5 comments/ 19602 views/ 0 favorites Desconocido Pt. 01 By: Catalingus2005 Prologue "You can't be serious." Kazuo Abe stepped back, away from his shadowed assailant. His eyes darted, desperately looking for help or hope. His head stayed locked in place, his sweat-coated face twitching. The other man said nothing, moving ever quicker towards Kazuo. There was nobody else to be seen. But then, why would there be? The only other men on board were down below. They worked for the approaching man, and they didn't speak English. "Goddamn it, Mike," Kazuo blurted out. "Don't!" He was trapped, here at the edge of the boat. He thought of Mariko. Mariko was his wife, the mother of his unborn child, the center of everything. He had met her five years prior on a trip to visit family, and after many long journeys back had finally convinced her to come to America with him. She was full Japanese, where his father was white. She was beautiful. What would become of her, of their unborn child, if he died here? "Mike, Please," he whispered. Then a fist slammed into him, snapping his head back and jarring his thoughts, and he stumbled backwards. Another hit him, coming up from below to catch his jaw. It was only a few feet to the railing at the side of the boat, and his momentum carried him over it. He didn't even flail his arms as he fell. The water was cold, even as far south as they were. He gasped as he struck it, taking some in, and jerked about in panic. He couldn't tell which way was up. He could barely think at all. His only thoughts were the scream his mouth couldn't deliver. The blackness before his closed eyes became red, and then black again. -=- He watches, curious, as the cat examines its prey. In a moment, he knows, it will pounce on the tiny baby mouse, ending its life. Probably it will play with it for a while, harassing the terrified creature until at last the terrible journey is ended. Although he knows he could stop this if we wanted, he does not move. He has already seen the baby mouse's mother, neck broken, lifeless in the trap he set out last night. The tiny, half-blind creature is doomed. Even the cat's torturous brutality is quicker than starvation. His eyes flicker to the window, tracing a thick crack that runs up the pane, the bleach-colored damage to the surrounding wood. It's a nice apartment. For Mexico. Mexico. He sighs. It's been a slow, emotionless twelve years since he woke up in a coastal hospital...not much more than a stale clinic, really...with no memory or identification. He didn't understand their questions...he spoke English, and Japanese. Eventually, someone who could interpret was found, and eventually they all came to the conclusion that he was probably lost overboard from one of the Japan-based trading ships that stopped in a few South American ports before moving up to American coastal cities. He was skeptical...he didn't seem to know anything about sailing...but he didn't seem to know much of anything. They'd taken information...prints, and the like, and sent it to the Japanese and American governments in the hopes of their records matching a missing persons bulletin. They'd never heard back. Those long years since had brought little comfort. He'd slowly learned Spanish, integrated himself into a new life even as he searched for clues to his identity. He had been around the clinic long enough to start doing small errands, helping in minor ways, and now he worked there full time as custodian. They called him Desconocido, which they told him meant "unknown," or Cido for short. Many of the losses he had suffered...losses he didn't even remember...had faded to irrelevancy. Who he'd been, what he'd done, where he was from...he accepted these losses. What upset him now, as much as ever, was the question of love. He'd gone on very few dates, always feeling disconnected or like he was wronging somebody important to him. It always ended chaste, even when the young lady made it clear that it didn't have to. He always slept alone, and always sensed the absence of another. Someone special. He never slept well. With another sigh, he looked back to the cat. It wasn't his cat...it lived in the building, and came and went from people's apartments when it had the chance. They all fed it, all took care of it, and none of them cared ABOUT it. He thought he knew the feeling. The cat was gone. He harrumphed. The baby mouse still whisked aimlessly about the floor, unaware of its good fortune. But now what to do with the little fellow? Grabbing the shoebox that he kept his Learn Spanish books in, he spilled out the contents and, in a swift motion, scooped up the little rodent. Next door, a family kept an angry and noisy dog chained to their house...maybe for protection, maybe for the same inexplicable reason so many people keep loud dogs...and it would make a much quicker and more humane ending to this creature's life. It scratched, alarmed, as he moved down the stairs and out the door. He tried to walk fast, not wanting to extend the animal's suffering, but