The Woman in the White Kimono Read online

  There’s a pause while the meaning sinks in.

  “So, this is what I say to you. The answer, daughter, is in your hands. You choose baby bird’s destiny, and your own, by what you do now. Right now.”

  Okaasan places a hand on both of my shoulders and speaks in a somber tone. “Have the morning meal and prepare for school just as always. Then, as you leave, understand this. At the bottom of the hill, within the trees, I have hidden a small suitcase for you behind the old stump. You know where?”

  I nod, straining to listen over the thumping of my heart.

  “If you choose Hajime and the possibility of his baby, then take the bag. Go to him. Do not ever come back or we will all suffer for it.” Her eyes glisten with moisture. “If you choose Satoshi, then go to school, come home and prepare for the wedding. Grandmother and I will make arrangements with the midwife to confirm the womb is clean...and clean it if it is not.” She leans closer. “But you must never breathe Hajime’s name again. Not even as a whisper.”

  Salty tears fall one after the other and rest near my lips. Panic bubbles up to burn my throat and nose. “How do I know which path? How do I know, Okaasan?”

  “To pick the correct one is fate. To pick the wrong one is also fate. So, you must choose your love, and be prepared to love your choice.” With her thumbs, she wipes under my eyes, then holds my cheeks. “At day’s end, if you return to me, I’ll embrace you with all my love. But, if at day’s end, should you not return...” A sharp intake of breath swallows her words.

  I feel my own stagger in my lungs.

  “If you should not return, my love is as your shadow, unshakable and always behind you.”

  My lips purse. Okaasan pulls me to her; one arm wraps me tight, while her other hand frantically strokes my hair. She kisses my forehead, the top of my head, then one cheek, then the other and then...no more.

  No more.

  My mother loosens her hold and sits back. She doesn’t look at me again. Only stares ahead with glossy eyes that have gone blank. Standing, she forces a long breath. “This day has begun, Naoko. The bird is in your hands.”

  TEN

  America, Present Day

  Standing outside my father’s hospital room, I stared at my father’s letter—the kanji script, the smudged J of Japan and the envelope’s tattered edge. I considered opening it, but first pondered his words.

  Mama was the love of my life, but before that life, I lived another. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you...

  What “other life” and when did he try to tell me? During our road trip to the hospital? When we’d first arrived? I’d traced every step of our journey here and every word and story since they checked my father in.

  It’d be easier if you just read my letter. I need you to do that now, okay, Tori? It’s time.

  It’s time. He was dying. Tears slid down my cheeks with that truth. I could no longer ignore it or wish it away. I couldn’t fix things. There was nothing else to be done. I blinked and forced a full, slow breath, then brought the envelope close to lift the flap, but it was still sealed. He never opened it? Pops said he wanted me to read it, but why hadn’t he?

  I studied the circled marks, the stylized symbols blurred within them, the strange assortment of English letters stamped at the top, the return address beside it.

  There, the most noticeable clue stared me right in the eye. My father’s PO box. It’d been there all along. At once, I understood why the letter hadn’t been opened.

  The letter wasn’t to my father. It was from him and had been returned. But who was Hajime?

  “Pops?” I wiped at my cheeks and walked back into his room.

  He blinked sleepy eyes.

  “Pops, you wrote this letter?” I held it up, so the address faced him as I approached. “That’s your PO box but that’s not you.” I tapped the odd name above it with my index finger. “I don’t understand.”

  Pops regarded the envelope, me, then his eyes drifted. “Did you...?” His breath caught under thick, stubborn phlegm. His exhale rattled, determined to break it free. “I wanted—” He attempted to clear it, held up a one-minute finger, then folded with the succession of coughs that followed. It didn’t let up.

  “Should I call someone?” I placed my hand on his back as though it would calm the fit, make the cancer stop and leave my father alone. I scanned the bed and table for a towel or tissues, swiped the box from where it fell on the floor, then held out several. He convulsed into them.

