Reunited – Chapter 8

The beach, the town hall, the schools, the wharf on the bay — I have been everywhere the past few days, starting each morning early with breakfast and away from the estate straight through lunch.

My routine flip-flopped this week. Now, in the afternoons, I spend time in the overgrown garden when the clouds are absent and the sun is shining. This is my regimen for curing agoraphobia. Desensitization, Jiro calls it. I wear a hat and sunglasses and sit or stand and pace and obsess while looking at the plants or the bugs. I’ve never worn sunglasses before. Gods, everything about my life is strange lately. I keep my head low and glance up as many times as I can stand. The fear lessens each day.

My alarm chimes at seven-thirty, and I roll over in an empty bed to turn it off. Yesterday, I proposed plans for an electronic warning fence around the perimeter of our town, plans that took me several days and very late nights to put together. I was exhausted in the evening, and I don’t remember falling asleep in bed.

Jiro takes me outside every night to sit under the stars, to watch them climb the night sky, and just be alone together. The first time he pulled me out to the garden was breathtaking. The two moons were above us and the entire estate was bathed in a glow that made everything fuzzy around the edges. Both moons are similar to Earth’s moon, but the major moon is almost twice the size. The minor moon sits low on the horizon, a little brother off to the south of its larger brother, a huge crater punched into the center of its equator. After sunset, they are a wash of blood reds and fiery ocher, slowly fading to pure white as they climb higher in the sky.

Jiro and I chat about our days, I fold my fingers in the space between his, and lay next to him. I’m savoring every moment of my life, afraid my existence will be cut short along the length of my enemy’s sword. Lying with Jiro each night under the stars is the only time I feel safe and alive. I often fall asleep on him, and he carries me in to bed when he can’t rouse me.

The warm bed threatens to pull me back to sleep. I don’t want to get up. Getting out of bed means I have to get dressed, have to eat breakfast and begin a day filled with fear, deceit, and uncertainty while my friends build their new lives and never give two thoughts to who else shares this planet with us.

I throw the covers off in an attempt to force myself from bed, and it works, the cold seeping into the cracks between my toes. I pull on a silk, gray kimono over my Nishikyō grays, slip on my shoes at the door and exit to the garden instead of creeping along the creaking floorboards outside of our bedroom.

Since the weather is cool but not raining, I take the long way around the garden and enter the main wing through the kitchen. A pot of oatmeal bubbles on the stove, and Oyama chops vegetables at the butcher block, humming quietly.

“Morning, Sanaa. Can I get you some coffee?”

“Yes, please. I’m having trouble waking up this morning.” I blink my eyes again to rid them of sleep and yawn.

Oyama nods his head and smiles. “Everyone is slow this morning. Jiro is in the dining room. Shall I bring you coffee there?”

“Sure,” I reply, sliding open the door to the hallway. The dining room is two rooms down from the kitchen.

I push the door shut behind me and walk to the dining room, but voices from inside halt me in my stead.

“Sanaa is trying so hard. She’s working all the time just to make some headway in this mess,” Jiro’s voice, stern and harsh, sounds from the door.

I step away and listen, my neck prickling with dread. The last time I heard Jiro’s voice like this was the morning everything came to light about his family’s treatment of me.

“And I see her come to you. She’s deferential, and kind and you give her the cold shoulder. Mother, this is not what we agreed upon.”

“I’m sorry. I try. But I look at her and all I see is death. Your father is dead. Other people we love are dead. She is nothing but trouble.”

My breath shortens and becomes shallow, and I bite my bottom lip to keep tears from forming.

“Do you remember what you said to me the night I was going to propose to Melanie?”

Silence drowns my ears in the drumming of my quickening pulse.