paused as he stepped outside. There were Americans out there, in expensive suits and sunglasses, standing around talking loudly and showing clear interest in the beat-up warehouse across the street. Forgetting his living captive, he took a few tentative steps towards them. One of them felt familiar. Not looked, not sounded, just...felt. He felt a desperate urge to rush over to them, to ask if they recognized him, to beg for their help or to be taken away from this life that was not his. He shook his head against it. Then one of them shouted at him. "HEY!" the man, the one who felt familiar, roared suddenly, rushing towards him and waving his arms in a state of shock and confusion. "Sir! Sir! Are..." he trailed off as he approached. "You are," he whispered. "Oh my god, you're Kazuo." The other men had stopped talking, and were now approaching at a sprint. Kazuo. The name had hit his brain like a blinking beacon, attracting other memories long-since lost. He was Kazuo. He was American. He was... The flood became too much. He didn't realize he'd dropped the shoebox, or that the fleeing mouse was suddenly swooped up by the stalker cat, carried away to its fate. By the time any of this had happened, he was already falling to the ground himself, and the world was blurring. Desconocido Pt. 02 "I wish you would stay." "I know." He stretched, kicking the covers off himself and rolling towards her. "There's just no getting around it. Mike insisted that it be me." Mariko scratched her forehead. "I suppose it's a good thing." "Definitely." He ran one finger down her face, tracing her jaw line. It continued down her neck, and across her shoulder. "Mark says the word is I'm being felt out for something." "Promotion?" "Maybe." She turned to look at him. "And you'll be back before the baby is born?" His face lit up at the mention of it, his hand moving to rest, open-palmed, on her "I promise. Missing the birth of our first child would destroy me. I'll be here." "First child?" she giggled. "Who said there would be more?" "I did." He kissed her. She responded warmly. They made love, gently and patiently. His hands explored her body with a man's confidence and a boy's delight. His lips fell to her neck, her breasts, and belly. She sought, and found, his firmness, guiding it as he moved towards her. Even with the slow, satisfying motions they forced upon themselves, it felt like a passionate and driven act. No words were spoken as they pushed with gentle, determined effort. In the end, she lay on her side and whimpered through a small orgasm as he cradled her from behind and pushed, ending his own journey with a gasp. They lay together, his hand searching out and reclaiming the zenith of her swollen belly, and breathed heavily into the morning. "I can't wait," he said at last, "for us to be a family." She smiled, and nuzzled against him. - More than twelve years later, Kazuo climbed out of a borrowed car. Having been attacked and nearly killed by his partner and friend, Mike Simpson, he had only just rediscovered his identity after a coincidental meeting with an old friend. In the time since, he and that friend, Mark Littell, had worked to rebuild his memories. The emotional journey of relearning who he was, after so much lost time, was difficult to bear. He had been thirty when he left his old life...he was forty-two, now. Even with his mind regained, so much was lost in the way that memories often are. The way that age disposes of them. And his body showed the wearying pull of his time in Mexico, of poor diet and near-poverty living. His face was riddled with his age and time in the sun. Mark had decided to work with Kazuo on regaining as much as he could, in the hope that he may even be able to return to old business. They also had decided together that, for now, he must remain dead to the world he knew, tucked secretly away. It would become more difficult to find incriminating evidence on Simpson if he knew he was being investigated, if he knew to be scared...and he would surely know to be, when he learned that Kazuo lived. It hadn't been easy. With his memory returned to him at last, all Kazuo could think about was Mariko. His lovely Mariko. How was she? Where was she? What about the baby? Could they be together, again, after all these years? And what would he do if they could not? Mark wouldn't say much. He insisted that, for now, the focus must be on proving Mike's guilt. "Without that," he reminded Kazuo, "neither you nor she can be considered safe." But it took no time at all for curiosity to overwhelm. And so now, twelve years since he'd last seen it, Kazuo stood on the curb a block away from his old house, wondering if she still lived there. It looked the same, bizarrely so considering the time that had passed. The houses around it had changed, and the trees were taller, but that was about it. He hadn't been sure how he would go about trying to find his Mariko without revealing himself, but as it turned out he didn't even have to try. She caught his eye immediately. There