The Woman in the White Kimono Page 13

  “An inch of time cannot be bought with an inch of gold, Naoko. You can’t go back or speed it up, it must be endured...” Satoshi sighs. “I am so sorry for this.”

  Silent tears continue to fall. How can I have so many? I wipe at them, trying to keep them away.

  Satoshi whispers in English, “I wish to speak with you in private.”

  I lift my chin, surprised.

  Without my having to say a word, he understands.

  He nods. “When appropriate, Naoko.”

  * * *

  It’s been two days since I stumbled home to discover Okaasan had died. A day since her funeral, evening feast and the ceremonial separation of her bones and ashes. Only hours since her burial.

  Kenji cries as he runs off for a second time, his little feet trying to outrun the truth that follows. This, I would give anything to forget. It shreds me straight through. Taro and Father wait on the porch for his return, blank eyes fixed on the tree line. I pick up in the kitchen while Grandmother drinks tea for comfort and eyes me from the table. She wants to talk. Or rather, for me to listen.

  I’m listening to the water as it runs instead. The dishes are clean enough, but I rinse them again to stall, thinking of Obaachan. There’s an intimacy with water. It molds to its surroundings and yet changes everything’s shape over time. I twist my fingers through the stream and glance over.

  Grandmother’s brows rise on her pale face. The black silk kimono washes out her complexion, leaving a pasty, sickly cast. “There are people who fish, and those that just disturb the water,” Grandmother says, then coughs to clear her throat.

  She disturbs me with her fishing. “More tea, Obaachan?”

  “No. My tea is fine.” She tips the cup to thin lips, staring from behind the rim. Her pupils, small and fixed, resemble a stalking fox.

  I know she has much to say. I respect and love her, but my patience is thin. With a frustrated sigh, I tilt my head as a signal for her to begin.

  “Satoshi still favors you, Naoko.” Her voice is croaky, from tears and wailing. “Yes, we saw him give you comfort, acting like a husband should toward a wife.”

  My heart pounds heavy in my chest. She won’t stop here.

  She sets the cup down, one finger tapping at the rim. “Where is your gaijin when you need him?”

  My stomach constricts. “Satoshi was being a friend because my husband, who loves me, and who will be heartbroken to learn what’s happened, can’t be reached. That’s all.”

  “Does he even know about the baby...hmm?” Her eyes narrow as if concerned, but she speaks with a flinty tone.

  So they all are aware? Of course. Okaasan said Father suspected and I would guess Grandmother is partially why. Her foxes have outsmarted me again. “Yes. He learned of the possibility after we married.” I take a step toward her, a bowl in one hand, and the cloth in the other. “You should have seen him, he was so happy!” I spin with a huff back to the dishes, turn off the water and focus on drying. My hands rub so hard I see myself in the shine.

  “So, he thinks it’s acceptable to leave you in that place, in this condition? Gaah...” She waves a hand in the air, dismissing the thought.

  “That place is my new home. Love lives in thatched cottages as well as palaces, Obaachan.”

  “Humph, that love poisoned your mother. It tore her apart.”

  “No!” Anger rips through me and pulls my spine straight. I point the bowl at her, no longer able to hold everything in. “You don’t know as much as you think, Obaachan.”

  “And what do you know, child?” Grandmother grimaces, mocking me.

  “I know Okaasan stood behind me and my choice to marry Hajime. She came to see me on my wedding day. She even brought me her shiromuku to wear!” I step closer. “Did you know that?”

  Grandmother lifts her chin and stares. A vexed breath puffs through her nostrils, causing them to flare. “Foolish girl. We all know.” She snaps her words like a cutting whip. “Only when your father learned of this did his anger stop her weak heart.”

  “What?” My insides tighten, my stomach cramps.

  “Yes, because of you.” Grandmother confirms as if she knows my thoughts.

  “Because of your selfishness, Naoko.” Father startles us both from the doorway.

  My eyes snap to his.

