The Family Tour
If there isn't a good time to end a relationship, is there a bad time to? *In case anyone among the extended family and friends finds this, all gossip is alleged/parody*
Someone once told me, “There is no good time to break up.” If you’ve made your decision, rip off the bandaid.” It came from a good place. Their intentions, at least, are at some emotional honesty. Not continuing something that one side sees no future in, since it will inevitably make things worse for everybody involved: giving false hope to the dumpee, and making the dumper into a false martyr who gets to pretend like they are actually being nice by putting it off. It’s going to suck no matter what. But if one has to accept that there is no good time to break up before doing so, can there then be a truly bad time? When it’s not working, it’s not working—right?
In some families, a relationship can become a prophecy. Something beautiful and inevitable to fawn about when everyone’s around, they speculate at what is too come, what is to be forever. Doubts are only to be cast in the hushed tones of the ride home.
One such prophetic relationship belonged to someone’s family friend named Shota.1 All memories of Shota were strung together children stories, half fiction/half memories from older relatives—like how you all fed off each others’ fear of bears. Only to be consoled with Rolos and an assurance that grandma (and the camper walls) would protect us. After Shota turned eight he became a Facetime family friend, moving away to Hawaii. His dad was stationed in the Navy and his mom wanted to be closer to family in Japan. Every holiday his parents would video call into dinner and we’d catch a glimpse of him growing up on the other end. Giving a begrudging hello while avoiding his parents’ camera to focus on video games. The ultimate sign of pre-teen boy solidarity was nonetheless felt towards Shota at the dinner table.
Shota returned the first time in nearly a decade this past Christmas. He was going into his last semester of senior year in college, studying Criminal Justice. While in school his family moved back to California after his dad left the military to become a VA Drug & Alcohol counselor. Shota’s voice is deep now, very serious. He told me he is already practicing for the LSAT and has his next moves planned out: law school, a big time firm as a high profile defense attorney, life as a courtroom drama. He’s boisterous, confident, determined, not a video game headset in sight.
This was also the first time his girlfriend came with him too, however amongst the family she already held notoriety. The visit to family and family friends carried deep significance. Nora2 grew up with Shota in Hawaii, her family native to the Big Island. They started dating in middle school and were inseparable. Homecoming dances, wrestling matches, after school clubs, Prom, the works of teen romcoms. While college would put them in different out-of-state schools for the first time, they both chose universities in the Pacific Northwest. Her, with a scholarship at a private college in Seattle for a pre-nursing program. He, attending a medium sized state school a few hours away. Freshman and sophomore year, Shota racked up Greyhound loyalty points going back and forth between campuses. Junior year he bought a car and drove into the city every weekend. While she would stay in Seattle for her nursing program, my cousin planned to apply to all the big time law programs in the city. To the extended family, one of the kids having a future plan was a fairy-tale. Middle school sweethearts can make it after all.
“If you want to be a lawyer and don’t want to practice in the court room, you’re a fucking pussy,” the golden child said in between bites of carnitas and tamal. “Might as well have got an MBA.”
Nora didn’t laugh at his comment—but she didn’t push back either.
Nora and Shota shared their last winter break on a family tour of sorts. They didn’t have to return to class till late January, so things were just getting started in California. The day after Christmas they were headed to Japan to meet Shota’s other grandparents. Grandparents that even Shota hadn’t seen since moving back to the mainland United States, shaking off their rusty Japanese, after only getting the chance to flex English and Spanish for the better part of a decade. Despite being a middle child among all the “cousins,”3 wedding bells were ringing for the first time. When Shota’s family left for the night everyone was raving about getting to meet Nora, and the perfect timing of the trip. For a couple who’d already been together 10 years despite only being 22, what better place could there be to pop the question?!
They arrived in Tokyo a full day in the future. The toilets didn’t spin the opposite direction, but things felt different. First. Nora couldn’t speak Japanese. Though mixed, Hawaiian and Japanese she watched on as Shota’s Mexican dad spoke to the family with near fluency.4 Nora watched on with the slight shame that only comes when disappointing a grandparent. Second. They would not be staying in Tokyo more than a night. They were headed to a rural town where the extended family lived, several hours away. Think homemade curry, not fancy pastries and upscale vending machines. Third. Shota was in a historically awful mood. Allegedly a complete regression to not speaking5 and sulking, his hair growing from crew cut fade to emo bangs overnight. It was like he was trapped in another holiday Facetime. Forced to look up and say hello to people he hardly knew yet pretended to have intimacy, while his deepest desire was keeping eyes on Valorant. And now, even Nora fell into the group on the other side of the Facetime call. A family member, a stranger—all the same.
The family spent long rainy days inside, drinking tea by the fireplace in silence. Nora offered to help Shota’s grandma and mother with dinner in the early afternoon, which he used as an opportunity to take a walk by the forest at the edge of the property alone. The winter mist settled as a sea of fog across the property, one that looked to envelop him whole as he disappeared for hours. This day repeated for the full first week of the three week trip. Nonetheless, through the language barrier Nora was proving to be a catch to the extended family, while they were also growing sick of the former golden child’s shit. Aside from Nora, the grandparents’ could say, now with conviction, that America was a corrupting force. All that takes root in the states grows rude.
