My husband, Yasushi, hasn’t spoken to me in a whole year. Not even a nod or a grunt. All I get are silent stares, clamped mouths, and stiff body postures.
I tried everything to squeeze words out of him.
Like begging.
“Please.” I hugged Yasushi’s leather shoe. “Just say one word—just one. About today’s baseball match. About your paperwork in the office. Anything.”
Failing that, I tried seduction.
“How about you take the day off tomorrow?” I teased, stroking his boxers on the bed. I was wearing my fishnet stockings. Yasushi’s favorite. “So I can ‘work’ on you the whole night?”
I didn’t even catch his eyes.
“I’ll do that toe thing that you like, tee-hee.”
When none of that worked, I relied on threats.
“Look, if you don’t say something, I’ll go to my parent’s house and stay there forever.”
From his desk, Yasushi stared at me with his large glassy eyes and frozen thick-lipped frown.
“And I’ll take your Play Station 4 with me!”
More watching and scowling.
“And those dirty magazines I found under the sofa.”
Nothing.
I threw a pillow at him and stormed out the living room. Although I had a short temper, I hated fights. I preferred to discuss problems. However, I couldn’t fix a communication issue with communication. I’d have more luck trying to clean mud with mud.
So, I decided to seek professional help. A quick Internet search led me to Tokyo Counselling Services, a team specialized in helping marriages thrive through reconciliation or separation. Honestly, couple therapy had never made sense to me. Why keep riding on a boat just to patch its holes?
But sometimes you love a boat so much, you stay in it even knowing it could sink. So much, you’d do everything you can to keep it afloat. I wanted mine to travel through the oceans.
* * *
“Your husband hasn’t spoken to you for a year?” Dr. Takahashi repeated, gawking at me with her round eyes.
“Or been intimate with me.”
“I see.” Dr. Takahashi squinted as though I’d revelated I had a terminal disease. “But Mrs. Mizushima?”
“Yes?” I said.
“I don’t want to be rude, but couple counseling only works when the two parties are present.”
“Well …” I glanced at the vacant space next to me on the couch. “If I could talk my husband into coming here, I wouldn’t need the therapy.”
“But I don’t think---”
“I don’t need your thoughts. I need your help!”
“Um, maybe what you need is anger management.”
“I don’t need stupid anger management!”
“Okay …” Dr. Takahashi picked up her pink phone and pressed it to her ear. “Security.”
“Wait, wait.” I waved my hands. “I’ll cool off. Sorry.”
Dr. Takahashi examined my face, finally setting down the phone with a sigh. “Okay, let’s start from the beginning.”
An awkward silence followed. At least the session would continue.
“So …” She scribbled on her glistening notepad. “Why do you think your husband stopped talking to you?”
“I’ve been asking myself that question for the last 368 days.”
“Any theories?”
“I can’t think of any,” I confessed. "I didn’t get on his nerves or cheat on him. Plus, the sex was terrific.”
"Sometimes satisfaction is one-sided …”
“You mean, I wasn’t actually good in bed?”
“I mean, maybe you’re the only one who thinks the relationship’s fine.”
I twisted my wedding ring around my finger, pondering. “We like to sleep together, but not literally sleep together. No matter what we do, we always wake up tangled up with each other’s limbs. Wake up sore.”
Dr. Takahashi cupped a giggle like a teenage girl. “So cute. I don’t think your husband cares so much.”
“Another problem is, I always misplace Yasushi’s things when I’m cleaning. Like his clothes, his watch—one time I even misplaced his glasses. I have a very bad memory.”
“Does he mind?”
I shook my head. “He finds it entertaining. Pretends it’s a treasure hunt.”
Dr. Takahashi held her thumb to her triangular chin. “You’re marriage seems perfect—this is going to take more work than I thought.”
* * *
“If spoken words don’t work,” Dr. Takahashi had told me in one of our sessions. “Why not try written ones?”
And so, while Yasushi was outside the house, I composed a letter to him. Initially, I thought of text messaging him, but I wanted to experience writing by hand before technology drove paper extinct.
Dear Yasushi,
Have you noticed that you haven’t talked or made love to me in a year? I miss it. I miss hearing your radio announcer’s voice. I miss feeling your plump lips against mine. I miss caressing your chiseled abs (okay, I haven’t seen them since you stopped jogging, but I suspect they’re still there, under that beer belly of yours).
In other words---or rather the same---I miss you. I miss my friend, my lover, my husband. So could you bring him back home?
Please?
After unintentionally signing the letter with a couple of tears, I staggered to the refrigerator and held it there with a magnet.
It stayed there for a day.
Then a week.
When a month had passed, I grabbed the letter and set it on fire in the bathroom. Once converted into black ashes, I flushed it down. Together with my hopes.
* * *
“Come on, Mrs. Mizushima,” Dr. Takahashi stepped beside me while I lay face down on the couch. “You can’t throw the towel yet.”
“Why not?” I said, still breathing leather. “You know the saying, ‘Winners know when to quit’.”
“You won’t earn anything by quitting your marriage.”
“My sanity?”
“You’re already crazy …”
“Right, I tend to forget that.” With a sigh, I pushed myself up and sat straight, face-to-face with my counselor. “All I can think about lately is how bad my marriage is.”
“Come on,” Dr. Takahashi said. “I’m sure it has many happy memories.”
Watching the ceiling fan stir my thoughts, I said, “Yasushi used to tell me about his day. Everyday.”
