How to Be an American Housewife by Margaret Dilloway

gentleman,” Father assured me, though he had never met Charlie.
    I missed Ronin more than I could bear, but I put him aside. They never caught Tetsuo, and if they had, they wouldn’t have done anything to him. We lived in a warrior culture. People would say that Ronin got what was coming to him. I’m sure that’s what Taro told himself, if he thought about it at all.
    I had to do what I needed to do now. Charlie’s time here was halfway over. My options were running out.
    If I stayed in Japan, what would I have? I couldn’t go to college. I couldn’t work at the hotel forever. Young women got replaced constantly with the newer, better models. Nor was finding a Japanese man that easy. My mother had exhausted her matchmaking abilities with Tetsuo; all the young men who had any ambition at all had left to seek their fortunes elsewhere. My hometown was a ghost town. I needed to get out or become one of those wrinkled spinsters, waiting at home for suitors who would never come.
    Charlie took me on a date. We had ice cream cones and went for a walk along the harbor. Like two Americans in a movie. We stopped on a metal bridge over the water and looked at the Navy boats while leaning against the railing and eating our cones. I felt a little out of breath and sick to my stomach, as I often did since Ronin was killed. This time, I figured it was due to the ice cream—vanilla—because I was unused to cow’s milk.
    We looked down at the grayish-green water at the same time. Charlie and I tried to talk sometimes, but often we were comfortable in quiet. I wiped the sweat discreetly from my brow and hoped I didn’t smell too bad. Charlie glanced at me with a shy smile. I smiled back expectantly.
    “Humid today,” he said, in his slow English.
    I didn’t understand. He made a fanning motion with his hand and pulled his shirt away from his skin.
    “Oh, yes.” I laughed. Charlie was really good at pantomime.
    I waited again. He popped the rest of the cone back in his mouth. “Time for me to report back to the ship.”
    He was never going to ask me. “You leave soon?”
    “Pretty soon.”
    I took his hand. It was cold despite the heat. Cold hands, warm heart, they say. I squeezed it. “You like date me?”
    “Of course.” He squeezed back, then put his arm around me. “I’m going to miss you,” he added, his voice husky.
    I rested my head on his shoulder. “You want to marry?”
    He put his chin on my head. “Someday. Why?”
    I stepped back, put one hand on a hip, and cocked my head to the side, pretending to be indignant. “Why you think I date you long time?”
    He laughed. “Okay, then.”
    It took some people years to get the proper marriage paperwork. The Navy always changed the rules, saying if you filled out the blue form but not the green, then fill out the yellow with three copies. It was worse than taxes, they said. But Charlie filled out everything the next day. And then, with no problem, like magic, the Navy approved it.
    About two weeks later, he took me to the courthouse. We signed our names on some papers in front of an official wearing horn-rimmed glasses, who shook our hands without smiling.
    Charlie turned to me. “That’s it.”
    I frowned. “What it?” No ceremony, no kiss, nothing? Was this American?
    Charlie grinned. “We’re married.”
     
     
    WE RENTED a nice big house in town, where the richer people lived, using up all our money. “Two bedrooms!” Charlie said. “We had two bedrooms in my family for six kids and two parents!”
    “Very nice.” I smiled at him. I was learning English little by little. Charlie said when we went to America, he’d buy me a TV set and I’d pick it up in no time. We had no money left for furniture, so we had to wait for his next paycheck to buy that. Every payday after that, Charlie bought me lots of beautiful clothes. I went to a tailor and had several fashionable American-style dresses made, a yellow silk suit, handmade shoes. My new husband