For decades I thought it was a dream, and perhaps it was. I wake to the sound of people arguing outside. They're grown-ups, men; some are speaking Japanese. I don't recognize their voices. At last I hear my father, his voice raised. He's talking so fast his words no longer sound like any language I know. When he's finished, there's silence. I'm young enough that I have to stand on tiptoe to peer out the window. The edge of its frame digs into my forearms. The sun is just rising. There's my mother, standing between the dogwood and the birch in the yard, her face in shadow. My father is getting into his long white Impala, and on the driveway behind his car is a row of men holding hands. They seem to flutter, a paper people chain in the breeze. A few months after his death, my mother told me the story. My father had been manic for days, roaming the house naked and muttering about the CIA and KGB tapping his phones. In the middle of the night, he rose from their bed and began packing. He had to go to the casinos. God had said so. He'd been chosen. He was blessed. Unbeatable. God had promised he would make millions. My mother pleaded. He wasn't thinking straight. Princeton to Atlantic City was a two-hour drive, and my father was in no shape to make it. He hadn't eaten or slept for days. Didn't he remember that last accident? What if he had another one? Maybe they could take a trip to the hospital instead. When my father ignored her, rummaging through her purse and different drawers in the house to pull together a bundle of cash, she phoned one of his colleagues at his lab. It wasn't long past four in the morning, but after speaking with her, the colleague, another physicist, must have made some calls himself. Within the hour he and three other physicists, one more colleague and two of my father's grad students, had arrived at our house. When my father came to the door, they began to wheedle. They needed my father, they said. They needed him healthy and well rested, back at work. They were so close to their goal. How would they get there without him? They'd be happy to shuttle him to Atlantic City and throw some dice down with him--if sensei would just hand over the keys? They offered to get a blackjack game up and running in another hour right here in Princeton, right here in Shoichi-san's house. My father barely seemed aware they were there. Wild-eyed, his face set, he pushed past them and ran to his car. The physicists moved so quickly, my mother said, they must have planned it beforehand. Marshaling themselves on the driveway, they took each other's hands, a human barricade. My father jerked the car into reverse. He didn't come at the physicists fast, but neither was he stopping. They were brave and loyal and they held their ground, with only a faint tremor to betray their fear, for a few seconds before they broke, releasing each other's hands and scattering as they dove for the lawn, and then my father was gunning it to Atlantic City. Excerpted from Secrets of the Sun: A Memoir by Mako Yoshikawa All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
