MAMA'S BOY. I can’t quite believe it. I’ve just been called a mama’s boy. So I respond, here in the soft orange light of the living room after one in the morning, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

     My first meeting tomorrow is at 8.30, which means I have to leave the house by 7.30, so I need to be up at 6.30, and if I’m getting up at 6.30, it’s definitely time for me to be hitting the sack, but damned if I’m going to slink off to the bedroom without a word after being called a mama’s boy.

     ‘No, I’m not kidding. You are a mama’s boy – through and through,’ Sayuri declares from the sofa. It reminds me of a primary school classmate and the infantile lie he spouted about his family owning five cars and three television sets; that same haughty tone and nothing to back it up.

     ‘Through and through, my foot. In that case, I’d like to know what your definition of a “mama’s boy” is. If anything, you’re the one who’s got a mother complex. I don’t see how anyone can say that about me.’

     ‘Pff, you want a definition. What a laugh. You’re so predictable,’ she says, sounding terribly amused, as she sorts one-by-one through the bottles of nail polish lined up on the end table. ‘Tell a guy he’s a mama’s boy, and you can count on him to get all hot and bothered. That’s proof right there. You’re a mama’s boy.’

     ‘So that’s why I’m asking, tell me what I do that makes me a mama’s boy? I mean, it’s easy enough to …’

     ‘Look,’ she raises her voice to cut me off, ‘it’s the way you insist on spelling everything out like that. That’s what makes you a mama’s boy. Like just now, when we were talking about the coffee you forgot. Why do you have to go on and on explaining every little reason it slipped your mind? I’m not your mother, you know. What am I supposed to say? Oh, my poor baby, I guess you just couldn’t help it.’

     Her shrill voice grates inside my head.

     ‘I can’t believe you’re still giving me a hard time about that. Is it really so unforgivable that I forgot to pick up some coffee?’

     Even as I say it, I know how silly this is becoming.

     ‘You’re missing the point. It’s not about the coffee. You wanted to know why I said you’re a mama’s boy, so I’m just trying to explain. You get sidetracked so easily.’

     Heaving an exaggerated sigh, she spreads her fingers and begins to paint her nails. Her thumbnail turns a glistening purple. I’m ready to explode, but I know I can’t win, no matter what I say, so I head for the bedroom, slamming the door behind me.

     What a mistake! I say to myself. This whole marriage was one big mistake. I crawl into bed and pull the covers up over my head. It’s scary how that woman can hold onto a grudge. I forgot to pick up the coffee beans she asked me to get, that’s all – well, okay, for two days in a row – but just for that, she bitches at me for hours, refusing to let it go, and she’ll probably bring it up again a year from now and bitch at me some more. You just can’t have a rational discussion with her because she gets hysterical and raises her voice all the time. Even when she doesn’t, it’s impossible to talk to her – she’s utterly incapable of thinking logically.

     When we were dating, I thought she was a grown-up. How stupid can you get? I let her age fool me. I just assumed she was mature because she was six years older. It never occurred to me that her mental age might not match her real age. She’s almost thirty-eight now, but she’s still got the mind of a ten year old.

     I mean, damn, it’s only coffee. If you’re out of beans, you make do with instant. You don’t start disparaging people and calling them mama’s boys.

     But you know what? It occurs to me now that derision is the only thing Sayuri can do, the only mode of communication she has. She’s never learned to relate to people any other way than with vitriol. My eyes open wide under the covers. That’s very good. Lay that on her as she sits there smugly painting her nails and it’s definitely going to hit her where it hurts. I just realised, all you know is hatefulness, you poor thing. Maybe I’ll get out of bed and go say that to her right this minute. No, I’ll stay put. Not because I’m afraid she might have a comeback: I’ll hold onto this card for another time. If she starts in on me again with one of her infantile grievances, I’ll play it on her then, and give her an oh-so-pitying smile.

     When I came to bed I was sure I’d be lying awake until three, but now that I have this ace up my sleeve it sets my mind at ease, and I quickly drift off to sleep.

 

*   *   *

 

After making the rounds of several stores in Kozukue I head for my usual lunch spot, but the place is unusually busy and all the tables are taken. Driving on a little, I turn left at the Kishine intersection and pull into the first family restaurant I see. There are just a handful of customers and I’m shown to a booth by the window. After ordering the lunch special, I check my phone and find a message from Sayuri telling me she’ll be having dinner with her mother tonight so not to expect her until late. I toss the phone on the bench beside me and wipe my face with the lukewarm towelette the waitress brought.

