Koi Under Ice

Inasaki primary was no more than ten minutes’ walk from my father-in-law's place, small, cramped quarters that were only meant to be our temporary home, but I still had the kids dressed and fed and out of the house by ten past seven. There was a tension in the air that morning, and for everyone’s sake, it was best we were gone before she woke. The kids didn’t need to witness another scene like the one the night before, and I didn’t need to be a part of one.

“Do you have to go online and play that stupid game the second you get home? Could you not spare two minutes to give your kids a goodnight kiss and ask them how they are? How they are getting on in school or...anything? And why are you so late again, anyway? You can’t be working overtime every day? Did you stop on the way home to meet him?”

Our weekday morning routine was usually an uneventful rush. Slam out of the house on the precipice of late at ten to nine. Struggle up the unforgiving, tarmacked hill to the road. Cross the small pedestrian bridge to the grass verge and path on the other side. Follow the cycle path and running track past tennis court and skate park and well-furnished playground to the schoolyard full of polite, obedient children, carefully lined-up and presided over by colourfully dressed, abnormally happy teachers.

“No, I didn't meet him and even if I did it's none of your business. I can talk to him, in my own language, and we have stuff in common, that's all. But I did stay late in the office, it’s impossible to leave before the boss, nobody does that! I am so tired after work, I don’t have energy for the kids. That’s your job! I just want to complete some daily missions in my game and chat with my friends before bed, what’s wrong with that?”

That chill November morning was different. That morning, we didn’t go up the hill, or cross the bridge, or follow the path. We had time to kill so we went the long way, out of the house and left, past the motorway off-ramp on one side and the small, neatly kept graveyard on the other. I let my gaze roam over the polished marble headstones lined up like soldiers as we passed, remembering how once upon a time a fuss had been made over that graveyard, when she said her ashes would be interred there, but mine, as a Westerner, would not be welcome. It had been a cause for concern back in the day. I’d argued we’d have to find a way to make it work, which was funny because now it didn’t matter. These last few months I’d become aware an end was coming, but it wasn’t the one I’d expected, and I no longer wanted to rest there.

“My job? Yes, I know that, and I’m doing a good one! I get them up, and dressed, and fed, I make their lunches and get them to school, I collect them, help them with their homework, make dinner, bath them, get them to bed and try to make sure they have fun. I do it all, even at the weekends when you go off to meet...friends. I appreciate you are working hard but there doesn't seem to be much money coming in, and the kids need some attention from their mother. Even just a bit. Is it too much to ask for you fit them into your schedule and give them a little of your time?”

I walked with the boys past the graveyard to the stream that ran behind the local shrine. The water was still and devoid of life now, but in the summer it was filled with insects and amphibians and crayfish of all shapes and sizes. We’d spent many long hours there, catching them with nets and putting them in jars to take home, it was a popular pastime amongst the kids of the small, country town and it was nice to see my boys joining in.

Unfortunately, the crayfish never lived long once they were caught. We tried hard to keep them alive, feeding them insects and changing their water, but they were basically dead as soon as they were taken from the stream. Glen recalled the biggest one they’d caught, the red and blue one with the missing claw they’d nicknamed Lobster America. We’d managed to keep that one for three whole days, long enough for them to grow attached to it, so they’d felt a sense of loss when it died too. From then on, we had a catch and release policy only. There was enough misery in the house by that stage, I didn’t need anything else failing.

“I told you so many times, I am not a motherly person! I don’t like kidstuff, playing silly games and reading stories! You are good at that! You can’t speak Japanese so you can't get a job here, that makes you useless. So you have to stay home and mind the kids!”

The boys were laughing about the time Carl got too close to the edge of the stream and slipped, plunging up to his knees in muddy water. It was good to see them smile, it made me smile too, but I felt guilty instantly, because they were behaving like nothing was wrong and I knew everything was. When Jake said he was looking forward to next summer and catching an even bigger Lobster America, I knew it was time to move on, so I challenged them to a race and we ran to the river the stream flowed into, and the arched, wooden bridge that stretched across it.

“Useless? Rearing our kids single-handedly is useless? Kids you wanted to have, but now have no time for? What are we even doing here? We were only supposed to be here a couple of months. It was supposed to be a holiday, and a break for me after the redundancy, to give me time to plan my next move. And what happens? You dump me and the kids on your dad and disappear from our lives completely. The boys miss you. They aren’t happy. They can’t speak the language and they don’t have any friends. Can we just go back to Ireland? We’re running out of money to pay the mortgage, the house is sitting empty, with all our stuff in it, getting damp. At the very least let's go back for a year and make a plan. We can't just leave everything the way it is. I can't go back alone, who'll look after the kids if I do? We have to go back together, even for a year. Please.”