“You said this family was more important than anything. It was more important than love, more important than being right. That Melanie could never run this family as an outsider. I took your advice. I made the family my priority. I listened to everything you and Dad had to say. I married Sanaa because she is the right person for me and for this entire family. She’s smart and capable. She can fight with a sword. She’s powerful, but she’s humble. She’s not vain or pretentious. Gods, she cut off her own hair to save her life and kill our enemy! Our enemy. Remember what Tadao did to you, to Dad. What more do you want from her? I knew that her love for me and this family was the best thing that could ever happen to us. Start showing her some love and respect or I will show you where this family’s priorities lie.”

“Jiro, don’t threaten me.”

A tear rolls from my eye, down my nose, and lands on the hardwood floor at my feet.

“It’s not a threat. It’s a choice. Choose to be kinder. Choose to remember who Sanaa is and where she came from, your best friend. Choose to treat her as well as you treat Miko. She spends time in our vacant room agonizing over the job she’s doing, hoping she’s doing enough to protect us all while you decorate Miko’s living room and ignore her. She doesn’t even have the time or energy to unpack our life from Earth. Every day I go into our one little room we have together and the only thing I see on the desk is dust. Look, it’s later than I thought it was, and I need to wake her, get her to eat breakfast, and escort her into town.”

A cup lands on the table inside, and I panic wondering where I can hide so Jiro doesn’t think I was eavesdropping on his conversation. Pressing myself against the wall, I suck in a quick breath and hold it. Jiro exits the dining room with his back to me and walks in the opposite direction towards our room. He’ll return soon when he realizes I’m already up.

“Sanaa,” Oyama calls, opening the door behind me and handing me a cup of coffee, “what are you doing standing in the hallway?”

“I, uh…” I try to hush Oyama with a wave of my hand, but it’s too late. Mariko appears in the doorway to the dining room, her face falling into a well-worn frown. Jiro didn’t catch me snooping, but she did.

“Come sit with me, Sanaa. Oyama will bring you breakfast.”

Shit. I’m in trouble again. Thanks, Jiro.

He was only trying to help me, but I doubt his arguments will make much difference. I grasp the coffee mug in my cold hands and press it to my chest, following my mother-in-law into the dining room. I sit immediately and twist a strand of hair in my fingers while Mariko sits opposite me and places her napkin in her lap.

“How would you feel about going to the temple soon, Sanaa? I’ve been giving it some thought, and I’m pretty sure we’re here to stay.” Mariko rubs her hands together before lifting her tea mug and sipping. Huh. I was sure she was going to admonish me. “I have Koichi’s ashes, and I’d like to spread them.”

Koichi. Every time I look at Jiro or Yoichi, I still see their father, the man who fought to protect me and was killed in the line of duty. I remember his smile or his fighting style or hear his voice. “I enjoy putting the moves on pretty girls.” Jiro laughed and rolled his eyes at his father, but I knew immediately who he got his charm and wit from.

“I was just remembering him.” I clear my throat and sip my coffee, holding back any more tears. “He made me laugh all the time.”

“I was thinking the beach would be a good place for him. Koichi was a Cancer, a water sign. I think if we spread his ashes on the beach, he’ll be mixed into the ocean and become a real part of this world.”

My smile flits at the reference to astrology. Mariko once told me, before Koichi died, that I was an excellent match for Jiro. I wish I knew how to bring us back to that easy time before he was taken from us.

“I love this idea,” I tell her softly. “The temple in the Southwest quarters is open now. We could go there first and then to the beach. If the weather is nice, we should eat a picnic lunch in the little park along our road.”

She leans forward and hesitantly pats my arm. It’s the first physical contact we’ve had in years, and my eyes water again under the strength of her stare. She pulls away as Oyama appears behind me with a bowl of oatmeal, sprinkled with nuts and dried fruit. “You and Jiro go down there all the time. I knew you’d have the answers for me.”

“Anything I can do to help.” I’d give my left arm to make even one segment of my life easier.

She nods her head at my breakfast while sipping her tea again. “Eat. You will need your energy for today. Your eyes always look tired and painful. I will try to lighten the load so you can rest more.”

And though her words are kind, even helpful, her tone is still cold and distant. She will not be won over with one argument from her son.

I lower my head and eat my food.