she was, out in the front yard, lounging on a chair wearing a yellow bikini and laughing. She looked exquisite...perfect. Her small frame graceful, legs flexing like a dancers as she rubbed one foot against the opposing calf. He remembered those legs well. Still, even at this distance, he could see changes in her. More than a decade had passed, and she no longer held a casual grip on to her youth the way women in their twenties do. Forty, she would be now. Forty since March. It struck him that, whatever happened, that idyllic life with her that he had lost...the starting of a family and experiencing life's great challenges together...was already lost forever. He was the middle-aged version of a lover she'd once had. Even as small as she still was, age had filled her out to some degree. Her narrow middle was softer, her breasts fuller and hanging like a woman's rather than a girl's. Her legs, still marvelous, were less toned. Lines showed on her face and neck, and she defiantly refused to hide the gray at each temple. The source of her laughter looped endlessly around her. Three children were chasing each other around the chair. Kazuo thought that... Wait. Three? He closed his eyes for a moment, and reopened them. Three children still ran and laughed and played. The oldest was distinctly Asian, and looked to be about eleven or twelve. Was this his daughter? His heart swelled. He watched her playing with the younger children, and knew it must be. Long, dark hair bounced and swayed as she raced after her prey, purposefully letting them stay just a step ahead of her and giggling as a younger child might. His daughter. Who didn't know him. The other children, also girls, were fairer skinned, more ambiguous. Kazuo wondered if hey might be playmates. No. These girls were younger...one looking about six, and the other not yet three years old. Logic betrayed his heart, and panic licked at his insides. Any lingering doubt was murdered when the door to the house opened and all the children ran towards the man who exited. "Daddy!" They shouted in unison. Kazuo gasped at the man's face. Mike Simpson swaggered out of the house, shirtless and in swimming trunks, carrying two red-colored drinks. With him was yet another kid...a young boy of about 9 years. The child was animatedly telling Simpson about something, pausing occasionally to sip from a Mountain Dew. Kazuo's knees gave out. He hit the curb hard, but barely noticed. "Daddy?" He said it to himself. Mike Simpson was the man who had tried to kill him. The man who, in many ways, had succeeded. Twelve years, lost. Was this why he had done it? Was his daughter calling Mike Simpson "Daddy?" Oh, Mariko. A sob escaped him. Had she known? Could she have? Was it possible that she had betrayed him as well? He couldn't make himself believe it. Still, his stomach threatened sickness as he watched his enemy swing over to Mariko and hand her a drink. If anything, his six foot two inch frame was more intimidating than it had been that night on the boat. At 47, he still had the torso of a swimmer, but his arms, legs, and shoulders revealed the large amount of time he spent keeping in shape. He looked a giant next to Mariko, who looked up at him adoringly as she sipped her drink. Her left hand gently trailed fingers up and down the hair on the back of his leg. Kazuo watched as they spoke, the muscles in his face giving out and the connecting threads of his soul snapping in succession. He put his elbows to his knees, resting his head in his hands and trying not to scream. Mariko, his beautiful Mariko, had given her heart up to this murderer. Through blurring tears he saw her head turn idly in his direction, look away, and then snap back in horrified recognition. Suddenly nervous, not ready to be seen, he started to jerk back up to his feet, stumbled, and ended up sitting on the sidewalk. Rising terror washed over as he saw Mariko jump out of the lawn chair, spilling her drink, moving backwards and away from him, her hand over her mouth and her eyes wide. Like he was hideous. No. Like he was a ghost. Just as she screamed, Mike Simpson turned in his direction and gaped. Then he shouted something at the kids and herded the family inside. Panicked, unthinking, Kazuo rushed to his car. Tires squealed as he recklessly fled. The shattered pieces of his heart pulsed like a thousand hammers in his ribcage. He didn't feel safe again until he reached Mark's house. - "You shouldn't have done that," Mark sighed, handing Kazuo a whiskey. "You knew." Kazuo said flatly, taking the drink. Mark looked at him for a tired moment. Kazuo imagined he was looking for a way to justify it, but he was wrong. "Of course I fucking knew. What do you think we're doing here, my friend? Do you think I'm holding your hand as you try to reenter the life you left? Jesus," he rubbed his eyes, "that life is gone. Mike Simpson killed it. I mean, killed it. I'm trying to help you prove that, to find what's left. You and I are after a very, very bad guy, and you just let him