Finally, one day Shota’s father went out looking for him on his excursion. When someone is being a colossal bummer on the trip, sometimes a dad needs to talk. Though he’d retired from the navy, he proudly still served as a search and rescuer of the vibes. Man to man, he could get to the bottom of this.
“Sho, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re sure? You’re kind being an asshole man.”
“God. I just needed a walk, is that okay?”
“Okay man.”
Good talk.
Acknowledging the turd in the pool set things into motion. The next morning before leaving on his walk, Shota invited Nora to come with. After breakfast she grabbed her rain boots, his big high school wrestling hoodie, and met him on the back porch. Out at the edge of the yard there were cherry blossoms. It was winter and they were just buds not yet ready to bloom. Nora wondered when they’d walk on these grounds next. She felt prepared for it. Counting herself lucky, she wondered if a year or two from then, they’d be back here for a wedding. While winter brought rain and reflection, there was still a perfect time to follow—early spring.
In spring life would look like a Miyazaki movie that Shota and her watched together in middle school. Where a commitment they made as kids can still feel whimsical as adults. Everything had a place, everyone was part of a process. If school meant moving, then moving meant learning, then learning meant growing, and growing meant waiting. Waiting, so they could graduate. Soon life could take them to their next adventure, together again. Would they see the cherry blossoms bloom then?
Nora wouldn’t. What Shota would say, would crush her. A broken heart in a land where she knew no one, but her dumper’s family. A land where she had nothing but her clothes, some she’d borrowed from him, and a plane ticket home in two weeks. She looked at her phone and it had no reception.
In silence, red welled eyes, she returned to join the women making curry. She sniffled and parted her bangs out from her eyes. Shota’s mom and grandma were speaking Japanese. Nora couldn’t interject, though she didn’t need to. Shota’s mom dropped her knife, a peeled potato fell to the floor and she hugged her. When his dad walked in she was almost ready for words. Shota was still amongst the trees, so Nora gestured to the father that they’d need to walk in a different direction.
“Whatever he just did, just know I don’t think it was right.”
Nora was on the verge of saying something but just clutched her ex’s father in the type of embrace that feels like it’s the only thing that is stopping you from falling over.
“Whatever you want to do. Stay, go home, take the train out of here. I’ll do it for you.”
Nora spoke in muffles into his stomach. She looked up and could see the father’s eyes were on the verge of tears too.
“You’re family, you’ve always been family Nor.”
That evening she watched the sunset over the mountain skyline. She drank tea. The first week of the trip she’d already finished a book and was nearly done with a second, but couldn’t muster the energy to finish it. There wasn’t a train back to Tokyo till the next day. Changing her flight by two weeks with no notice would nearly double the price. Though Shota’s dad would have certainly covered the cost, she still couldn’t stand to feel like she was putting the family out.
So she stuck out the weekend. Hardly seen, certainly not heard. Shota’s dad had Shota sleep on the couch. He didn’t protest, not even an eye roll. Now he gleefully wrapped himself in extra blankets, letting Nora keep the room for herself for as long as she’d last. Shota was a new boy.
Some other family came to visit that weekend. Though they were obviously already familiar, Shota was excited to take them on walks around the grounds, tour his hiking path like he’d grown up here. He went on grocery trips with the family into town, impressing everyone with his law school plans. Shota even started speaking Japanese again. This pleased his grandma. Hope for Americans yet. Shota’s dad saw him smiling, chopping onions without shedding a tear. He even caught a glimpse of Shota dancing in the kitchen with his grandma to some old city pop song. His son, dancing.
“Sho. I don’t understand you,” his father said. “She’s miserable.”
“I was too,” he said. “It's been on my mind for a while. Sometimes you just have to do what you’re going to do. Rip the bandaid off.”
Sometimes it’s hard to see what is growth, and what isn’t.
Nora left Monday morning. Her first words to Shota since their walk—Good morning and Goodbye. Though there was a newfound spring in his son’s step, his father believed that in some part of Shota he was still hurting. In some part, he must be heartbroken too. Even if he’d never show it, something must be ailing his son that was glowing for the first time since he’d come back from school. It can’t all be shine, not yet. Shota’s dad drove Nora to the train station and was the last to hug her, goodbye. He waited with her till a bell rang for the train coming into the station, decelerating rapidly.
“Did you switch your flight?”
“No, I think I’ll find somewhere in Tokyo to stay for the week at least,” she said. “Fly out when I can find something cheaper, maybe.”
“You’re sure?”
“No, but I think I should find something to do while I’m here.”
The last semester in Seattle started in two weeks. There would be cherry blossoms when she returned. For now, Nora was stuck looking for something new.
Another made up name.
As per usual, it’s not her real name.
If you are from a big family, you already know not everyone who is a cousin is literally a cousin.
Shota’s dad met Shota’s mom in Japa when he was stationed with the navy. They fell in love. So she made sure he learned Japanese. He was perhaps more studious in the language than anything else in his life.
And if he did, only in English.