  They soaked in blood.

  “Oh!” My heart lurched. I searched for the corded help button within the tangled sheet, found it and clicked. “Hang in there, Pops. They’re coming.”

  More coughs. More blood. I panicked and ran to the door. “Somebody!”

  * * *

  My father was dying. And like everything else in his life, he chose to do it on his own terms.

  Sedated, Pops drifted in and out of sleep. I sat beside him, listening to him breathe. A beautiful sound, even though it wasn’t. A beautiful man but with such an ugly disease.

  My father had said that was what people would see at the funeral. At the time, I’d argued, told him what I saw. A man who had loved his wife and had lived for his family, but right then, I saw the disease just the same.

  A monstrous serpent with morphine-filled fangs that pierced his arm. And like the snake who eats its own tail, it had begun the fatal cycle to devour him whole.

  Pops twitched awake, studied the room into recognition.

  I moved closer and leaned my head near his.

  He blinked heavy-lidded eyes.

  I blinked teary ones. “You okay?”

  A nod. An eyebrow raised to ask the same.

  “I’m okay, Pops.” I smiled through tears. “I’ll be okay.”

  We looked at one another.

  It was the conversation of our life.

  It was our last conversation.

  With sleep, my father slipped into a coma and from there struggled to breathe. As he requested, there would be no life support. And soon...no life.

  I didn’t leave his side again.

  I told him that I loved him.

  I held his hand.

  Hours later, he let go.

  * * *

  The night became a blur of doctors, staff, paperwork and condolences. One minute I’d been sitting with my father and the next he was gone. I didn’t remember the car ride back to the hotel, but there I was, alone in the dark. Alone in the world.

  Before, the thought of my father’s letter frightened me. I couldn’t understand what it could mean, but hours after my father’s death, I was desperate for any meaning at all, because it was all I had left.

  “Okay, Pops...” The words brought instant tears. “Okay, here goes...” I opened my eyes and, with trembling hands, opened the flap. There was a single folded sheet tucked inside and, inside that, a red piece of yarn. Yarn?

  I looked to the paper, to my father’s familiar cramped handwriting, ran my hand over the ink, then read his words.

  My Dearest Cricket,

  I hope this letter somehow finds its way to you, and that it finds you in health and surrounded by loved ones and family. I pray that family also includes one of my own.

  Please, without any expectations, I wish only to know our daughter is well and, if it’s within your heart, for our Little Bird to know she’s always been in mine. Even now.

  I’m an old man, Cricket, at the end of my life when pain comes due. I need you to know, in loving you, I’ve never had a single regret. But in losing you? In the how and the why? So many.

  Your Hajime

  Daughter. It said daughter. My heart lodged high in my throat. I wish only to know our daughter is well... My vision blurred from flowing tears. I blinked and wiped them away, bringing the letter close as if I’d misread.


  I hadn’t. I placed a hand to my forehead and left it there while I read it again in its entirety. I didn’t understand. That was what he wanted to tell me? How? Where is she? I stared at his words, then managed my own. “How do you have another...?” A hitched breath snagged the word. My heart hammered constricted ribs as I rocked forward to force it out. “Daughter?” I didn’t understand.

  “Pops?” My voice cracked. The words mixed with tears, salting a freshly sliced wound. I looked around, searching for answers.

  But my father was no longer there to give them.

  ELEVEN

  Japan, 1957

  I sit with my family for the morning meal, a day like any other, and yet, after the conversation with Okaasan in the garden, it is a day like none before. Grandmother’s words haunt me: “Worry gives a small thing big shadows.” But a possible pregnancy is a big thing and the shadow it casts isn’t only monstrous, it’s life-changing.

  Chewing each mouthful of rice, I stare and marvel at my mother. I may have encouraged her to speak up, just as Hajime encourages me, but it is she who inspires. When she attempted to persuade Father, and he silenced her voice, she used her savvy to outsmart him. She’s more than clever, she’s brave.

