Secret Keeping Sakura – Chapter 1

MIEKO

“She was such a wonderful woman.”

“So caring. Everything she did was infused with love.”

“You must be proud of all the work she accomplished. I’ll never forget what she did for this town.”

I return home with a puff of air from my lungs and a sigh. My head buzzes, like it hasn’t been attached to my body all day and is only now being plugged in. Closing the front door behind me, I press my back to it and close my eyes. Mom’s funeral was harder than I thought it would be. The sad and heartbroken faces that surrounded me all morning blurred together, and even though they talked about my mom, I had a hard time believing everything they said. Mom had lived here her entire life, and she was well loved, but she also hadn’t worked in five years. I didn’t realize so many people would miss her. I didn’t realize I would miss her this much.

I run my hand through my hair, my fingers tangling in the bun at my neck. Even at my strict office job in Osaka I never wear a bun, but this kind of day called for formality, black suit and no threads out of place. I bend over and remove my heels one at a time, setting them aside and placing my bag next to them on the floor. Thunk, thunk. My feet sting, and jolts of pain run up the backs of my legs. Mom used to deflate into a lump at the end of a long work day. I pause and remember her, standing where I am. She’ll never be back here.

Reaching into my pocket for my phone, my hand brushes the business card given to me during the funeral. The man who handed it over was suitably respectable, even though he smiled when everyone else wore frowns. He said, “I know how much your mother meant to the community, and I also know you live far from here. It’s possible you may want to sell your mother’s house and the land. Please give me a call if you need help.” Dumbstruck with grief, I took the business card with shaking hands and shoved it into my pocket.

I glance at the information on the card again, flicking it between my fingers and humming. He was right, even though he was out of line for approaching me at my mother’s funeral. I live far from here, and I can’t imagine building a life back home, no matter “how much my mother meant to the community.” What does that even mean? How had her days of gardening and cooking affected so many people? I left here to work in the city like most people did. My life, as spartan as it is, resides in Osaka. I would have to sell.

I meander through the old house in my bare feet. Growing up here, I never realized how small my house was. To a five year old, or even a ten year old, this house felt like a palace. But in every regard it’s a standard two-bedroom, one-bath Japanese-style house on a decent sized lot on the edge of town. The grade school is a kilometer away, and most of my friends grew up in the surrounding neighborhood.

Mom and Dad had bought this house when they were in their twenties and things were going well for them. But then Dad died and left Mom with the house and the bills, his life insurance sparing us little. To cover the mortgage payments, Mom taught math at my high school. It had been weird growing up and going to a school my mom taught at, but after a year, we got used to it. After high school, I left to go to college in Osaka, and I got a boring job at a law firm not long after.

It’s still the same place I work today. In fact, I was filing papers and taking notes on a new case when I got the call mom was in the hospital. She had collapsed at home, and a neighbor found her when she didn’t show up for some social event. I rushed here a week ago just in time to say goodbye. She had had a stroke and passed away, all within twenty-four hours.

I drag my fingers over the clean wood table, pull out a chair, and sit down. It’ll take days to pack up this place. What will I do with everything? Will I have to sell the furniture? What about all of Mom’s personal items? I rest my head in my hands and sigh. I’m selfish for wanting a brother or sister here to help me out, but Mom and Dad only had me, and then Mom only had me.

A warm spring breeze flows through the window, the sweet smell of fresh cherry blossoms perking me up. I lift my eyes to the front window. The cherry blossom tree is in full bloom, and I walked past it and didn’t even look at it. When I was a kid, I loved that tree. It must have been planted over fifty or sixty years ago, maybe by the original owners because it seems the same size every time I come to visit. Its branches shift in the breeze, and I’m carried along the winds to fond memories of my childhood.

When I was six, I climbed its trunk and into the branches, scaring my mother to death, though she worried more about the tree than me. I smile, remembering how she scolded me to be nice to the tree and not to climb on it. Throughout the years after, I would stop and talk to the tree, tell it about my day, confide in it all my secrets. I even kissed my first boyfriend under the tree. When the flowers fell in late spring and the branches sagged with green leaves, I could hide amongst its foliage. It was always the perfect spot to get a little privacy.

I think all the plans can wait for a few hours. It’s not like my job desperately needs me back in Osaka, and I’m tired from all the stress of the funeral. I return to the door and slip on a pair of Mom’s old plastic slippers. Looking down at the wear marks on the heels, I realize she’ll never wear them again. She’ll never walk under the cherry tree or tend to her garden again.

I step off the front porch into the yard, my brain a haze of memories.

I’m the only one left to this house. The only one left.