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too narrow for his feet. “Baka-tare!” Stubborn fool.
    “Your doctor won’t let you go,” Charlie said. “You’re too sick, Shoko.”
    “Maybe I no live through surgery,” I said, saying what everyone was afraid to say. “I want go.” I thought of something. “If Dr. Cunningham say okay, you say okay, too? You go with me?”
    Charlie nodded, looking relieved. “But he’s not going to say okay, Shoko.”
    “Deal,” I said, sticking my hand out and shaking my husband’s.
    When you marry and integrate with Americans, it is only natural not to have friends. Most American women will dislike you. Perhaps looking for other Japanese women will be possible, but probably not. Expect to be alone much of the time. Children help relieve this melancholy.

    —from the chapter “Culture for Women,”
How to Be an American Housewife

Five
    I n the afternoon, Charlie drove us home from Dr. Cunningham. He had said no to Japan, just as Charlie said he would.
    “You’ll need oxygen by the time you get off the plane.” Dr. Cunningham crossed his arms and spoke as to a child. He was even more handsome when he looked stern.
    “I do fine,” I said.
    He and Charlie exchanged looks. “If you put this off, you will die,” Dr. Cunningham said quietly. “I’m afraid there’s no other way to say it.”
    “I know that. But I always this way. No different.” I spoke softly, but I wanted to yell. “I need go.”
    “He said no,” Charlie said.
    “Next year, when you recover,” Dr. Cunningham said, touching my arm.
    I grabbed my purse and stood up. Didn’t they know I didn’t care if there was a next year anymore? I felt dizzy and had to sit down again. “Take me home.”
     
     
    WE ALWAYS TOOK SURFACE STREETS, all the way from Balboa Park to San Carlos, through the terrible neighborhoods and potholes bigger than the Grand Canyon. “Take too long,” I said every time. Charlie hated driving on the freeway.
    “Less traffic this way,” he said. Or he said nothing. Often I thought he didn’t hear me. I knew he never listened to me.
    Despite this, Charlie was a better husband than some other American men. He had a steady Navy job that was enough money, especially when we lived in Japan. He bought books for me and tried to learn Japanese. Another Japanese Navy wife I met in Guam had a husband who made her sit behind him in the car, like they did in Japan. But if Charlie had asked me to, I would have.
    I would have done almost anything for Charlie to keep him happy. My friend Toyoko had shown me that. Back when Mike was a baby in Norfolk, I knew no Japanese Navy wives. There weren’t many around in the early days. But one evening shortly after Mike turned two, Charlie arrived home with a broad smile and two extra people for dinner. “Shokochan, I have a surprise.”
    I got up from where Mike and I were playing blocks, already thinking about how I could stretch two chops into more and planning to tell him off later for bringing guests without telling me.
    Then I saw who was following him inside. A Japanese woman about my age, maybe younger, and a black sailor. Her hair was cut short and permed into soft curls all over her head.
    She bowed, taking off her shoes. In her hands was a casserole dish tied up in a purple scarf. “Forgive intrusion,” she said, her voice high and polite and in English far better than my own. “I brought macaroni and cheese.”
    Toyoko and her husband, Jim, had just moved on base. They’d met as Charlie and I had, on the Iwakuni Air Base. Toyoko’s eyes met mine and we smiled big as children.
    “Welcome!” I said, wondering if we should switch to Japanese. No. It would be impolite not to include the men.
    Charlie read my mind. “Go ahead and speak Japanese. We want to learn, right, Jim? Besides, the language sounds like music.”
    Toyoko and I did everything together for the next year. We tried to learn English better. There were no classes offered, at least none that we could easily get