Secret Keeping Sakura – Chapter 2

SAKURA

“It’s been a long time, Sakura.” Mieko brushes her hand on the cool, rough bark of my trunk, her fingers catching along the dips and cracks. “I’m sorry I walked past earlier without even saying hello.”

“That’s all right,” I respond, and she gasps at the sound of my voice. It’s not every day you hear a tree talk. “I know you must miss your mom.”

Mieko steps away and looks up through the flowers on my branches. “That voice? I know that voice.” She glances around before concentrating on me again. “I thought that was just a dream… a childhood memory.”

“No. I’ve been here for ages.”

She sinks to the ground at my roots. The roughness of my bark bites into her black suit and snags the fabric. “I… I… Your voice.” She squeezes her eyes closed. “I must be losing my mind.”

“I’m sure you’re quite sane.” Maybe with the death of her mom, she’s feeling too vulnerable for this. I wait, certain she’ll come around.

“Why did you stop speaking to me in my teens?”

“Because you had grown up, and you thought it was your imagination. I figured you’d talk to me again someday. So I waited through all the trips home. It was no bother.”

She rubs the back of her head against my trunk and slumps over to cry. If I had arms, I would wrap them around her, but the best I can do is stand strong so she has something to lean on.

As the tree in this front yard for the last eighty years, I’ve seen a lot of things, heard a lot of people, braved many storms, and even survived a fire. Mieko’s family has been my favorite. The family before them fought all the time and their youngest daughter ran away from home when she was fifteen after being bullied in high school. I was happy when they sold the place. Mieko grew up in the grass at my roots. She was shy of strangers but precocious when no one was watching. We would talk for hours, and I would tell her stories about people or animals who came across my path. I knew someday our friendship would come to an end, or at least pause for a few years. Her mother and I talked frequently once Mieko left home. I kept both of their secrets for them.

“Will you keep the house now that your mother is gone?” I ask, hoping to get her out of her crying jag.

“I don’t know. What would I do with it? I never belonged here. I always felt so out of place, the child of a single parent. Everyone else had huge families.” She pauses, trying to catch her breath. “My only friends are gone from here. When I left to go to college, I figured that was it. I got a job, and I stayed in Osaka. It never occurred to me to move home, that someday this would be mine. I thought Mom would live forever.” Mieko sinks back against my trunk, wiping her face and sniffing. “You know how when you’re a kid, you have these dreams for yourself, to be a famous writer or to make lots of money, and it rarely works out that way.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it, since I’m a tree and all.”

She heaves out a laugh, and her crying slows.

“But I don’t think your mother wanted you to sell the house. The money you get from it won’t last long in the city, and if you didn’t sell it, you could keep it forever. She often hoped you’d marry and move back here to have kids.”

Mieko rises to her feet and swipes the dirt off her skirt, a rueful laugh bubbling through her tears. “I’m thirty-five now, and I’m not even dating anybody, so I failed that. What’s the point of keeping the house? I would be better off going back to my job and tiny apartment in Osaka.”

I wait a moment while she calms down. She just lost her mother, one of her last remaining family members, so I’ll let her take the time she needs to actually listen to me. She won’t listen if she’s upset. Never has. I remember her as a teenager, so bright yet so volatile. Easy to anger or fall in love. It’s something I’ve always loved about her.

“Your mother was a very valued member of this community, and I bet, if you took some time to understand why she stayed here, you would want to stay too.”

“I used to beg her to leave here and move to the city with me. She always refused.”

“She had her reasons. You should take the time to understand,” I say, prodding her. It’s important to understand!

“Why do people keep saying that? Today at the funeral, it was one person after another telling me how much they loved Mom and how significant she was to them. Over and over. I thought all she did was garden.” She waves to the backyard where her mother’s garden awaits its annual planting of seeds and herbs grow along the fence. “I’m not sure I have time to stay, anyway. I’ve already been gone from work for a whole week. I should get back before I lose my job.”

Panic grips me from the tips of my branches through the rings of my trunk and deep down to my roots. I serve two purposes on this earth. One, to feed and take care of the land. And two, to keep the humans who own this land in harmony. I seem like a generic cherry tree, but the people who prayed over me as I was packed into the soil over eighty years ago tasked me to help, and I swore I would do it until the day I died. How can I help Mieko understand her late mother? I can make her see the truth.

“Give me two days. I have secrets from your mother I can’t tell, just like I never told her your secrets either.” To this, Mieko raises her eyebrows at me. “But I can send you in the right direction. Perhaps you will uncover what I cannot say.”

“You mean to tell me you never told my mother about the time I kissed Ichiro under your branches?” Her lips quirk in a half smile.

“I never breathed a word.”

She smiles, plucking a blossom and holding it to her nose. “Fine. I could probably delay work a few more days and tell them that I have to close up the estate.”

“Great! I know just where to send you.”