     Sayuri sees her mother two or three times a week: stopping by on the way home from work, going shopping on the weekend, taking in a show together. The woman is over sixty but looks young enough to make you wonder, and seeing her walking with Sayuri from behind you’d swear they must be sisters. Their voices sound almost identical and they share the same habits of speech, too. Isn’t thaaat the truth. Hunnnh, are you serious? Doesn’t that just make you sick? Well, you kno-oww …

     It’s always bugged me how Sayuri puts doing things with her mother ahead of spending time with me, and back when we first got married I tried to talk to her about it. Didn’t she think she was being overly dependent on her mother? Now that she was married, wasn’t it time she and her mother let go of one another? Not to mention that maybe a woman who’s over thirty should stop calling her mother ‘mama’, except in the privacy of her own home. It didn’t turn out to be much of a discussion. She flew off the handle and started blathering all sorts of stuff that didn’t make any sense, but to fill in the blanks as best I can, it came down to something like this: About the time she hit puberty she began hating her mother, but this hatred actually arose out of her dependency, and it was precisely because she wasn’t dependent on her mother any more that she could see her as an individual without all that baggage, and that was what finally made it possible for them to grow close. It was nobody else’s business what she chose to call her own mother.

     Faced with her shrill rantings, I pretended to be swayed. I actually thought there was a good deal more to be said. I mean, close is fine, but can’t there sometimes be too much of a good thing? Don’t you have to say something’s a little out of whack when you’re dining out with your mother more often than with your husband? But she topped off her screaming by bursting into tears, and any further discussion was impossible. Since then, I’ve said no more about it.

     The waitress brings my meal. It’s an assortment of fried seafood with egg drop soup, a green salad and rice. I gaze absently out the window as I sip the watery broth and chew on the dried-out salad. A bullet train slides by beneath a flawless blue sky.

     Since moving to Tokyo I rarely talk to my mother back in Yamanashi, and I seldom visit, even at Bon or New Year. I’ve never felt the need to consult her about anything I do, and she’s never offered her advice. Her announcement two years ago that she planned to remarry was certainly a surprise – but it wasn’t something I had any particular feelings about. As her eldest, it did set my mind at ease, but that was about it. All I could say about the groom-to-be was that he seemed like a nice enough man.

     I’ve come to think that I don’t know my mother at all. She’s the woman who carried me, gave birth to me, and raised me to adulthood, and yet, even though we lived under the same roof for eighteen years, I sometimes think I know more about complete strangers.

     I finish my flavourless meal down to the last grain of rice, light a cigarette, and gaze out the window over a cup of weak coffee. The trees lining the street have turned yellow, their leaves scattering the bright sunlight. Another bullet train passes by and I imagine jumping into my work van and tearing off in pursuit. A feeling of weightlessness comes over me, and then the number thirty-two pops into my head. Thirty-two years. That’s how long I have left on the mortgage for our condominium. Which means I’ll be making payments to the bank for the same number of years as I’ve been alive. But what that will gain me grows harder to see with each passing day.

 

*   *   *

 

The head of sales is a woman called Aiko Oyamada. She and Sayuri are the same age, though Sayuri looks far younger and has a prettier face, not to mention a more sophisticated air – all of which makes me feel a little superior. But in other ways, the two are very much alike. For one thing, they’re both extremely long-winded. If they wanted to say A, they could just say A and be done with it, but instead they have to start in at F, and tediously make their way through E, D, and C, and then, just when they get to B and you’re bracing yourself for the point, they’ll suddenly go off on a tangent to M. I’ve been standing in front of Aiko Oyamada’s desk for thirty-five minutes when she finally gets to what she wants to say.

     ‘So how exactly do you wind up coming back here with every last bit of product you took out with you still in the van? Would you care to explain that to me, my dear Mr Kubota?’

     She is leaning back in her chair, smiling. Why couldn’t she simply have asked that to begin with, instead of going on and on about the ramen shop in front of the station that went out of business, and the bicycle shop where all the bikes are cheap? I just don’t get it.