know about it. You have put us both in a very dangerous place." "Did she marry him?" Mark swallowed his drink in one pull. "Yeah. About a year and a half after you died. He visited her a lot, bought baby stuff," he glanced at his friend, "took her to the hospital when it was time. He was always helping out after that. Used to tell people he felt like the whole thing, you dying I mean, was his fault. Bastard." He poured another drink, and looked at Kazuo for a long moment. "The other kids are his," he answered the unspoken question. "I'm sorry, Kazuo, I am. I didn't tell you because I think that this might be the very reason he tried to kill you. So he could have her. So he could have your life. I didn't want you doing anything stupid. You know," he shrugged and looked away, "exactly like you did." "What does it matter, now?" Kazuo rested his head back in the chair. "After this, how can I ever have her back again? Would she even go back?" His head lifted back up, eyes burning red. "Would she want to bring his children with her?" He slammed his free hand down on the arm rest. "HIS children?!?" He sniffled, and knew he sounded pathetic. "Would I even take her back?" Mark watched him emotionlessly. "What do you want, then, Kazuo? To let him have his victory? To move away, start a new life, leave the woman you love in the hands of a murderer? To lie in bed alone at night knowing that he-" "Stop." "Well? What do you want?" He leaned in, pointing his finger against Kazuo's chest. "What do YOU want?!?" Kazuo met his eyes for a moment, then looked away. "Maybe I want to die." Mark stood up, and finished his second drink. "Well," he shook his head, "I guess that is getting to be one of your parlor tricks. But that would certainly give Mike Simpson what he wanted." Silence. "What do we do now?" "Well," Mark frowned, "if they did only see you for a moment, then it's possible they've convinced themselves it didn't even happen. Ghosts, guilt visions, mistaken identity...who knows? I doubt if Mike will let it pass, but I'm sure he'll be doing his best to convince Mariko that she was just seeing things. And I'll wager he's good enough to succeed. So what we do now," he poured another drink, "is get as much as we can on the guy, as fast as we can. I initiated a security camera update today that will place cameras in sensitive areas. This includes the main office. During the day, you can monitor that and take notes on anything you find. It's patched into the screen in the dining room. Just switch to video four." Kazuo nodded. "But I can't imagine that he'll do or say anything incriminating with a camera around." "Ah, that's the thing. Apparently, the memo regarding the new installation never made it past his secretary's desk." He reached in his pocket, and pulled out a crumpled up piece of pink paper. "Sloppy woman, really. And since the cameras are a new, miniature model that we purchased on the basis of how effectively hidden they have been in public areas of London and China, I suppose it's possible that he simply won't be aware of it." "But surely somebody will mention it." "Memos were only distributed to the two people who were receiving the cameras: Mike Simpson, and me. Nobody else needed to know. Nobody else knows." "Brilliant." "I also have two private detectives the firm has used before looking into the boat and its crew. Anything worth finding, they will." He stood up, grabbing his coat. "From here it's likely to get messy." Kazuo clicked his tongue. "What about you?" "Me?" Mark smiled. "I've had a week long vacation scheduled for months. As far as our boy knows, I'll be taking it as planned...nothing suspicious, you understand." "And in reality?" "In reality, I'm meeting with a lawyer to start discussing our options. I've got enough billable hours scheduled next week to make my checking account look like I went on a massive vacation, anyway." "I'm going to owe you a lot before this is over," Kazuo smiled. "Don't be stupid," Mark winked, "you owe me a lot right now." -= Kazuo lay in bed, alone, silent, staring. His mind tortured the choices before him like a cat tortures a captured prey. The results were already decided, he knew. But still he felt hopeless. He imagined Mariko, across town, cuddled up to Mike Simpson in the house that Kazuo had helped pick out. It brought out a fresh sob. He tried to imagine winning her back, having her for his own again... ...and was left feeling numbed. Could he lay with her, knowing whose arms she'd been in all this time? Could he sit at the table with her, and her children? Mike Simpson's children? Did his daughter think Simpson to be her father? Did she know about him at all? He rolled over in bed. No amount of fantasizing made him believe that life could ever return to what it once had been. But no amount of brutal awareness could remove his love for his wife, and his need to know his daughter. He had to fight. He slept at last. The morning hours brought renewed hope, along with a newly energetic desperation. Whatever the