her lips feels strange and out of place.
My sister appears in the frame at my fathers bedside, pouring him fresh water and adjusting the pillows behind his head. She mutters to him about how he should eat some of the food brought to him by the hospital staff to regain his strength. He thanks her with a gentle stroke of her hand and a kiss on the middle of her forehead. She perches next to him in the small space between his frail body and the safety rails on the edge of his bed, making casual conversation about the garden my mom has started on the side of our townhouse. Without looking up, I can feel her judgmental stare that so closely resembles my mother's trained on me, but I ignore that too.
It's selfish of me, I know, to be able to brush aside the reality of my fathers illness while Mayumi deals with it everyday, when she's all but quit her job to nurse him back to health because she doesn't trust the hospital staff to look after him properly.
     She's the daughter couples pray for when they decided to settle down and start a family. I'm not.
I'm the opposite. I'm the kind of kid parents dread, the kind that makes them second guess having children in the first place. I'm that negative thought floating in the back of their heads.
What if we get unlucky and give birth to a useless ingrate? What
     I can't bring myself to look at the screen for more than a few seconds at a time. It makes my chest ache, to see the mortality of a man who used to hoist me up on his shoulders when my legs got too tired on our hikes, a man who worked long, grueling hours to support our entire family so that mom could focus on finishing school.
     "Kaito will be taking his fall midterms soon," my mom says in Japanese, motioning to me sitting behind her left shoulder.
     "My classes are going well," I nod earnestly, before anyone has a chance to ask. It's a lie of course. I'm earning a C average at the moment, which isn't as bad as it could be, but it isn't good either. Music production is the only class I'm excelling in, and it isn't even a requirement for my Software Engineering major.
     I took the course for me, partially because it's the only thing I'm interested in, and partially because I needed a way to offset all of the mind numbing coding, the complicated algorithms, the never ending data entry.
     My dad nods slowly at this false admission like he believes me, but something in his unwavering gaze tells me he's not buying it. "Let me speak with my son alone for a moment."
My sister and my mom exchange concerned glances through the screen. They don't trust me not to say something stupid on my own, but they oblige anyway.
Mayumi scurries from the room to check on dads medication, while my mom mumbles behind me about not being able to find the heirloom tomato seeds she purchased from the local farmers market last week. I know she will be lurking just outside the room to hear our conversation.
I clear my throat, shifting my chair so it's in the middle of the webcam view. Not having any indication of why he would want to speak to me alone, I give a tight lipped smile, crossing my arms over my chest to appear at ease even though a million things are racing through my head.
My dad wastes no time with casual small talk, jumping straight into what's important to him. Am I focusing on the end goal with my schooling? Not at all. Am I doing my absolute best? Probably not. Am I doing everything I can to be a good son and help my mom out? Maybe not as much as I should be, but I'm trying. His last question makes guilt pool in the pit of my stomach.
     My mom is a pharmaceutical scientist. She works unimaginably long hours to research, produce, and test life saving medications and healthcare treatments for people suffering from chronic and incurable illness.
     It makes any of the computer programming work I do look like child's play, and the difference in how hard the two of us work isn't lost on me, so the least I can do is help her around the house. I handle most of the common area chores, the yard work, and cleaning up after and caring for our Corgi Princess Peach.
     Though my cooking skills are pretty abysmal, I even take care of making my own meals so she doesn't have to fuss over her almost adult son who can barely manage boiling pasta noodles.
     Still, to say I'm doing everything I can to make her life less stressful would be a stretch. I don't keep my room clean like I'm supposed to, I rarely check in with her to let her know where I am like she wants me to, I'm barely getting by in school, and I often avoid the extra responsibilities that the man of the house should take care of.
I think the worst of my offenses, the most unforgivable, is that even when I have free time, I set aside none of it to spend with my mom. Her job leaves her with no time to make friends, so other than me and my cousin who lives four hours away in Cambria and is rarely able to come visit, she has no one to fill her lonely hours.
     "Everything is good. Mom and I are good." It's another lie, but telling him anything different would earn me a disapproving shake of his head that says so much without saying anything at all. I wish you were more like your brother and sister. Being honorable children is everything to them. Why don't you care enough? Mind you, these are words my dad has never said aloud to me, but I feel them nonetheless. He nods again, his stoic expression accepting my colored truths.
"Try to stay home on Sunday nights instead of always going out with your friends. She misses you."
     That hits me like a punch straight to the chest, because when running down my list of reasons why I'm a useless son, I failed to think about how I've been neglecting our Sunday tradition of eating together for months now. It's really the only night a week my mom has at home, and rather than sit across from her and struggle to find things to talk about, I sit in a cloudy garage with friends who aren't really mine, smoking weed and playing video games.                Sometimes while I'm sinking into the oversized couch in Ollie's garage, I think about my mom sitting alone at our kitchen table, video chatting with her other kids to numb the loneliness and abandonment of my absence.
     I couldn't quite pinpoint when exactly our once close relationship started to drift, but if I had to guess, I'd say it was probably around the time mom started picking up forty-five hours a week or more. Her work became everything to her, and I'm not blind to the reasons why. All she's ever wanted to do is ease pain, to make a difference in the lives of people who can't help themselves. Even when she was done putting in work hours,  her pursuit of better health and deeper medical knowledge didn't let up. She'd switch from helping other families, to trying to help her own. She'd sit up until the wee hours of the night with her laptop screen illuminating her thin face, desperately researching my fathers rare blood disease to understand more because no one else could provide her answers that put her mind at rest, or gave her any hope for the future.
     I don't resent her for choosing her career over being a present mother. Hell, maybe if I had half of her dedication and commitment to something bigger than herself, I wouldn't be barely scraping through my second year of community college, studying a major I hate. I don't think about all of the hours she's spent away from home to throw a pity party for myself. It's not complaint on my part, It's just a clear cut reason why we are no longer winning awards for best mother-son relationship, why we have no common ground anymore and tip toe around each other.
     Despite the fact that we both know I'm not being entirely honest with him, he wishes me a good day at school, tells me a he loves me, and promises to call back at the same time tomorrow. My mom flutters back into the room to say her goodbyes just as I'm slinging my book bag over my shoulder and grabbing my keys from the hook by the front door.
     "Kai," she calls before I have a chance to slip outside into the cool fall morning air. I backtrack, my sneakers squeaking against the linoleum floor as I poke my head back into the living room. "I'm working late tonight and won't have time to go and get worm medication for Peach. Do you think you could-"
      "Yeah, sure, of course," I nod, wanting to play the role of the good son like I'm supposed to. "My last class ends at three thirty. I'll go right after that. Say goodbye to Yumi for me." She smiles at me, a genuine smile that tells me she's confident I'll stick to my word.
     "Have a good day," she waves. "I love you," she adds as a freezing cold gust of wind hits my face, making me zip my windbreaker farther up.
     "Love you too."