Xiuying wanted you to help her with her English.
I was still teaching English back then. But, now that I had a shūshi-go, a Master’s degree, from Geikōdai, I was “qualified” to teach at university, albeit mainly part-time as an adjunct. The work paid considerably more than the English conversation schools ever did, but was terribly unstable. It was always feast or famine—lots of money when school was in session, zip when it was out—so, I still had to teach some lessons at home and elsewhere to pay the rent and keep my new wife happy.
Was she?
Haruka happy? I don’t know. Our marriage got off to a rocky start and never quite recovered.
Why so?
I didn’t have much money when we got married. That surprised her. No. I should say that horrified her.
But, you were a student. How much money could you have had?
Well, it was more than that. I was “in debt” when we got married. By debt I mean I was still trying to pay off the student loans from my undergraduate studies. When Haruka found out about it, she went through the roof. Never mind that most students in America graduate with some debt. She wasn’t having any of it. I had “deceived” her. I had “lied” to her!
Had you?
No. Haruka had never asked to see a financial report before we got married. Perhaps, she should have. Perhaps then we wouldn’t have gotten married and would have saved ourselves a lot of grief in the long run . . . At any rate, once I was done with grad school and working full-time again, I was making quite a bit of money, so her concerns were allayed somewhat. But, whenever we fought, and we fight we did, the issue of that “debt” and my “lies” always came up. Our Symphony D Minor played on a continuous loop.
Why do you think it upset her so?
Because her father had died suddenly, prematurely, when she was young, and her family, while not poor, never had a lot of money after that. She wanted to live in the lap of luxury. She wanted to be coddled.
And you?
I wanted to pursue my interests, interests in design and architecture, to do something with that education of mine. Making a lot of money was never the aim—money would come later if I had any talent—and yet, to make Haruka happy, I ended up pursuing money, putting my dreams on the back burner, and a sense of discontent was starting to gnaw at me.
And then Xiuying came back into your life.
The first installment/chapter of A Woman's Hand can be found here.
A Woman's Hand and other works are available in e-book form and paperback at Amazon.