outcome, Kazuo now realized he owed it to Mariko to somehow protect her from this maniac's grip. He leapt out of bed, switched on the coffee pot, and was at the dining table with a legal pad before the coffee was even made. He wished there was more he could do, but since this was all he could manage then he wouldn't miss a moment. An hour later, Mike Simpson arrived, wearing a crisp suit and a confident smile. So much for being rattled. He went right to work, spending dull hours at his computer and phone, not doing a single thing that would present itself as out of the ordinary. He took calls, wrote memos, checked the Drudge Report as much as anything. Even with the near-religious fervor of his quest, Kazuo found himself drifting into bored spaces where he paid no mind to the monitor. He was more interested in the technical manuals Mark had given him to catch up on his old career than the inactivity before him. This was going nowhere. Until lunch time. Without an announcing buzz, the door to the office opened and Mariko walked in. She wore a blue tank top and white frilly knee-length skirt. Mike came around the desk as she entered, and they embraced and kissed, chilling Kazuo's heart. They held each other, Mike's hand stroking Mariko's hair, as they spoke. "Honey," Mariko patted his broad chest, "I was in the area...." He smiled. "It's a wonderful surprise," he said. "Tell me about it." She shrugged. "I took the kids to Mary's. She said she'd watch them." Mary? The name meant nothing to Kazuo. New friends. "I had to run downtown, and I just had to see my big man." Mike's eyebrows lifted. "And did you have any big ideas for this visit?" His meaty paw slipped down to her waist. She pulled back, and looked away apologetically. He sighed. "Is this about this weekend?" She nodded, and he pulled her into a tight hug. "We've talked about this. It didn't even really look like him. It wasn't him." A moment. "I know, it's just-" He sighed. "It's okay. I get it." He looked away, stone-faced. She looked up at him, concern on her brow. "Oh, Mike, it's not a big deal. I mean...you know what? I need some time, is all. It's a fresher wound than I realized. But I can still take care of you." Her hands slid down, gripping his belt. He smiled, leaning back as she knelt before him, and began undoing his trousers. "The door's locked?" She asked, looking up at him as her hands worked to expose him. Kazuo felt his stomach plummet into eternity. Mike reached over and flipped a switch on his desk. "It is, now," his voice was husky. Kazuo watched horrified as Mike allowed his pants to fall, and then stepped out of them. Gorgeous little Mariko, HIS little Mariko, the love of his life, was now kneeling before large, muscled thighs and heavy, swinging manhood. She took hold of it gently, lovingly, even casually, and hefted it until she could slip it into her mouth without lowering her head. He looked away, nauseous, then looked back, and immediately away again. It was too much to take. He opened his mouth to scream. Nothing came out. Jealousy didn't begin to define what he felt...jealousy is what he would have felt if he'd seen Mike fucking her, the way people fuck in pornography. But this...this was a loving and tender act. One that revealed her familiarity with his body, his likes and weaknesses. It was too horrible to avoid...it was no less agonizingly painful to look away and still know it continued...but tears stung at his eyes and dropped down his cheeks as he willed the scene before him away. On the screen, Mariko moved from a teasingly soft exploration with her tongue to slow, head-bobbing pulls at the shaft with her mouth. Her hands rested on his thighs, and his right one stroked her hair. She teased and moaned, until finally her movements grew frenzied and both hands became actors in the scene...one stroking at the flesh she couldn't find room for in her mouth, the other cradling his testicles. He grunted, gasped, and her movements slowed suddenly, taking little more than just the head into her mouth. Kazuo let out a groan of agony. Mike Simpson was coming in his lover's mouth. She looked up into his eyes as it happened, emitting a very real moan. Kazuo put his head to his hands, and wept. The girl Mariko had found performing oral sex unpleasant...she did it out of love, but her unenthusiastic approach resulted in a significant lack of skill. The woman Mariko was willing, well-practiced, and excited by it. Yet another way this woman was not the girl he'd lost. Yet another reason he was now forced to ask himself if he chased at ghosts. On the screen, he could see Mike Simpson talking as Mariko dabbed a Kleenex at her lips, but he couldn't hear anything. The world seemed a thousand miles away. He turned off the screen, sunk to the floor, and let it get a little further away still. Desconocido Pt. 03 Mike Simpson was a good husband. Kazuo was becoming more and more forced to accept that. It wasn't easy. Simpson didn't cheat on his wife, or ignore her, or leave her to raise the children