  I study them over my bowl’s rim, committing every detail to memory. Father: the silver-white hair near his temples, his thick eyebrows and the deep-set lines that permanently rest between them. Taro: determined eyes, shoulders wide and high. Grandmother: knowing smile and meddlesome spirit. Kenji: Buddha cheeks and boundless energy. Okaasan...

  “What are you saying, Naoko?” Grandmother asks. “Hmm?” She holds her cup out, so I pour.

  “I didn’t speak, Obaachan.”

  Taking a sip, she smacks her lips and harrumphs. “A silent man is the best one to listen to.”

  I remain silent.

  Grandmother wipes her mouth. “I remember when Okaasan prepared for her wedding, she became quiet, too. It’s a mixture of happy and sad to start a new life, but meeting is always the beginning of separation. You become a new daughter for Satoshi’s family, and we in turn will receive a new daughter once Taro marries.” Grandmother’s eyes cast to Taro. She’s insistent that he settle down.

  “First secure a fortune, Obaachan, then a wife.” Taro turns from Grandmother to Father, who nods his agreement.

  “Ah...” Grandmother raises a knobby finger and shakes it toward him. “Fortune and misfortune are two buckets in the same well.”

  Taro swallows his bite. “He who has the fortune brings home the bride.”

  “You do not wait until you are thirsty to dig the well,” Grandmother says, undeterred.

  Kenji laughs. They all do. There is no beating Grandmother.

  My throat constricts to hold back my sadness. My vision blurs through unshed tears. This is what I would miss most of all. I smile.

  Mother’s expression drops. “Yes, and you both will miss school if you do not hurry.” She gathers the bowls and moves toward the sink, turning to hide her face. “Go on, or you’ll be late.”

  Kenji leaps up to change from slippers to shoes, bumps the table and rattles the dishes. Taro and Father discuss plans for the day. Grandmother watches me. I hesitate. Am I saying goodbye? My eyes fix on Father. He looks up. But I have no air, so I have no words.

  He raises his chin, but before he speaks, I bow—low and deep with respect.

  As apology. Just in case.

  “Naoko, hurry! Itte kimasu,” Kenji yells to announce he is leaving, but before anyone answers he is already gone.

  As I change my shoes, Grandmother shuffles in my direction and stops.

  I rise but cannot meet her stare. Instead, I focus on her plump middle and weathered hands, the liver spots that decorate them.

  “Naoko, look at me.” She lifts my chin and stares. But she offers no wise words. She only nods, blinks and then hobbles away. The foxes tell her everything.

  I stand alone. Not ready to move. I glance to my mother. “Okaasan...” My voice cracks, unable to form the word.

  “Oh, so late, Naoko. Go. Go!” Her hand waves in the air behind her, but she does not turn.

  So, with a deep breath, I do.

  Outside, the sun blazes bright. Squinting, I spy Kiko coasting impatient circles at the bottom of our small hill. I know she betrayed me, so why does she wait? I march toward her, fists clenched.

  “Naoko!” Mother runs from the front door, waving a bento box above her head. “You might be hungry later.” Her chest rises and falls from the short sprint. Her eyebrows crease as though to fight back emotion.

  My lips tremble, but what to say? She pulls me to her and, just as quick, lets me go. With swift steps she returns the way she came.

  Like that, I am released. Set free. Left to test my wings and choose my fate.

  My feet ache to chase after her but Kiko yells for me to hurry. She has one foot propped on the pedal, the other positioned on the road, ready to push off and glide away.

  I wish she would.

  My nostrils flare from a fast inhale. I stomp in her direction with a weighted heart and loaded tongue. She had no right to tell Okaasan my secret! Instead of spewing accusations and questions, I clench my jaw and march right past, leaving her and my bicycle behind.

  She pedals after me, but I move from the road to the tall, damp grass. They snap beads of dew.

  “Naoko...”

  I peer back over my shoulder, but don’t stop.