     Grateful that we have finally come to the point, I open my mouth.

     ‘Nitta Office Supply in Kozukue said they’d just laid in stock from another supplier and want to hold off until after that has sold. It’s a space issue. In Hakuraku, both Angel and Muranaka said they want to wait until next month to see how things are shaping up. And the Tanakas in Kikuna say they’re in discussions to convert to a hundred-yen shop at the beginning of the year … except that the mother-in-law is apparently opposed to the idea.’

     Aiko Oyamada looks me straight in the eye. ‘Are you a total idiot?’

     In the office kitchen I throw water on my face at the sink. I twist the tap off and reach for my handkerchief, but my pocket is empty. Clicking my tongue, I dry my face with a paper towel – I hate the way the wet paper clings to my fingers. Come to think of it, Sayuri used to call me ‘my dear Mr Kubota’ too, back when we first met.

     Just six more months. Then I’ll finally be liberated from sales, and from Aiko Oyamada.

     I joined Nozaki Office Products straight out of college and three years ago was transferred to the product development department where I worked mainly as a product manager. Then for no good reason I could see, some of us were placed with other firms in the name of in-service training and I ended up assigned to the sales department at Daiwa, a wholesaler that distributes for Nozaki. With a large bar graph on the wall tracking every sales rep’s performance it’s like I’ve time-warped to another era. The transfer is supposed to be for one year and every time I look at that ridiculous graph I reckon how much time I have left, like a prisoner counting the days to his release – nine months to go, six months to go …

     ‘Poor Kubota.’

     I turn to find Tezuka standing behind me. She is two years younger than I am and dyes her hair a light chestnut colour. She’s the one person in this place I feel I can talk to openly.

     ‘You get transferred here out of the blue, and right off the bat she makes you go out on sales calls all by yourself, without any training, and the thanks you get is, ‘Are you a total idiot?’ Is she serious? That woman seems to have a chip on her shoulder about the whole world, you know, and you just happen to be an easy target for her to take a dump.’

     ‘Take a dump?’

     ‘Oh, oops, no, I mean “to dump on”.’

     I chuckle at her slip of the tongue and she laughs, too, as she pours coffee into a disposable cup and hands it to me before filling another for herself. As I watch her, I ask something that pops into my head.

     ‘Does it seem to you like women born in the sixties have a lot in common?’

     ‘Huh? What do you mean?’

     She leans against the sink and takes a sip of her coffee.

     ‘I’m not sure how to put it, but it’s like they’re just monumentally bad at expressing themselves. They don’t see discussion as a way to make things happen. They just lash out emotionally.’

     It’s not as if I’ve given this any deep thought. Being born in the sixties happens to be the first thing I hit on that Sayuri and my boss have in common. I was just looking for a way to put them both down at the same time. But she responds, ‘Oh, definitely, I know just what you mean. They’re, like, on edge all the time,’ and it thrills me to have struck a chord.

     ‘Exactly. They’re on edge for no reason at all,’ I say. ‘And I reckon it’s because they’re just not very good with words. You know how you see some girl talking a tongue-tied guy into a corner and he can’t hold his own so he just throws up his hands? They’re like that.’

     We stand there in the windowless kitchen near the end of the hall and chat on in much the same vein until both of our cups are empty. All the while, I’m wondering in the back of my mind what life would be like if I’d fallen in love with someone like this younger, chestnut-haired girl who talks to me so free and easy. It seems a good bet I’d be looking at something a whole lot less stressful than the life I have.

     ‘Can I ask you something?’ I say as she tosses her coffee cup into the wastebasket and starts for the door. ‘Do I strike you as a mama’s boy?’

     She turns around, stares at me for a moment, then doubles over with laughter.

     Before I know it, I say, ‘If you’re free tonight, would you maybe like to go out for a drink? My treat.’

 

*   *   *

 

The first time I realised I didn’t really know my mother at all was three years ago, when my father lay dying in hospital. He had been diagnosed with cancer and the doctors gave him three months to live, which turned out to be an accurate prognosis. I travelled back to Yamanashi every weekend to be with him, joining my mother at his bedside.

     It was near the end and he was on morphine, so it’s hard to know just how aware he was when he stretched an arm covered with puffy, purple IV tracks out from under the blankets towards my mother. Instead of taking his hand tenderly in her own as I expected, she pushed it away, not forcefully but reflexively, as if she was waving off a fly. I couldn’t hide my surprise, and when she saw that I’d seen, she looked away awkwardly, fixing her gaze out the window.