alone. He could be romantic, passionate, devoted. He truly seemed to love her, and she truly seemed to love him. It would have been easier for Kazuo to accept if Mike Simpson wasn't guilty of attempting to murder him, if Mariko hadn't been his wife first and the love of his life. He had watched the family from afar, as the months grew long. He had no heart for food, or for pleasantries. His hair grew long, a patchy beard covered his jaw. He was less and less in danger of being recognized, and so it was that he followed them to movies, to grocery stores, to restaurants. He watched their happiness from afar, guts twisting, freshly stung by every instance where his daughter called this other man "Dad." He could see more changes in Mariko, now, than he had at first. Her body worked well to hide them, but the strain of four pregnancies revealed itself in the way she stood after a meal, in the way her hips sat, in the lines that lit her face when she smiled. She cared less for clothing and fashion, and no longer talked of a career of any kind. Instead, this once-independent woman seemed content to be a stay-at-home mom. She was less determined to fight battles on her own, more willing to be taken care of. And she was taken care of. Mark had finally cut him out of the hunt for evidence. "You're not handling it well," he'd explained, promising to let Kazuo know "as soon as we have anything." But Kazuo didn't think it probably mattered. What would they do with such evidence? Destroy a family? Break Mariko's heart all over again? Tear this happiness she had away from her, destroying her chance to grow old surrounded by this peacefulness and this family? Kazuo almost thought he'd be better off dying and letting them walk away without ever knowing he'd been here, seen them. Or, possibly, watching from the sidelines, a guardian angel, as his Mariko grew old in ignorant contentedness. When the time came for deciding, however, he simply wasn't consulted. He still left the TV on, watching Mike during endless boring days of office work, but he rarely watched it closely. Instead, he would leave it on as he read a book or wrote letters to Mariko and threw them away. So he was shocked, head snapping up, on December 11th when the doors to Simpson's office burst open and police rushed in. Kazuo felt his jaw work silently as a shouting Simpson was cuffed and read his rights. The phone rang, and Kazuo answered wordlessly. "Are you watching this?" Mark sounded breathless, excited. "Wh...." "It's a long story, not right for a phone conversation. But we've got him, we've got enough." A pause. "With your testimony, it should be enough." "My..." "Of course, friend. But that's for later. Don't you see? You can come out of hiding, now! It's over!" "Mariko." Her name was a dryness in his mouth. A pause. "This is up to you, but...but I would counsel you to be slow about it. She's going to be having a lot of feelings about all of this." Be slow. As though he hadn't already waited months. "Does she know yet?" He asked. "No." "Can..." he swallowed, "can you tell her?" "When." "Now." Another pause. "If that's what you want." "Yes." No more waiting. -=-=- Mariko Abe looked down her body at her husband. Sweat shone on her pert breasts and stomach as her hips moved seductively atop his own. He could feel her cling to him, where they met and became one. Her lips were parted, one long dark hair clinging to her cheek, as she came down off her orgasm. Her eyes were hungry. Kazuo looked back up at her, breathing heavy, yearning for her even as he took her. He reached up, gripping her wrist and pulling her down. They kissed passionately, before his lips sought her earlobe and he rolled them both over. Lying on the carpet, legs spread around him, she smiled. "Are you enjoying this, my beautiful man?" she asked, stroking his cheek. In response, his thrusting became more pronounced, less artful and more urgent. She cried out as they came together, hands clinging to his back. Afterwards, as they struggled up on shaky legs and recovered their clothes, she asked him, "What should we name the baby?" He froze, staring at her, and she ran to him, laughing. Nearly thirteen years later, Mariko Simpson looked across the room with tear-stained eyes. A mixture of fear and uncertainty tightened her face like a fist. No soft look of love shone in her eyes, no hunger. Kazuo wasn't sure what he'd expected. It wasn't this. Shaven and groomed, he sat in Mark's living room looking back at her, unable to mask the joy at finally being near her. Mark sat beside him, uncomfortable and showing it. He was painfully aware of how far he was from being the man she had lost, so long ago, but he was more achingly aware of how familiar she felt. His love for her was as strong as it ever had been. Mark had been the one who proposed bringing her here. A full month had passed since the phone call...since Mariko learned the truth of her old husband's fate, and the depth of her new husband's deception. Far from running to see her old love, she had