Secret Keeping Sakura – Chapter 5

MIEKO

My back pops as I heft the bags of doughnuts and coffee under each arm and make my way down the hill towards the sea. When I was in high school, I biked to the wharf with my friends, and we’d throw rocks in the water while gossiping. Only on the weekends though. During the week, it was school, school, and cram school, then home with Mom to cook dinner before going to bed. I often look at my life now and wonder why we worked so hard as kids. Did all the studying make me a better person? Does working in an attorney’s office make me a better person? Probably not.

A brisk spring wind whips off the water and rockets up the side of the hill, blowing straight through me. Brrr! My hometown is south of Osaka, but it’s not any warmer. I hesitated over the closet of coats before I left. My mother’s winter coat hung in the front of the rack, so I put it on despite feeling creepy about wearing it. A few yen jingle in the pockets. I used my money to buy the doughnuts and coffee even though Mom had left me some in the pockets of her coats.

Putting one step in front of the other, I remember how I used to raid Mom’s coat pockets on the weekend for spending money. At first it was my little secret. I was too busy with school to have a job, so I often needed money for little things, snacks, bus fare, and what not. Mom always kept money in her coats, and I always took it. One day, she snuck up on me and laughed when I tried to hide the money, my guilty conscience making me ill. I had been stealing, and I knew it. But she was too smart for me. She knew how much money she kept in those pockets. The money was there for me.

The wharf for our town isn’t very big, just two piers and three boats sitting at the dock, lazily dipping into the water as the tide goes out. I’m unsure who to deliver this coffee to. I asked the tree, but it was no help. It is a tree after all, stuck in one spot and unable to follow anyone anywhere but the yard of the house. I wonder if there’s a tree network. Do they talk to each other? Could a tree here in Japan know a tree in Europe or America? I can imagine they could be connected by the ground or the animals, and maybe even via humans who talk to them like I do, but the ocean is too vast. Or is it?

I’ll drive myself nuts with these kinds of questions. It’s bad enough I talk to a tree in my front yard.

A stack of wooden crates on the end of one pier shifts as an older man sits there with two other men. Their laughter floats on the wind with the calls of seagulls, so I head straight for them. They’re the only people around, and I have too many doughnuts to eat by myself.

“Excuse me!” I call out, approaching one of them, and bowing along the way. He drops a net to the side and stands, wiping his hands on his pants. “How are you this morning?”

“We’re good, miss,” he says, bowing back. The other man with him, puts his tools down, and glancing at my bags, he smiles and bows. “Can we help you with something?”

“Maybe. I brought coffee and doughnuts, and I thought you might like them.” I hold out the bags, belatedly realizing I haven’t introduced myself or asked their names. I’m transported back to my awkward teens, when I had so much trouble socializing. I would’ve rather spent my time at home than out and about like the rest of my friends.

The two men blink at me, and another on the boat waves in my direction. “That’s Ume-san’s coat. Are you Mieko-san?”

I glance down at the coat as he jumps to the dock and comes forward to take the bags from my hands. I appear to be in the right place. This man’s hair is frosted with gray and the short beard he keeps covers up his rugged and wrinkled face, though he can’t be much older than sixty. The sea can age a person.

“I am. Sorry for not introducing myself. I’m afraid I haven’t had enough sleep recently, and it’s making me slow. I’m Mieko Uchida. I was told my mother came here often, and I wanted to come and talk to you myself.”

They pause for a long moment, silent, their eyes boring into me, before the man on the boat covers his heart with his hand and bows.

“We’re so sorry for your loss. Losing Ume-san was a blow to our whole community. I’m not sure what we’ll do without her.” He vaults over the side the land firmly on the dock. “I’m Izuru Sato. Can I help you?”

The other two men stand with him, and I stammer. “I… I don’t know.” I stumble backwards and sit on a crate before waving at the bags of coffee and doughnuts. “I thought I’d bring the coffee, and we’d have a chat, and I’d go home. But each new person I meet who knew my mom always speaks of her like they’ll really miss her…” My voice halts. I really miss her. “Please have something to eat and drink.” I pull Mom’s coat around me tighter and bend over to distribute cups and sugary doughnuts. A strong breeze curls the steam from the top of the coffee cups and the men sip and hum.

“Are you sure there’s nothing we can do for you?” Sato asks me after he’s done chewing on a doughnut. He folds his arms across his chest, cradling the paper cup in one hand.

I sip my coffee and take a deep breath of the salty air, hoping this will revive me. I’m only working on four hours of sleep. It’s not enough.

“I went to see Chie who runs the ramen shop in town —”

“Best ramen in ten kilometers,” one man says.

The other nods. “Her broth is so rich.”

Their eyes glaze over. I’ve hit a happy topic.

“And she said Mom came here every morning for an hour. She never mentioned it to me — she never mentioned a lot — so I was curious about what she did here. Did she come every day?”