  “You will now listen.” Father growls, low and gritty. The warning constrained only by an inch. He steps closer. “You’re like the mindless cook. Taking whatever suits you from the garden of life and hastily chopping it up to serve as soup for others. Just as the cook, in your haste, you snare a snake and include it. You force everyone to drink of your poisonous mixture. The snake’s severed head floats in your mother’s bowl, Naoko. It was too much for her to swallow.”

  He means this baby and Hajime. He means my wedding. He means me. I am responsible for so much discord it caused my mother’s death. I am a tsunami of emotion. The sand beneath my feet draws back. The next big wave is coming. I want to crumple onto the floor and brace myself.

  “Naoko?” Kenji’s voice is so small. “Naoko!” He rushes past Father to me, and I am hit with emotion. The groundswell overtakes me.

  My eyes lock with Father’s. Kenji’s face buries in my chest and my arms wrap him to me, but I do not cry. I swallow my sorrow to comfort his.

  Another tightening stretches across my middle. I fold over and palm my belly. “Oh!” Oh, no... Another sharp cramp. There’s a warmth between my legs.

  “Obaachan?”

  * * *

  Grandmother had me lie down and insisted I not move until a midwife could tend to me. I heard her tell my father she would fetch a woman who owes her a favor. Many owe Obaachan.

  It’s been hours, and I take deep, controlled breaths to keep from crying, but after everything, this is impossible. Although the tears are endless, the bleeding has stopped. I tried to tell Grandmother this before she left, but she worries if I’m pregnant and miscarry I could hemorrhage. Her concern is for me, not for my child. After Father’s accusing words, I’m lucky for any concern at all. From anyone.

  For Kenji, I’ve been strong. For my father and Taro, I’ve shown remorse and respect. For Grandmother, I’ve been nurturing. For myself, I’ve been cruel. I soak myself in blame and deny forgiveness. When it’s my turn to cross the Sanzu River, I’ll not be as fortunate as Okaasan. Her death now stains red on my hands and soaks the weight of my clothes. I already battle an unforgiving current of vengeful serpents.

  Grief releases in spurts.

  This is heaven’s design. If it didn’t offer moments of repose, we would die beside those we mourn. Like a switch, it flips agony on and off. On, we are strangled by death until we are near it ourselves. It clicks off before we suffocate. This is the void, the vacuum of nothing.

  This is where I am, in my old room, numb from the inside out, waiting for the next wave to hit. Please let my baby be okay. To lose Okaasan and then my baby? It would be too much.

  My ears catch muffled voices, footsteps, and then the door slides, allowing in light. I wipe at my wet cheeks and turn to Grandmother and her guest.

  “This is Eyako. She’ll take care of you.” Before leaving, Grandmother whispers something else to the midwife.

  Eyako closes the screen. The lantern she carries casts sharp shadows across her face. She’s not as old as Grandmother but wears a considerable age. Deep creases form between her brows. She smiles but the lines stay. She sets the lamp to her side on the floor and folds her hands. “So, you are how far along?”

  I clear my throat. “I’ve missed three...”

  She peels back my thin blanket with care and undoes my shirt. To remove the chill from her fingers, she rubs them together, then places a hand over my somewhat swollen middle. The push is gentle and with purpose, first high, then low, and then again. She lifts my skirt and looks within.

 
I look to the heavens and squeeze my lids shut.

  “All signs point to a fourth-moon-month pregnancy.” She covers me back up.

  My fingers clutch the blanket as I study her face for answers. Our eyes meet, and she pats my arm.

  “Signs also indicate everything is okay. There was only a small amount of blood and cramping. There’s no pain?”

  “No.” Relief surges through me, and I exhale a long breath. This baby fights.

  “But I prefer for another midwife to make certain with proper testing. We’ll move you to the maternity home first thing in the morning, and there you can rest, okay?”

  My eyes widen with tears.

  She pats my arm in reassurance. “Sleep. Stay calm.” She leaves as she came, taking the light with her. More hushed voices, footsteps, and then silence.