recoiled from it all like an abused child from a drunken father. Mark tried to tell him that it was all too much shock, too much of a reordering of her world, but Kazuo had churned with fear as weeks passed with no word from her. At last, she had asked to see him. "Hello," he said. It was meant to convey a million words worth of love and affection. It was meant to begin any one of a million speeches he had practiced and imagined delivering. It came out a hoarse whispered grunt. He cleared his throat and repeated it. She sat for a moment, hands shaking in her lap. He wondered what she was thinking, to look so scared. Then, she blurted out, "I didn't know what he did to you." He blinked. Did she think he blamed her? "I know," he said. Then, hopeful, "But you do, now. You know what he did to us both." She didn't respond. Instead, she looked at her hands. "I...I can't believe he..." she looked back up suddenly, defiant, "He is a good father." Kazuo could see the turmoil in her. She loves him, he thought with sagging guilt. Even now, she loves him. "I believe you," he closed his eyes, not mentioning that he had seen it for himself. "That doesn't change what he did, how he...how he tricked you. What he took away from us." His mind jumped topics suddenly. "Does my daughter know about me?" For one agonizing moment Mariko looked uncomfortably off into the distance, as though evaluating how to deliver bad news she'd hoped she'd never have to share. "Yes," she said at last. "Kali knows about you. But not as well as you might wish. And...I haven't told her that you're alive." "Why not?" She flinched from the words, and he regretted immediately the harshness of his voice. "Mike was there for her birth," she said quietly, eyes meeting his. "He changed her diapers and read her stories and bandaged her scraped knees. He took her on vacation and helped her with her homework and kissed her mother. Telling her that you are alive will mean telling her what...what he did. Telling her what he's capable of." She sighed. "I don't know how to do that." Kazuo felt rage in his stomach...she was protecting his murderer's good name. Keeping him from his daughter. He felt thick betrayal. "You can't hide her from me forever," he said. Mariko's eyes widened. She waved her hands in front of her. "Oh, no, of course not. No. I would never..." she put her hand to her face, and suddenly, without warning, she erupted into a powerful sobbing. Kazuo instinctively reached out to her, and was stung as she pulled back in equally-instinctive horror. "Please," she said, nearly leaping up, "Please. I should go." The words came out as a whine, he face still in her hands. Kazuo stood just as swiftly. This wasn't going how he'd hoped, at all. "No, don't. I..." he followed her as she rushed to the door. "Mariko, I love you," he blurted out, awkwardly, knowing it was foolish and poorly timed. She stopped, her hand on the doorknob. "Oh, god," was all she said, and then she was gone. Kazuo felt Mark's hand on his shoulder. "I'd better take her home," he sounded apologetic, embarrassed for them both. Kazuo sat down, and didn't move for a very long time. Mariko sat on Mike Simpson's side during the trial, dressed in black and stone-faced. She did not hug him when given the chance, although she did talk to him often. She never looked over at Kazuo. He hated that. He had thought about pushing for his rights to meet his daughter, to get to know her, but decided that hurrying Mariko in this would ruin his chance to have anything more. He could not do that. And, he had to admit, rushing things with his daughter might ruin that potential, as well. When he took the stand, Kazuo spoke plainly about what happened, his story matching with the men who were crew on the ship, that night, and spoke of what he had lost as a result of the attempted murder. He was also asked to give a summation of his years since, and found that a short summation was all it took to sum up his life during that time. Empty, nothing, meaningless. Lonely. Several months after Mariko came to see Kazuo in person, Mike Simpson was found guilty by a jury of his peers and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. Kazuo couldn't believe it. With good behavior, the man who had tried to kill him could be free in fifteen years. Mariko went to Mike when the verdict was read, and Kazuo's misery was completed when she embraced and kissed him on the lips. Even as chaste a kiss as it was, it felt to him like final proof that she had decided to stick with her new man...whatever his past. She did finally look at him, as she hurried out of the court room that day. Standing there, slump-shouldered and self-pitying, he almost wished she hadn't. Better to not see him at all than like that. He went back to his apartment that night, got drunk, and considered moving back to Mexico. He thought about that cat, the one everybody cared for and nobody loved. Two days later, the phone rang. "I have a family, now." She said it without responding to his 'hello,' and it