  “Where are you going?” She abandons the bike, so it topples on its side and the suspended front wheel spins, traveling nowhere. “Wait!”

  “Go away, Kiko!” I pick up my pace, making tracks for the trees. Yesterday, her teakettle disposition—soon hot and soon cold—confused me. Today, it hurts. Does she really believe I don’t know what she’s done? I veer from the easy path and cut through dense foliage. The woodland undergrowth nips at my ankles, jutting shoots, scratching at bare knees.

  Still she follows.

  I stop and turn. “How could you tell Okaasan?”

  Her lips open but offer no explanation, so I continue forward without one. Ahead, trees part to open sky, and under a canopy of blue sits the remnant of a once-giant camphor tree.

  My suitcase beside it.

  I run, swipe up my bag and perch on the stump.

  Kiko’s eyes go wide at the sight. Blunt bangs hide high arched brows. She storms toward me and shrills, “You are leaving?” Birds flap their wings, some take flight. “How can you even consider such a thing?”

  “How can I not?” I remind her of our many trips to the temple’s Wishing Tree. How the temple priests offer a daily prayer for the granted wishes the winds set free. “Did I not tie white-ribbon requests from every limb, Kiko? So many, in fact, that the branches bent from their weight? Every week I asked for the same three things—my true love, a family of my own and a home to protect us all. Did mine not catch the breeze? Are they not granted?”

  Kiko gathers her face into a frown, then using her words like an ax, chops down my wishes, one after the other.

  “You’re blinded by love and cannot see what is true, Naoko.”

  Chop.

  “Your baby will be of mixed blood and therefore a mixed blessing.”

  Chop. Chop.

  “And your house is with Eta, in the old Burakumin community, so instead of protecting your family, it adds to your shame.”

  Chop. Chop. Chop.

  The last takes down the whole tree.

  Then she turns and leaves me on its stump with only my decision.

  * * *

  Okaasan said to return home after school if I choose Satoshi. So why go to school at all? I should use this time to weigh my wish. Instead of staying in the woods, I find myself at the little house Hajime has rented. The one with splintering rails and sun-dried lumber in need of repair. I sit on its
step, kicking against the brittle wood, listening to the furin bells bicker with the breeze.

  Restless clouds play in the early-afternoon sky. They float high in dark rows that are in constant transformation. One a swift-moving mackerel, another a tall-footed crab. Now the animal clouds melt together, forming a giant sheet to billow as a sail. The prevailing wind guides its direction.

  The prospect of a new life governs mine.

  I could be pregnant. I have been ill, and I am late, but I believed it due to a belly full of nerves. Not anymore. Whether to go east or west depends on one’s heart or feet. My feet would take me home. But my heart? To leave Hajime and to clean the womb? That thought is unbearable.

  Elbows to knees, I rest my chin in my hands and look around. The little village is alive with activity. There is a rhythm to its noise. The intermittent beat of hammers from a group of men who restore a battered building in the next row, chatter between women as they gather laundry from the lines and the young ones’ song as they play Kagome Kagome.

  I watch them, weighing Taro’s and Kiko’s words of warning and Okaasan’s words of choice. Kiko said I would add to my family’s shame by living here, but Okaasan said by choosing Hajime and his child, I could never return to my family, so what indignity would they face? Quiet gossip over my disappearance? Okaasan forced to lie about my whereabouts? But they’d suffer no public scorn as I’d never return.

  Never return.

  It would be easier for everyone if I could go to America, but Hajime has yet to get the marriage paperwork approved, so it isn’t an option.

  My heart drops lower than the knotweeds clustered near my ankles. And if I’m pregnant as I suspect... Will my future children pay for my selfish indulgence? Everyone suffers from the stigma and ugly history of this village.

  Rumors say the Eta or Burakumin are pariah deviants not worthy of marriage or trusted to hire. The worst say they are hinin, nonhumans that lack one rib and have deficient sweat glands, and that’s why dirt never sticks to the bottom of their feet.