     The mother I remembered was a quiet, unassuming woman. She had always been a stay-at-home wife and mother, and she knew next to nothing about the outside world. Nearly every day at the breakfast table she would ask my father, my little brother and me what we wanted for dinner that night. When we were small, my brother and I vied with each other to call out ‘hamburger steaks!’ or ‘pork cutlets!’ Later, though, we got so we ignored her daily query. Our father had his nose in a newspaper and never once bothered to answer. Still, my mother always asked: What would you like for dinner tonight?, and when she received no reply she would carry on a private conversation with herself in a sing-song voice. It must be about time for saury to come on the market, but we just had fish yesterday, so maybe sukiyaki would be a better choice today. Yes, I think sukiyaki. That sounds good. And then, sure enough, the table would be set for sukiyaki that evening.

     That was my mother: a woman who spent her days thinking about dinner – who never had anything she needed to think about but what to make for dinner. By the time I was in high school, I found her totally depressing. And infuriating. The world kept moving along at a dizzying pace, yet she sat apart, all by herself, forever debating, ‘Fish or meat?’ I felt sorry for her. Embarrassed.

     After I left home my feelings towards my mother gradually changed. I graduated college, found a job and fell in love, and came to think of her daily query about dinner as the very essence of peace and security. I came to think it was precisely because my mother was the kind of woman she was that, no matter how badly the world treated me or my father or my brother, we could always return home to rest and recharge and go back out the next day to face the world again.

     So the woman who brushed my father’s hand away that day was not the mother I knew – not the same person who would ask each day with a smile, What would you like for dinner tonight?

     When my father died, my mother did not weep. Relatives who came praised her for it – she was so brave, so strong. But the moment they had me and my brother to themselves, they’d say, ‘She’s keyed up right now because of the funeral, but once it’s all over the strength is going to drain right out of her. It’s the ones who act the bravest who get hit the hardest, so you boys need to keep an eye out for her, you hear?’

     We nodded like little children and later exchanged a few words about needing to be there for her, but less than four months later she called to say that she was remarrying and wanted the two of us to come to Yamanashi to meet her fiancé over dinner. The man was two years younger than her and ran an accounting office. He was more talkative than our father had ever been, with a more jovial air, and like a teacher who is popular with his students he engaged us easily in conversation, listening to what we had to say as if he was genuinely interested. Our mother said very little. She just sat there wearing one of those smiles you see on members of the imperial family. At the end of the meal she announced softly that they intended to register the marriage once the first anniversary observances for my father were done. It was clear that she was not consulting us, merely informing us, so all we could do was nod.

     On the train back to Tokyo, my brother said, ‘I don’t suppose there’s any way this is just some recent fling.’

     I had pretty much come to the same conclusion, but when I ran my mind back over the years, all those mornings of being asked what we wanted for dinner without the slightest hint of anything amiss, I could find no clue as to when she might have met this man or fallen in love or promised herself to him, and I realised again that I didn’t really know my mother.

     They made it official as soon as the first anniversary of my father’s death had passed, and shortly afterwards I decided to marry Sayuri. We made a trip to Yamanashi to give my mother the news. The four of us dined together at the restaurant where I’d first met my stepfather and he was as jovial as before, his animation matched only by Sayuri’s as the conversation turned to my screw-ups and other amusing childhood stories. My mother maintained that same imperial smile. We appeared for all the world the picture of a happy family.

     On our way back, Sayuri gushed that my mother was the ideal mother. ‘She’s so kind, and considerate, and most of all, it’s wonderful that she’s independent. I feel so lucky.’ I was too happy seeing her in such high spirits to say anything, but my own thoughts were of how strange my mother was: The mother who hadn’t invited us to the home she had made with her new husband. The mother who’d asked nothing of our wedding plans. The mother who’d pushed aside her dying husband’s hand. The woman who’d become a mystery to me. Where was the mother who’d never failed to ask what we wanted for dinner?

 

*   *   *

     
Wearing only her panties, Tezuka jumps off the bed and opens the fridge.

     ‘You know what I think?’ she says. ‘I think it’s because your wife is jealous of your mother.’

