“Children,” Jane said, not bothering to wipe her face. “This is what happens when you lose focus. Mr. Park is our new student, and the first one who has ever been able to hit me. Bow to him and show your respect.”
“No, please, I’m very sorry,” Josh said, but all the little kids turned and bowed to him.
“Now, Joshua, please step outside. Class, one hundred jumping jacks. Violet, count them off while I clean my face.”
“One! Two! Three!” a tiny blond girl began shouting.
Josh slunk out of the room, where a dozen parents stared at him.
Sarah came behind him, wheezing with laughter. “You punched an old woman,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face.
“I heard that, Sarah,” Jane said, holding a towel to her face. “Old? Please. I am seventy years old. My mother is one hundred and four. Joshua, it was my own fault. I glanced away. So! You want to be my student?”
“Um . . . yes. Yes, I do.” How could he say no? He’d broken her nose.
“Great! I think you’ll do well.” She went behind a counter, glanced at him and pulled out a white uniform wrapped in plastic. “Go get changed and join our class.”
“Um . . . is there a beginner’s class for adults?” he asked, glancing at the assembled parents, who were making no effort to pretend they weren’t staring.
“Not at the moment,” she said. “There may be one starting in a few months, but for now, you’ll take this one. It’s one hundred and nine dollars a month, plus forty dollars for the gi. That’s your uniform. Go on! Get changed and come back in.” Jane went into her office. “Holy shit,” she said, poking her head out. “I’m going to have quite a pair of shiners!” She beamed at him, gruesome through the blood, and closed the door.
Josh looked at Sarah, who was pretending to study something very important on her phone. “Thanks,” he said. “This is exactly what I had in mind.”
“It’ll be good for you,” she said, struggling to keep a straight face.
“First I hit an old woman, now I get to beat up children,” he said.
“See? A hobby. Now listen to Sensei and go get changed.” She smiled. “I’ll buy you dinner after.”
He did as instructed.
The kids glared at him. “Why are you so old?” one little girl asked after she’d been assigned as his partner.
“I’m like a dragon,” he said. “Old and wise.”
“I can beat you up,” she said.
“I believe it.”
She punched him in the thigh to prove it.
“Ouch,” he said.
“Lyric, no hitting your partner! Give me twenty push-ups,” Sensei Jane said from the front of the room. Her voice sounded stuffy from the swelling. The little girl gave Josh a look that said, Watch your back, and started doing Marine-perfect push-ups. She couldn’t have been more than five.
They kicked the air and hit a punching bag. The kids were damn cute, Josh had to admit. And he liked kids. Even Lyric. He admired the way they didn’t trust him or didn’t think he was anything special just because he was an adult. The way they’d rushed to defend their teacher.
When class was over, and Josh had been introduced to the parents, one of whom was a former classmate from RISD and two who had known Lauren, Sarah took him to the sushi place next door.
“Did you know I’d be in a class with kindergarteners?” he asked.
“Honestly, no. That was just a gift. I knew Jane would throw you around a little. She does that to all the new students. Well, not the little kids. But the ones who think a four-foot-ten senior citizen can’t defend herself.”
“I punched her. In the face. Not great advertising,” he said.
“Oh, one of the kids distracted her. You’ll never win another fight with her again. Enjoy the moment.”
He took a piece of spicy tuna with eel and chewed.
Lauren would’ve loved this night, Josh thought as they ate their sushi rolls and seaweed salad. She would’ve been rolling on the floor with laughter at the sight of him towering over the little kids. She would’ve approved a hundred percent.
15
Joshua
Still month four
June 12
ON LAUREN’S BIRTHDAY, he went into her closet, sat with the last pair of pajamas she’d ever worn and held them against his face, breathing in her smell.
She would’ve been twenty-nine years old today.
For their third anniversary, the gift was supposed to be leather. He’d gone to the same jewelry store where he’d bought her engagement ring, and picked out a watch with a green leather band. While in the store, he’d also bought her a pair of dangling gold earrings with pearls on the end. They would look so pretty swaying against her hair, he’d thought. Pearls were her birthstone. His plan had been to save them for June, unaware that she’d die within days of his purchase.
It seemed so long ago, that dark February day, the salesperson complimenting him on his taste and saying his wife was a lucky woman.
Today’s weather was insultingly beautiful, the air dry and clear, sun shining, midsixties, flowers bursting out of window boxes everywhere. Even the ferns and hostas Lauren had planted on the rooftop garden had come back this spring, despite Josh’s neglect of them. (And the seagull, who shat on them. Maybe it was fertilizer.)
Life was everywhere except where he most wanted it to be.
The dogwood tree idea felt stupid today. He wished there were a grave where he could lay a bouquet of flowers. He should’ve thought about that, should’ve recognized that Jen and Donna would want somewhere to go.
Someday, he’d plant the tree. Where, he didn’t know.
He texted Donna and asked if he could come over. She said yes, and half an hour later, he was in her kitchen, holding her as she sobbed. “I didn’t know it would be this hard,” she said, her voice muffled against his shirt. “I don’t know if I can stand it. My little girl, my baby.”
No, he thought. It was unbearable.
“I have a present for you,” he said, handing his mother-in-law the box, and when she saw the earrings, she stroked them gently, as if they were alive.
“Her birthstone,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
She put them on, then looked in the small mirror by the door. “Thank you, sweetheart,” she said.
Then she poured Josh a cup of coffee, and they sat on the porch, Donna’s hand on his arm.