  My mind runs through all the scenarios, every option available to my life. The life that is no longer my own. It now belongs to this baby, to the man I swore my heart to and to Kenji, the little brother I must take as son. As son.

  “How can I even hope to take your place, Haha?” I whisper through tears. New expectations and old traditions eternally bind me. Father will never accept Hajime in our family home, and I can’t remove Kenji from the only one he has ever known. And what of this child I carry?

  Please let her be okay.

  TWENTY

  America, Present Day

  In the Midwest, the rapid swings in temperature can quickly explode into a storm. I knew better than to drive through one, but once I remembered my father’s storage unit, a category five twister couldn’t have kept me away.

  The Cadillac’s wipers fought a losing battle with the torrential downpour. To make matters worse, the wheels hydroplaned on the standing water and the flashes of lightning created afterimages. I should have pulled over, but I was determined to press forward.

  By the time I reached the self-storage facility, the storm had abated to a steady drizzle. I leaned out the window to punch in the gate code, then flipped on my brights, trying to find row H and unit 101, but the markers were hard to see. I crawled down one aisle after the next until I found it, then parked alongside it.

  I sussed out the key from the others and stepped through a river of rainwater to reach the lock. Threading it in and with a turn it clicked. I reached down and hoisted up the roller door, beads of collected water sprinkling over my head. As the light flickered on, I moved inside, pushed wet hair from my face and looked around.

  Where to begin?

  Pops had a specific system for how he wanted things stacked. It didn’t seem so long ago that we had moved the attic boxes here, and yet the drop cloths were coated with a thin layer of dust. I yanked one off, and in an instant, the stagnant air took on the texture of forgotten years.

  As I moved through the aisle between boxes, my shoes left prints across the dusty concrete floor. At least the unit hadn’t leaked.

  The first box held my great-grandmother’s handmade quilts—heirloom quality, painstakingly crafted and heavily used. I pulled out the one that had sat on the foot of my bed. It was a simple patchwork of pink and white squares, but every eight-by-eight block displayed the colors in a different pattern. The blanket hid me from monsters as a child and comforted heartaches as a teenager. Now it would keep out the chill. I draped it over my shoulders and peeked in another box.

  My mother’s silver-edged china. An eight-piece collection that had been her mother’s, and then became mine—although I’d never used it. I closed up the box, knowing I most likely never would.

  Several plastic bins held Christmas decorations. I popped the latch and riffled through the one that held the tree ornaments in muted grays, pinks and whites. Mama was obsessed with French decor and preferred the softer hues to the garish greens and reds. I admit, the nontraditional shades were lovely. Before Mama died they’d colored every Christmas, a part of our family’s tradition, but Pops hadn’t decorated since she’d passed. I moved the bin near the storage door, deciding to take them and use them myself.

  I worked through more Christmas decor, stored magazines, another set of dishware and an old luggage set. I popped the gold metal clasps of each suitcase but found them all empty.

  Behind the luggage sat a box wrapped with shipping tape in both directions. It was heavy, but I tugged it to the center to sit under the light. I picked at the tape corners to peel it back, then ripped them free.

  I opened the flaps to find a newspaper lined the top of the box, but it wasn’t crumpled to add padding or protection. Rather, it was folded and saved with intention.

  The facing article, titled “The Girl with Red Shoes,” featured a photo of a bronze statue of a little girl with braids. She held a single stemmed flower and looked over the ocean as though waiting for someone. I skimmed through the text.

  San Diego and Yokohama, sister cities located on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean, now have another link, thanks to Yokohama’s gift of friendship. The Girl with Red Shoes sits on the tip of Shelter Island, near the US naval base in San Diego, and portrays a Japanese orphan who was adopted by a loving American couple. Her touching story became first a poem, and then a well-known song in Japan.

  The rest of the article talked mostly of how the statue was a symbol of alliance between countries, but when I took out my phone and searched “The Girl with Red Shoes,” I found a different story. The real one.