     The yellow glow from the refrigerator lights up her pretty legs.

      ‘I doubt that,’ I say, sitting up on the bed. ‘Besides, isn’t it usually the other way around? In the stories I’ve heard, it’s the mother that’s jealous of the daughter-in-law.’ I peel bits of Kleenex off myself before she notices.

     Tezuka grabs a beer and takes a long drink. My buzz has completely worn off. ‘Me, too,’ I say, and she tosses one over. I pull the top and foam spews out onto the sheet.

     ‘Yeah, but she called your mom the ideal mother, right? She’s afraid of being compared with her. That’s why she accuses you of being a mama’s boy.’

     Tezuka takes a final swig, then crushes the empty can in one hand and tosses it into the wastebasket. She picks up her bra from the floor and turns her back as she puts it on.

     I had taken her to a yakitori restaurant and the next I knew I was telling her things about my mother I’d never even told Sayuri. She didn’t interrupt or ask questions, offering only well-timed uh-huhs and wows and I sees. I ended up telling her pretty much everything.

     ‘Women really are scary, aren’t they?’ she said when I finished.

     I was a little taken aback to have it all distilled down to such a hackneyed phrase, but it seemed like too much hassle to say that wasn’t what I meant and go back over the whole thing again, so I just nodded, ‘No kidding.’

     When she’s done dressing she turns back to me, cross-legged on the bed, sipping my beer.

     ‘The last train leaves pretty soon, so I need to get going … what do you want to do?’ she asks. ‘If you want to go with me, you need to hurry. Otherwise, I’ll just head on out by myself.’

     ‘I’ll finish this first,’ I say, raising the can in my hand.

     ‘Okay. I’m off then. Bye,’ she says airily, as if she’s merely knocking off work ahead of me, and hurries out the door.

     This is the first time since being married that I’ve been with another woman. I’m relieved she never asked if I love her – not even in the heat of passion. And that afterwards there was no, Where do we go from here?

     I take a shower and dress, thinking how much I like her, trying to imagine what it would have been like if I’d known her before I met Sayuri. One thing’s for sure: Tezuka would never call me a mama’s boy.

 

*   *   *

     
It’s one tiny indiscretion but the secret soon gets out.

     Despite giving no sign of expectations when she left that night and acting the same as ever at work, Tezuka starts sending text messages. ‘When can I see you again?’ is her stock question, and when I reply, ‘Not today,’ she comes back with, ‘How about Monday?’ or, ‘How about next Friday?’

     It’s not long before Sayuri discovers these messages and confronts me with my mobile phone when I come out of the bath, her eyes flashing. ‘What’s this all about?’ she demands as I stand there in my boxers, my hair still wet. ‘Who is this woman? Where do you know her from? What’s her name? How old is she?’

     ‘Well, her name is Tezuka, and she works with me at Daiwa, and she’s thirty,’ I say, responding to each of her questions.

     ‘That’s not what I’m asking!’ she screams, totally contradicting herself.

     ‘Nothing’s going on, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ I say. ‘She was having man trouble and wanted my advice, so I lent an ear, but now she says she needs to talk more and keeps sending me messages. But, sheesh, who wants to listen over and over to someone else’s relationship problems?’

     ‘Don’t lie to me,’ she shrieks. ‘Do you actually believe I don’t know what’s going on? I’m not stupid!’ She pulls herself up to her full height as she rages, her shoulders heaving, tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘This is unforgivable. You’ll be sorry. I’ll leave. That’s right, I’ll leave you. I’m out of here tomorrow!’ She spits it out at the top of her lungs and stomps off to the bedroom. I hurry after her as she starts pulling clothes from the closet and throwing them on the bed.

     This is not good, I have to convince her that it’s not what she thinks.

     ‘You’ve got it all wrong,’ I say. ‘Please! Try to calm down and listen to me.’