Sato takes another doughnut from the box, so I pick up the box and offer more to the other men. “She came Monday through Saturday. Every day. If the weather was bad, or we stayed home, I called her and told her not to come, but otherwise, she was here.” They all nod, a slow rhythm of bouncing, synchronized heads.

“I see. What did she do while she was here?” I imagine her talking to these men and gossiping about the town’s affairs.

“What didn’t she do? She helped with repairs to the boats. She cooked. She cleaned.” Sato ticks off duties one-by-one on his gnarled fingers. “She repaired the nets, too.”

“Really? Wow. That’s a lot.” I peer into the boat and see a small galley. My mom used to cook in there? I imagine her peeling carrots and potatoes, cooking fish stew on the small gas burner, and mopping the deck. Before today, I imagined my mother woke each day, made herself breakfast, read on the couch, and then spent her days gardening or walking around town. Isn’t that what retirement is all about?

Sato turns towards the water, sipping at his coffee. “My wife died five years ago. We were good friends with your mom from high school.” The other men nod at this. “And your mother was devastated by Sachiko’s death.”

I gasp and cover my mouth. “I remember her!” She was a nice woman, a friend of my mother’s I’d see occasionally. She always had a New Year’s gift for me when I was a kid. “She was so kind. I’m so sorry for your loss.” I remember when Sachiko died. Mom had called me in Osaka to tell me. She was so sad, and I felt awful for her. I came home the following weekend but had missed the funeral.

“Ume-san offered to help take up some of Sachiko’s fishing duties once she was gone. I paid her, of course, but she always turned around and gave the money to my grandkids. She also took extra fish to Chie for her senior hour. Hardly ever kept anything for herself.”

That sounds like Mom. She was never materialistic, happy as long as she could pay the bills.

“I’m not sure what I’ll do now that she’s gone.” Sato sinks onto a crate across from me. “She never came out to sea because she had so much to do in town. It’ll be hard finding someone willing to do these things.”

I sip more of my coffee and think about this job. On a boat with many men, they usually share the cooking and maintenance duties between them if a wife isn’t around to carry this burden. This is still a very traditional job, nothing like my office job in Osaka.

I’m comforted by the sound of the water lapping against the side of the boat, the clank of metal hooks, and the call of the birds.

“My mom really repaired nets?” I ask, and the men all laugh, slapping their knees, their heads tilted back.

“Would you like to learn?” The man to my left knocks me on my shoulder, and I fumble my coffee cup while laughing. “Oops, I’m sorry. I always chuffed your mom when she was around.” I’m smaller than my mom. I barely fill out her coat! I’m sure he thought I was bigger underneath.

“That’s okay.” I smile back at his good nature.

The other men, Hayato and Ken, prefer to be called by their first names. Hayato pulls a length of net out of the boat and shows me how to weave new string in and knot it to close up holes that have appeared. We talk of the world of fishing, what they catch, what they sell, and how long they spend at sea. It seems these jobs are supplemental income for them. Hayato used to be a teacher, like my mom, and Ken retired from an office job when he “felt the sea calling to him.” I thought that was something only spoken of in classic tales like Moby Dick. Most full-time fishermen travel Japan, north and south, all year and are hardly ever in their home port. But these guys stay within a few hundred kilometers year round.

“Very good!” Hayato praises me as he adjusts my knots. “You have the knack for this.”

“Please, I’m sure it’s amateurish.” I scoff and eat the last doughnut. “But you’re kind to say so.”

“Nope,” he says, tugging at the net. “It’s very good, very sturdy. Your mom would’ve been proud.”

My face falls, the good cheer sucked away like a whirlpool down the drain. The men dip their heads and frown. Sato approaches me with a grocery bag, heavy with fish.

“Here. I’m sure Chie-san would love this for the senior’s discount hour today. I realize you have to return to Osaka soon and won’t be able to do this. Maybe I’ll hire a younger kid to come and try his hand at fishing.” He shrugs his shoulders. “If anything, he can bring the fish to Chie-san every day.”

“Thank you,” I say, reaching for the bag. It’s heavy with fish and pulls on my fingers.

“Say, Mieko-san, do you know what’ll happen to your mother’s students now that she’s gone?”

I blink a few times, confusion blanketing my brain. “Her students? She retired quite some time ago. I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

He shakes his head. “No, no. The students she tutored at the town library.”

My lungs shrink as if someone has taken them and wrung them out like a wet rag. “I… I didn’t know she tutored people at the library. Did she do this every day?”

Hayato and Ken tip their hats at me as they excuse themselves and climb aboard the boat.

Sato sighs, his face fallen in a frown. “Yes, every day. She tutored my grandson three times per week. He’s a bit… different. Autistic. She helped other kids as well.”

Another thing I didn’t know about. I can only stare at the sea over his shoulder. What do I do about this now?

Sato lays his hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “Go see Shimeno-san, the head librarian. He’ll know what to tell you.”