"Unusual from a husband …”
I nodded. “And they were all about little things. You know, how he picked his polka tie instead of the stripped one. What mobile games he played on his way to work. Why he wanted to call me at lunch break.”
“You don’t feel bored?”
I shook my head. “I love him, so nothing he ever says is boring.”
Dr. Takahashi flashed me a warm smile. “You seem to love him a lot.”
I gave her another nod. “I love him, hate him, admire him, despise him. He’s every feeling I’ve had for the past ten years.”
“And I’m sure he’ll make you feel many more.” Dr. Takahashi ambled back to her chair and slumped herself down. “I say this because you two are in a fairy-tale marriage. And fairy tales always have a happy ending.”
For the first time that day, my lips curled upwards instead of downwards. True, this wasn’t a fictional story. But reality had its own magic.
* * *
As a last resort, Dr. Takahashi suggested I try the atomic bomb of marriage reconciliation tactics. Going on a date. Which is a strange thing to do with someone you see every day. Someone you share your bed with. It’s like trying to catch a fish you already cooked and ate.
However, I liked the idea. Yasushi and I hadn’t been on a date since he stopped talking to me. I texted him that same day.
We haven’t spoken in a while, but I had fun with you last time we talked. How about we hang out again? We can do it at that Italian restaurant where we first met. I’ll be waiting there at 6 p.m at the same table. No pressure. But if you don’t show up, I’ll slice your little friend into little spaghetti strands tonight.
Holding my breath, I pressed send.
* * *
The restaurant looked the same as ten years ago, a life-sized picture. Old-style lanterns, rusty brick walls, arched glass-less windows overlooking Tokyo DisneySea’s Mediterranean Harbor. I’d traveled to the past. The time I met Yasushi.
I had come to this expensive place to prove myself that I wasn’t ashamed of being single on Valentine’s Day. That I could have fun alone---actually, this yearly ritual made me feel even more lonely. Anyhow, you got to show the world I was strong.
That day, I displayed my bravery to the wrong people, a couple two tables from mine enjoying a double espresso. They stole mocking glances at me, probably thinking, Look at her. She’s a future old crazy cat lady. But I didn’t mind. Just let them enjoy their last happy moments together---before they began fighting about things that they wouldn’t even remember and being so fed up with each other they’d do extra time at work.
Ignoring them had been useless.
As I turned my eyes to my tuna spaghetti, a shadow hovered my plate. The waiter? I looked up to face the guy from the couple’s table. Crew cut, pudgy lips, thin-framed glasses.
Great. Adult bullying as Valentine’s Day gift.
“It wasn’t enough to laugh from your table?” I said, casting my eyes down again.
“I wasn’t laughing,” the guy said. “My date was.”
“Well, go back to her. I’m busy here working on my spaghetti.”
“I can’t. She’s not at our seat anymore.”
“What?” I peeked over his broad shoulder. He was right. The table only hosted two lonely espresso cups. “Oh, I get it. You had a fight with your date, she left, and now you want to use me as a backup plan. Very smart Mr. Romeo, but I don’t like being the second choice. You’d better retire.” I gobbled down a mouthful of spaghetti,
“All right.” The guy spun around. “I’ll leave you alone then.”
Before he could arrive to his table, I asked, “So what happened? What was the fight about?”
The guy looked back. "I didn’t like the way she was laughing at you.”
I swallowed again. This time my words.
That was how I met Yasushi: him losing a companion and me finding one. I was grateful. Thanks to him, I had my first two-person date on Valentine’s Day. My first time not feeling lonely.
We spoke a lot. Well, it was mostly Yasushi doing the talking. I enjoyed listening to him, though.
“You have this talent for making everyday activities sound interesting,” I commented. “It’s like magic.”
“The magic isn’t coming from me, but this space between us.” He traced an invisible line from my chest to his. “A line that I’d like to shorten.”
He accomplished that in less than three weeks. But now, that line was wider than ever.
Or maybe not?
With tear-blurred eyes, I spotted a shadow on my empty plate. At last.
“Yasushi!” I yelled, raising my head to---Dr. Takahashi?
“Can I join you Mrs. Mizushima?” She set herself across from me.
Wiping the evidence of my sobbing with a handkerchief, I asked, “Why are you here?” I’d only told her about my dating plan. Not invited her.
“So, you wouldn’t spend the evening alone.”
I blinked at her. “What? You knew Yasushi wouldn’t come?”
Dr. Takahashi nodded. “I found it very strange that your husband---being such a nice man---wouldn’t come to our sessions. From our first session. So I’ve been doing some research, and found out he---”
“Yasushi is alive!” I shouted, clutching my head with my hands. “He’s just not speaking to me.”
“Mrs. Mizushima … I know how hurt you are, and how much you want that pain to go away. But if you don’t accept reality, you’ll never fix your communication problem.”
“But you lied to me.” I brought the handkerchief to my eyes again. “You said my marriage would have a happy ending.”
“Because I didn’t know the beginning---or rather, the end.”
I knew the end.
It began with a phone call from the police. It continued with them explaining the details of the car crash, and with me explaining how I had misplaced Yasushi’s glasses. It ended with me crying next to Yasushi’s hospital bed.
From then on, Yasushi couldn’t talk to me, nor I listen to him anymore. From then on, I started to dread Valentine’s Day, Christmas, or any festivity.
But who knows, perhaps---if Heaven or even Hell exists---I’ll see Yasushi again. So he can tell me about his day.