Free The Sun Gods by Jay Rubin Page A

you,” she said. “I love Billy. I pray to God every day that we can stay like this forever. I was never going to tell you what I feel. If you are strong enough to fight temptation, I am also strong enough. I can be your sister until I die.”
    Her hands, still folded on the Bible, were trembling slightly. Her eyes were moist, but they were looking straight at him.
    He had to turn away. Pushing his chair back noisily, he nearly stumbled as he rose. Mitsuko’s eyes dropped to her hands, their smooth skin now streaked with tears. Tom lurched out of the kitchen and into the living room, where he slumped onto the couch.
    He stared out into the night with empty eyes, his mind as chaotic as the sleet that swept past the window pane in heaving gusts: Sarah, in a long yellow dress, running to him through the shallows of a rock-filled river. A room full of flowers—masses of red and white and pink and yellow—and Sarah in her coffin, in the hearse, in the grave. Billy, bruised and hairless, cradled in his arms and sucking greedily on a bottle. The curve of Mitsuko’s bare shoulders sculpted in a maternal embrace, and eyes looking down in adoration.
    A thin thread was running through these scenes, stretching from the distance and weaving its way closer. It was a thread of sound, a cry he seemed to recognize. Tom looked at his watch: the hands pointed to 10:15. Billy always woke at 10:15, as if he had a tiny alarm clock set inside his head. Tom heard Mitsuko padding from the kitchen, through the hallway, to Billy’s room. She was going to pick him up and walk with him, as she always did at this time, despite Tom’s protests that she was coddling the boy.
    And then she began to sing the lullaby whose melody he would never grasp. Tom listened for some hint that it was different tonight, some indication that Mitsuko’s declaration had shaken her as deeply as it had shaken him, but on and on it droned, unchanged from yesterday, or the day before that, or the weeks before that. Eventually, as always, Billy fell asleep again and Mitsuko tiptoed from his room. Tom heard her go to her room, then the bathroom, as she always did after this little ritual, and the bath water started running exactly on schedule.
    He wondered if she would emerge in her Japanese robe, bow to him in the door of the living room, and withdraw to her own room after wishing him a good night as always. Rather than waiting to find out, he shut himself in his bedroom, changed into pajamas, and made sure that he was in bed with the lights out before she had finished her bath. He heard her walk toward the living room, and his heart began to pound again when it sounded as if her footsteps were coming this way. But no, they continued past his room, and after her door closed, there was only silence.
    He slept fitfully. At one point during the night, he sensed that Mitsuko was in Billy’s room. Staring at the dim light seeping under his door, he considered looking into his son’s bedroom, but he was afraid of what he might see.
    Pastor Tom had to drag himself out of bed in the morning. As always, he dressed to the accompaniment of Billy’s laughter and the sounds of cooking in the kitchen.
    â€œGood morning,” he said as he stepped onto the linoleum floor. Mitsuko responded with her usual “Good morning” and little bow and smile. Had it all been a dream? Had she not spoken words that could alter their lives forever?
    Over the next five days, he made a point of continuing with their Bible reading as though nothing had happened, questioning her to check her understanding of difficult passages, answering her inquiries on doctrinal interpretation, even correcting her pronunciation. He found in her only flawless self-control. Perhaps they could go on living this way, as mutually supportive brother and sister. Perhaps nothing had to change.
    Tom was impressed with the eloquence of the sermon he composed on Saturday, and the