  The famous poem and song, “Red Shoes,” was inspired by the girl’s life but took creative liberties. The lyrics placed the mother on the Yokohama pier, hidden and watching as her little girl—clad in red shoes—left to board the ship with blue-eyed foreigners. In the song, the mother cries out how she will think of her daughter every time she sees red shoes and she wonders if one day her daughter will look back across the sea and yearn for home.

  The real-life child was born in a small village at the foothills of the old Shizuoka Prefecture. The unmarried mother, finding life difficult with an illegitimate child, moved, and when the opportunity presented itself, she married.

  To ensure a better life for the child, the woman’s new father-in-law arranged for mercenaries to adopt the little girl and take her to America. However, the child contracted tuberculosis—then incurable—before setting sail, and was turned over to a nearby orphanage instead, where she remained until she died at the age of nine.

  The child’s mother and husband never knew.

  Theories suggest the father-in-law had fabricated the mercenary story for the mother and delivered the little girl directly to the orphanage himself.

  I pocketed my phone, confused, eyeing the photo of the statue in the paper. Why would she give her up? I understood that an unmarried woman with a child would find life difficult back then, but after she married, the child wouldn’t have been considered illegitimate anymore. They could have moved, and no one would have known.

  But then I understood. Maybe the child was mixed-race just like Pops’s daughter would be. Was that why he saved the article, because it resonated with him? Carefully, I refolded the newspaper, set it aside and looked in the box.

  A folded garment bag took up the remaining space. I pulled it out and placed it flat over the other boxes. In white letters it said US NAVY. I dug under the zipper panel and pulled it open. His navy dress whites. Separating the hangers, I removed just the dinner jacket. Was Pops ever that small? I smiled to myself, trying to imagine him so young. Seventeen.

  My father wasn’t an officer, but the style of the uniform was close in style. Silver navy-eagle buttons, with a narrow, pointed lapel, and three white stripes over black on the upper sleeve. It looked good despite being stored incorrectly. I smoothed out the deep creases across the front, but something bumped inside.

  I ran my hand along the lining, then hooked a finger into the interior pocket and poked around. A balled-up handkerchief? I tugged it out. Not a handkerchief. A whi
te silk pouch beaded with metallic, silver thread. The kind with a ribbon drawstring hidden within the hem. My father’s words floated from memory.

  And inside, a single seed from the majestic tree with a small scrolled message.

  Heart pounding, I held my breath and pushed at the fabric. The contents crinkled.

  It couldn’t be. With trembling fingers, I pried at the bunched part, then tipped the bag. A small scroll shook free. I carefully worked it open. Dumbfounded, I stared at the words. At my magic words.

  TO KNOW YOUR DIRECTION, YOU MUST KNOW BOTH YOUR ROOTS AND YOUR REACH.

  It, too, was real. Which meant the photo of the woman in the white kimono was possibly the bride in his story. She had to be. But Pops said the silk pouch was given instead of rings. That’s what he said, right? Why would he have the pouch?

  I looked at it, turning it over in my hands. Were they passed out like wedding favors? The magic tree story I knew by heart. Pops added the wedding part at the hospital. Now I questioned what I’d heard. It didn’t make sense.

  I checked the pockets of the slacks that hung within the garment bag. Nothing. But I caught sight of something at the bottom of the box.

  There was an envelope. It wasn’t as tattered as my father’s letter, nor was it as creased, but with the familiar red-inked Asian symbols, I sensed it was just as important.

  I took a deep breath, opened the flap and wiggled the contents free. It was a form written entirely in Japanese except for my father’s signature and the title.

  AFFIDAVIT TO MARRY

  I looked at the silk pouch, the one he said was exchanged instead of rings, then gazed at my father’s name on the marriage document. His name listed on a marriage document.

  I shook my head, refusing to believe. Tears welled up. He said he attended a wedding under a giant tree. He attended one. That’s where he’d received the magic words.

  He didn’t say it was his wedding.

  He was married before Mama? Did she know that, too? The tears slid down my cheeks. To learn there was a child left behind, combined with a wife and coupled with grief was...a lot. I kept replaying my father’s words.