The house was abuzz on Saturday with the preparation of the evening meal. The activity brought back sweet but painful memories for Joel, he missed his family many of whom had died in the concentration camps. He watched the ease in which Kenji and Patricia interacted with each other, their children and family. It occurred to him that it was quite a mixture, Japanese, white and black and some of the whites were from the south but yet, here in this house, none of that mattered. It didn't take him long to realize that they weren't pretending, these people really loved each other and would die protecting each other. A tear slipped down his thin, pale white face, in that moment, he had never felt so alone.
A tugging on his baggy pants distracted him. He looked down to see Marie tugging on his pant leg with one hand and holding a book in the other.
"Read?" she asked with a smile that lit up her plump little face.
Joel stooped down, picked the little girl up and carried her outside. A few minutes later, he was reading to her changing his voice for the different characters and making her laugh. It wasn't long before Niko was sitting with them with a stack of books and the three of them were lost in their own make believe world.
Patricia stood at the window and watched with a smile on her face. She was glad that they convinced Joel to come for the weekend; he needed a respite from whatever it was that was hurting him on the inside. Kenji came up behind her, put his arms around her and watched with her. Before the weekend was out, he was going to have a talk with Joel; he wanted to find out what happened to make him so timid and fearful.
By ten, everyone was gone and the children in bed sound asleep leaving Kenji, Patricia and Joel alone.
"I want to thank you for everything." Joel said softly.
"You're welcome here anytime." Patricia said, "You're our friend."
Joel swallowed a lump in his throat and coughed to clear it. The thought that he had only one more day of heaven before returning to his own private hell weighed heavily on his mind.
"I'm going to make some tea," Patricia announced, "anyone care for any?"
"Yes, thank you kirei." Kenji replied, "Joel?"
"If it isn't any trouble...."
"No trouble." Patricia replied as she kissed Kenji on the cheek and headed for the kitchen.
"Do you realize how lucky you are?" Joel asked as he watched Patricia head to the kitchen.
"I have been blessed." Kenji replied softly, "Joel, where is your family?"
"Many of them are dead at the hands of the Nazis."
"Your parents?" Kenji asked.
"We had been here in the states for about fifteen years when the war broke out. My mother died four years ago and my father died shortly afterwards."
"I am sorry for your loss." Kenji said softly, "It is difficult to lose loved ones no matter the manner of their death."
Patricia came in with the tea and served each man beginning with Joel.
"Where's yours?" Joel asked alarmed thinking that he had taken the last of the tea.
"I changed my mind." Patricia said with a smile, "I think I'm going to take the opportunity to read something other than my school books and leave you two to talk about whatever it is guys your age talk about."
Kenji gave her an appreciative smile, her intuition to the needs of others never ceased to amaze him. Paul set his cup of tea down and stood when Kenji did, "You don't have to leave." He said.
"I know but I have this book that I've been dying to get started on so I'll see you in the morning." Patricia replied, "Sleep well Joel."
"Thank you Patricia and I mean for everything." Joel replied.
"Joel, "Kenji replied, "Will you excuse me for a moment?"
When they were alone in their room Kenji hugged Patricia tight, he wanted nothing more than to be going to bed with her but he and Joel needed to talk.
"Thank you kirei." he breathed as he kissed her.
"You're welcome and if I'm asleep when you come to bed wake me up."
"I promise. I will see you later." Kenji said kissing her again before he went back down the stairs.
Joel was staring off into space when Kenji got to the living room. Joel jerked to attention and gave Kenji a weak smile. When Kenji was sitting and sipping on his now comfortably warm tea Joel hesitated and then asked a question.
"How do a Japanese man and a black woman find each other and make a life together?"
He listened as Kenji gave him the condensed version of his and Patricia's time together leaving out the escape from the camp.
"You survived all of that and yet you still love each other? Didn't you ever want to leave her because of the difficulty?"
"I will admit that there was a time or two that I thought about it but not for my benefit but for hers," Kenji said, "the thoughts didn't last but a few seconds and it is because of her that I survived."
"But your lives would have been so much easier had you not gotten married." Joel said.
"Perhaps in some ways but not in others." Kenji replied, "Both of us had very difficult choices to make and what it came down to was what was right for us. In the end we decided that we were going to fight for what was our right and that was for us to be together as husband and wife."
"If you had to do it again knowing what you do, would you?" Joel asked.
"I would." Kenji replied without hesitation "as would Patricia. Joel, sometimes you have to fight for what you want and I wanted Patricia. What is it that you want?"
Joel sat down his teacup and looked away, "what do I want?" he asked himself.
"I... I want to be strong and confident like you and Patricia are, I want to know what its like to not to be afraid of my own shadow, I want a wife who loves me the way that Patricia loves you and I want children." Joel stopped himself realizing that this was the first time that he had verbalized any of his wants.
"Who made you so unsure of yourself?" Kenji asked, "Where did all of this fear come from?"
Kenji listened as Joel talked about his life, his childhood and the loss of his parents.
"You have always been persecuted." Kenji stated.