It was eight a.m. and time was marching on. The boys reached the glossy red bridge and ran to its centre, stuck their heads through the guard rail to look in the water. This was another of our regular haunts, places we enjoyed hanging out. The river was home to a school of enormous koi, beautifully coloured in splotches of black, white and orange. In warmer weather, they would rise to the surface in response to movement on the bridge, undulating like the tentacles of some great river deity. Their faces would appear, mouths popping open as if gasping for air but really just wanting to be fed.

The boys loved how the fish would thrash around to get at the rice and lettuce leaves and scraps of leftover food they threw, making sure to spread it out so each and every one of them got a bite. It was too cold for that now, though. The fish had entered their dormant state and were hovering a few inches below the surface, mostly unmoving, conserving energy to best survive the winter. This lack of movement caused my boys concern. ‘Are they dead, Daddy? Are they dying?’ ‘No, just sort of hibernating, like the bears do, in the winter. It looks weird but they’ll be back to their old selves in the spring.’

As long as the river didn’t ice over and cause them to suffocate. I didn’t tell them that bit, but I sniffed when I realised that’s what was happening to us. Our world had been freezing for some time now and if I didn’t act soon, we’d be belly up like koi under ice.

“The kids, the kids, the kids, that’s all you ever think about! What about me? I’m not happy in Ireland! All my friends came back home, I have no one to meet there anymore. There is nothing to do. Nowhere to go. And the weather is always bad. I hate it! I’m sorry but I’m not going back there. Ever! I know you and the kids want to and you can, I don’t care. But I’m staying here, I decided.”

Moving on from the river, we made our way to the playground, a vibrant place full of colour and laughter in the summer, not so much now that winter had come to embrace it. The red and purple Japanese maples that bordered the area on three sides had lost nearly all of their leaves and the trees looked naked and embarrassed as they stood there exposed to the elements. The sand pit was empty, the swings weren’t swinging, the slides rose up like the stripped-bare bones of some long dead mythical monsters. The high-pitched buzzing of the summer cicadas was a distant memory, as was the sound of happy children, and a deathly silence hung in the air. I let the boys break that silence for a time, while I bought a can of hot coffee from the nearby vending machine, then sat on a metal bench to watch them play, schoolbags bouncing on their backs.

“And that’s it? Just like that, you’re giving up? After ten years of marriage? But why am I not surprised? You gave up on us a long time ago. After Jack was born. You’ve been a shadow in this family for years, I was just too scared to accept it. I thought I could fix things if I gave you what you wanted, space, independence, but you want more, freedom we can’t give you right now. Does everything we built mean nothing? Is that what you’re saying? Does none of it matter anymore? I know it's not easy. I know you've grown unhappy living in Ireland, I get it, but we have a life there, a home, we at least need to tidy things up before making a change. What am I supposed to do, I can't fix it alone.”

I finished my coffee at 8.25 and walked to the road, calling the boys. Time to finish the journey. Their faces fell when they remembered. This wasn’t a fun day out with Dad. It was a normal weekday and they had hours of being anxious ahead, not understanding what their teachers were saying, doing their best to avoid participation. I hated seeing them like that. I’d hoped they’d get the hang of it and be able to adapt and fit in, but after six months it just wasn’t happening. They hadn’t been given a grounding in the language back in Ireland, she’d never took the time or made the effort. They were floundering, like grounded fish gasping for air, and I could see in their eyes how much it stressed them.

It wasn’t right.

“I don't care! I’m not going back. I told you. I don’t want to be with you anymore. I don’t want that life there anymore. I'm sorry. It’s over. Let’s get a divorce!”

I brought them to the school gates and said goodbye, sent them through and watched them trudge to their lines, to be greeted by cheerful teachers, who beamed effortlessly and patted them on the head, speaking reassuring words they didn’t know. All three of them looked back nervously to see if I was still there. I smiled and waved and slowly walked away, a terrible ache in my chest and a lump in my throat.

Winter, like Death, had come to call, claiming what it wanted as it spread, the crayfish, the koi, the maple leaves and cicadas, the happiness and laughter that we loved. This year, it had claimed something else as well, something it had been after for some time, something that had finally run its course.

I returned to the bench in the park and lit a cigarette, smoked it to its halfway point then stubbed it out on the hard, cold earth and took out my phone.

No messages. Why would there be?

I created one, selected her name, typed a word, the only one I had, which was enough. I pressed send and sat back, looked at the four black letters in the small green box on the screen. Four letters that confirmed an acceptance of something that had been lurking at the fringes of reality for a very long time.

Okay, they simply read.

And I knew, as difficult as it was going to be, as hard on the kids, as devastating, it was the only thing I could do. It was the right thing to do. For her. For me. For them and for all of our futures.

I had to strike out and crack the ice.

It was the only way we were going to survive.

And for the first time in a long time, now that the decision had been made...

I knew that we would.