Episode 4

After church on Sunday, the family drove across the bay to visit Dina’s parents. They’d stopped in Japantown to pick up manju, the pastries that Dina’s mother, Claire, had fallen in love with (along with her father, Mitsuo) when Claire had been a foreign exchange student in Japan.

Kazu and Gustavo got excited as soon as they started to cross the bridge, anticipating the feast that awaited them whenever they visited their grandparents. Mitsuo often made them Japanese curry, knowing it was the boys’ favorite, accompanied by an assortment of the pickles that complimented the curry rice. And, Claire would have baked a cake or cookies, sometimes both.

It was winter so there would also be plenty of mikan, the sweet Japanese tangerines that they whole family loved. During Oshogatsu, they put mikan atop round rice cakes to create kagami mochi, assuring a bright, happy New Year. Christmas was their American holiday, but Oshogatsu was their Japanese celebration.

Julio punched the radio when yet another Christmas tune came on; only to have the Chipmunks’ weirdly high voices come blasting into the car. The boys begged to listen to the song so, with a groan, their father left it on. Kazu and Gustavo sang loudly along from the back seat, “we’ve been good, but we can’t last…”

Dina reached out to touch Julio. He turned to her and grimaced.

“People will accuse you of being a Grinch,” she teased.

Julio sighed. “You know the holidays are so overblown, I almost get sick of them before Christmas. It’s so forced it feels as artificial as fake snow.”

Dina said nothing but smiled when she turned around to see the boys swaying as they sang along with the Chipmunks.

After dinner, they all sat around the table nibbling on Christmas cookies and manju. Claire and Mitsuo drinking green tea, while Dina and Julio had coffee. Claire was showing the boys, once again, how to fold paper balloons to blow up and string for ornaments.

“Your mother’s better at origami than me,” Dina’s father stated proudly to his daughter.

Dina nodded. “We still have the cranes she made. And the straw angel you gave me when I was a little girl. Do you remember where you got it from?” Dina asked her father.

Mitsuo frowned, trying to remember. “Straw angel?

“I think you brought the angel back from Pennsylvania,” Claire offered. “Omiage from a business trip you took out there.”

“What’s omiage?” Gustavo asked.

“Presents!” His older brother informed him. “Japanese people always give presents.”

“Aren’t we Japanese?” said Gustavo.

“And Irish, German and Mexican,” Kasue told him.

“Do we still get presents?” Gustavo inquired.

“Oh!” Mitsuo exclaimed, interrupting the boys. “I got the angel at an Amish village. You still have that old thing?” He teased his daughter.

“Daddy, I love that angel!”

“Dina’s always loved angels,” Claire remarked.

“I didn’t know that,” Julio mumbled.

Dina stared at her husband, surprised and hurt. Had he never noticed all their angel decorations?



To be continued December 5...