sounded like a challenge. "I know," he said, confused, too weary to think. "I don't want to cause any more harm." There was a pause, long enough that he almost thought the signal was broken, and then she said, "Is it true that you never...that you waited for me?" "It is." "Even without remembering me?" She sounded small, and he realized how upsetting it was for her to know that he had done that, while she had not. Still, he was too drained to be anything but honest. "Mariko," he said, "nothing could ever make me forget you. You were always there, at the back of my mind, denying me the ability to truly start over. I just didn't know the way back." Another long pause, and a quiet sob. "Oh, God, I am so sorry Kaz. I am so sorry for what I've done." Kaz. He smiled to hear her call him that again. "It doesn't have to be the end of it," he said stubbornly. She laughed nervously. "What could there be? What, now, after all this time? I'm not the girl I was before. I'm a mother of four kids whom I love, three of whom I don't think you could ever truly come to accept. Four kids who see Mike Simpson as their father, who love him even now knowing what he once did. Who will want him in their lives when...when he is free once again." "And what about you?" he asked. "Will you want him in your life?" Her breath rattled ragged in the phone. "Yes." Kazuo suppressed a sob of his own. "I'm sorry," she continued, "and I know it must feel like I am betraying you, but I have had thirteen years to fall in love with that man. In thirteen years, he never made me feel like I wasn't safe. He never raised his voice to me, and he has spoiled me with his love. I want to hate him so badly. I do. But I know that I will never not love him." "And this is why you called me? To tell me this?!" He was bitter and hurt now, no longer numbed by weariness. "Thanks. Thanks a lot." "Wait!" she cried. "That's not why I called." "Then why?" "I want to meet you. For lunch. I want to get to know you again. As a friend, if you'll have me." He was quiet for a while. "I am not sure I can be your friend, Mariko, because somebody your friend would have to watch you take your husband back. I am not sure I can ever not want your love, more than anything in this world, and that is too much for me to bear any longer." "Goddamn it, Kaz," she sounded frustrated, like she wasn't telling him the whole story and didn't want to. "Just meet me, just...let me see you again." He sighed. "Okay." Epilogue Friendship with an ex is a dangerous thing. It has a way of reminding us what it was that first drew us to the person, what made them exciting to begin with. Even with the great passage of time between them, Mariko and Kazuo found a great comfort in each other's attention. Tentative friendship became a closer bond, still chaste, yet hidden from Mariko's husband and children. And, one night more than a year later, Kazuo was able to consummate his feelings for his ex-wife once more. She felt, and moved different. Her body accepted him differently, and it made him aware that she had devoted that body to nurturing another man's genes. It had been a long time for him, though, and he didn't last for very long. He lay there, pretending not to notice Mariko's disappointment, and drifted off to sleep. The two of them returned to awkward, distant friendship, then to close companionship again. The memory of that awkward sexual encounter (Mariko's 'affair,' Kazuo realized) faded and became less of a barrier between them. And as Mariko's relationship with her husband grew strained by distance and when, five years after the sentencing, they divorced, it gave Kazuo new hope. In the end, the new old couple decided to keep their relationship a separate entity from Mariko's family. Kazuo's daughter still chose to see only Mike Simpson as her father, refusing any attempts at a relationship, but she had many years left yet to change her mind. The other children, of course, were truly Mike's. There was no place for Kazuo when they were home. Instead, as years passed and the kids grew, he and Mariko shared more and more tender moments where they could steal them. It was no fairy tale ending...it had never held that potential. He was aware that he had lost forever his hope of a family of his own. He was aware that he never quite rebounded as a lover, never matched Mariko's new expectations. In later years, he was aware of the quiet longing she displayed around Mike. At times, he was made painfully nervous by how long she was gone when she brought the kids to Mike's new apartment, or how she would take one or two week-long shopping trips a year and never buy anything...the only expense on her credit card being the room. But even this was not enough to dismay him, for his connection with Mariko was intense and eternal. And indeed, when the final child moved out he moved in, marrying her and reclaiming what was his at the age of 60. There were no more shopping trips, then, and no more days or nights alone. Just thirty long years of peace and happiness.