     I hear my own voice quivering, on the verge of tears. It’s true I thought this marriage was a mistake, but I can’t let this happen. I can’t let a simple misunderstanding tear us apart. It really is just a misunderstanding, and after I get that through to her, if she still wants to leave, there’s nothing I can do, but it wouldn’t be right for her to go for no good reason, without ever hearing my side. So as Sayuri furiously drags more clothes from the closet I try to explain that I have no feelings for Tezuka, and that she has none for me. We went drinking one lousy time, and even then only because Sayuri was having dinner with her mother and I knew I had to eat out somewhere anyway, plus it was right after she’d called me a mama’s boy so I was sort of pissed about that, and I had all this stuff to get off my chest from the new work they have me doing that isn’t going well, so since Tezuka had been saying for a while that she wanted my advice … I admit I got a little carried away and drank more than I should have, but I absolutely did not sleep with her.

     Standing there in the bedroom in nothing but my shorts I explain all this and more as calmly as I can, with every bit of sincerity I have, as accurately and as close to the right order as possible, but as I fill out the details, lies begin to creep in among the truths – lies like the exact nature of the fictitious man-trouble Tezuka wanted to talk to me about.

     As I continue pleading my case with Sayuri, I hear in my head a smaller voice overlapping my own.

     So you see, then my friend had to go pee-pee, you see. So we went to the park, you see. But the bathroom there was closed and we couldn’t get in, you see …

     The man in boxers becomes a little boy in shorts, and the woman piling outfits on the bed in a frenzy is my aproned mother. The hardwood floorboards of the bedroom become the linoleum tiles of the kitchen of my childhood. Oh, right, I think somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, I’ve been through this drill before: when I broke a neighbour’s window, and when I stole a Coke from the back door of the liquor store; when I injured a friend, and when I used the money for my entrance exam prep classes to buy a game. My mother never scolded me. Just tell me why on earth you’d do a thing like that, she’d say. So I told her. I tried to explain exactly what had happened, without omitting a single detail – because if I told her everything, she would forgive me – but as I proceeded through my account, lies crept in; lies that were intended to win her forgiveness. I knew perfectly well which parts were true and which parts were lies. Young as I was, I knew what a miserable coward I was being. To ease the guilt I embellished my lies further, with ever greater detail, and eventually they stopped seeming like lies – they became exactly what had happened, and my sense of being a miserable coward faded. When I was finished, my mother simply nodded. That was all. She did not get angry with me. I knew I was forgiven.

     So this is what Sayuri was talking about. I’m in the midst of recounting Tezuka’s romantic woes in minute detail when it hits me. Mama’s boy. This is what she meant. Now I see. I get it, Sayuri, but you’re still wrong. And I’ll tell you why you’re wrong …

     The words I’m speaking and the explanation I’m formulating in my head start to run together, so I stop talking. I didn’t realise how quiet this room is, I think to myself in the silence.

     I never knew my mother. Did my mother ever know me? By making me explain myself, by making me give her this mishmash of truth and fiction, did she really think she could get to know who I was? Does she know who I am now?

     Suddenly, I feel the urge of a small child to confess everything to his mother. I want to call her up and tell her how I met Sayuri, and why I asked her to marry me, and what kind of work I did at Nozaki Office Products, and what kind of work I do on loan to Daiwa, and how much grief I get every day from Aiko Oyamada, and what makes me think this marriage was a mistake, and why I slept with Tezuka. I feel an urge to let it all come pouring out – every last thing that makes up my daily existence, every last thing that goes through my head – with my eyes lowered to her slippers on the linoleum floor.

     Leaping onto the bed I grab an armful of the clothes Sayuri has been heaping there and start shoving them back into the closet. I ignore the hangers that fail to catch on the bar and fall to the floor, picking up one armful after another from the bed to put back where they belong. As long as I live, I will never really know my mother. Inside my head she will always be asking, What would you like for dinner tonight?

     I cram Sayuri’s clothes back into the closet and push the doors shut, corners of plastic dry-cleaning bags and hems of skirts poking out. My shoulders are heaving as I turn to her, and she stands staring at me with an expressionless face. I remember that I have an ace in the hole. A card I can play that will hit her where it hurts. Now is the time. I open my mouth.

     ‘I am so sorry.’

     Those are the words that spill from my lips. Talk about pathetic. It’s embarrassing. But it’s all that I can think to say. She stares at me in silence, offering no response. Dust dances in the air all around as we hold each other’s gaze, like two siblings anxious for their mother to return.

     ‘Why don’t you at least put on some clothes,’ Sayuri says, finally breaking the silence, and I realise how cold I am. I hear my own voice ringing out from somewhere far away. What shall we have for dinner tomorrow?