The Model Father

Chapter 12

“I’m home!” Jun called out as he entered the door to his apartment a few days later. He rolled his luggage by the foyer table and walked in the living room

“Jun, bambino, you’re back!” Auntie Em came out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on the apron. She grabbed Jun’s face with both hands and kissed his cheeks in greeting. “How was the flight? How was Venice? Oh, Venice.” She dramatically brought a hand over her chest and looking longingly into space. “Oh, Venice, I miss you.”

“Uh, Auntie Em,” Jun cleared his throat. “Where’s Kevin?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Auntie Em shrugged. “He hasn’t come home after school. It’s already 5:30. He’s probably at Mao's. That boy loves her like his own mother.” She grinned and winked knowingly at him. “And I know someone else who loves her, too.”

Jun chuckled as Auntie Em waddled back to the kitchen. I hardly think of her as my mother, Jun thought with a smirk.

“I make dinner for you, si?” she called back to him.

“Si, signora,” he called back. He took his luggage and headed to his room.

“Well, I guess I leave now,” Auntie Em said a few minutes later when Jun came back to the kitchen. “Dinner is ready on the stove, but little bambino hasn’t arrived yet.”

“I'll call Mao to see if he’s there,” Jun said, handing her an envelope with her payment. “Thanks again, Auntie Em. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Auntie Em accepted the envelope and kissed him again. “Bambino, I didn’t do it alone. Your Mao helped, too.” Jun walked Auntie Em to the door and as soon as the elevator closed, he dialed Mao’s number.

“Hey, I’m at home now,” he said when Mao answered. “Is Kevin with you?”

“No, he isn’t,” Mao’s reply suddenly brought Jun a sense of déjà vu. His pulse quickly spiked up.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m coming over now. Check the school. Maybe there’s a school event he forgot to mention.”

Jun did so, but the after office hours answering machine picked up his call. He hung up cursing, then called the front desk at the apartment lobby. The doorman hadn’t seen him, either.

“Hey, any luck?” Mao asked when Jun opened the door for her. Jun somberly shook his head and pulled her into a hug. Mao wrapped her arms around his torso and hugged back. Jun was slightly surprised when Mao laid her head on his chest, but he glad for it, even when she quickly pulled away.

“Um, I’m not sure, but I have a hunch,” she stammered, pulling a strand of hair behind her ears. “Um, Kevin said something about his mother days ago.”

“His mother?” Jun raised an eyebrow at her. “What about her?” Mao told him what Kevin had asked her days ago.

“Did he find her?” Jun’s voice raised a slight anger rising.

“I don’t know. He never talked about her again.”

Jun stomped past her and headed down the hall to Kevin’s room. Nothing was amiss, but when Jun opened the closet, some of his clothes were missing. The framed photo of Jin and Kevin was gone, too. Jun raked his fingers through his hair in frustration.

“Uh, Jun?”

“What?” he snapped at her, never realizing Mao had called him by name.

Mao handed him a piece of paper with Kevin’s handwriting.

“Hey, Uncle Jun,

I found Mommy’s email on Facebook. She said that it’s okay for me to go see her. I think it’s easier if I live with her instead ‘cuz I don’t want to bother you anymore. Your friends are mad that you can’t party with them anymore because you have to take care of me. I don’t want you to not have friends anymore. Well, bye, Uncle Jun. Tell Miss Mao I said bye.

Love, Kevin.”

Jun sunk on the bed. A mixture of hurt, sadness, anger, and relief simmered inside. He sprung to his feet and crumpled the note into a ball.

“Fine, that’s great. He can live with his mom,” Jun yelled, not caring how Mao cringed at the sudden burst of anger. “At least he’s gonna be well-fed. I wasn't doing a lot of jobs while he was around anyway.”

“You can’t possibly mean that,” Mao said. “You love that kid. You did everything you could to take care of him.”

“Oh, really?” Jun scoffed. “If I recall before I left for Venice that you said something otherwise. I was an unfit guardian, remember? I lost the kid one night. ‘Take responsibility, Mr. Matsumoto’ you said.”

“But you changed.” Mao touched his arm, but Jun moved it away from her grip. Taken aback, Mao retracted her hand.

“Well, then why did he leave?”

“Jun, you have to go get him back,” Mao said. “He could be hurt on his way to his mom’s. He could be scared. Or he could be-“

“He’s fine.” Jun mumbled. “He planned this all along, so he had thought all of this up. His mom might have helped him.”

Jun stormed out of the room with Mao tailing behind him. He took out his cell phone and dialed.

“Nari? Hey, man, where you at?” he said to his friend on the line. “I’m available. I’ll be there. I’m on my way. I seriously need a drink right now.”

“Where are you going?” Mao asked firmly. “Are you going to a party?”

“What’s it to you?” Jun retorted without looking back at her. Mao grabbed his arm, stopping him. Jun whipped around and glared at her. “Let go of my arm.” He growled close to her face.

“No.” Mao stared with determination into his eyes. “We need to go after Kevin. He might be out there somewhere on a bus feeling lost and alone. We need to find your kid.”

“He's not my kid!” Jun pulled his arm away from her. “He’s not my problem now. He wants to go back to his home. I don’t know how he succeeded in finding her when you people couldn’t, but he did. So back off.”

“Jun, you promised-“

“Look! Why are you still here? Don’t you have somewhere else to be? Kevin’s not here anymore, so why are you still here? We don’t have anything to do with each other anymore. What the hell are you still doing here?”

Mao’s jaw tightened as she tried to fight against the sting from those words. Without another word, she stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind her. In frustration, Jun threw his cell phone on the floor. The crash calmed him for a bit, but he sadly realized the broken pieces of the phone mimicked his broken feelings. Jun sunk blankly on his couch, burying his head in his hands and cried. He had been abandoned again by people he loved.