Secret Keeping Sakura – Chapter 6

SAKURA

“How did it go?…”

Mieko zips past me, the door to the gate banging shut behind her. Not stopping, not even glancing my way, she bursts through the front door and slams it. I guess it didn’t go well? But what was I thinking, anyway? I was throwing her into a world of secrets, a world she never even expected her mother to live in. It’s not like her mother was a mobster, or a drug dealer, or some other sordid person, but she guarded her private life like no other. She cradled her private life like a baby, keeping it from prying eyes, close to her chest.

My branches sway in the wind, and I catch sight of Mieko pacing in the front living room, the bag of fish she carried no longer in her hands. Her face is pinched tight, and her hair is wild. From one end of the living room to the other, she paces back and forth, her fingers at her lips. I expect tears at any moment.

But instead, she takes off her coat, throws it onto the couch, and starts searching.

Uh oh. This will not end well.

Mieko starts in the living room. She looks under the couch, pulling out boxes and opening them. In one box she finds photos, and they bring her to her knees. With tears in her eyes, she flips through a stack of photographs, setting a few aside on the couch, and putting others away. I wonder which ones she’s keeping? Are they photos of her as a little girl? Are they photos of her mother? I’m not sure. I’m too far away to tell. She proceeds on from the couch, moving every box, every vase, every last little knickknack her mother ever kept and searching behind them. She opens each book she finds and shakes them out. When she’s done in the living room, she moves on to the kitchen.

I can’t see her progress through the kitchen, but the sound of pots clanging, glasses breaking, and boxes hitting the floor are unmistakable. I cringe, my leaves folding in, shrinking, as I think about what her mother would say right now. Her mother was always a clean and neat individual. When she finished attending her garden, she rinsed off her gardening shears, and her buckets and trowels before putting them away. She spent hours every week making sure the house was in top shape. She was the kind of person who believed in a pristine house and clothes at all times.

After another twenty minutes of searching, Mieko returns to the living room, her red, tear-filled eyes glancing over everything in the room.

“I don’t know what you’re looking for!” I shout in her direction. “What do you hope to find?”

Either she doesn’t hear me or she doesn’t care to answer.

Halting, Mieko moves towards her mother’s desk in the corner, approaching it as if she’s attempting to rescue a baby bird thrown from the nest. I hold my breath, trying to stop my leaves from drawing in air, but respiration is not something I can control.

Her mother sat at her desk and wrote every single day. Sometimes she wrote letters, other times she wrote in a journal. Most days though, she paid bills or read through fliers from local businesses. But the bottom drawer is locked, a place she kept her secrets even from me. I know about the grocery store, the ramen shop, the mornings with the fishermen, and the afternoons tutoring, but the early evenings and the papers in the drawer were only for her.

Mieko runs her fingers along the top of the desk, her fingertips skirting over the dust-free surface. She sits in the chair, leaning forward to pick up each bill, hold it, and set it aside. She reaches into the short shelves over the desk pulling out piles of paper and rifling through each one. Her shoulders elevate and tense, her fingers shaking. She’s expending all her energy to get through these moments, these small trials. Mieko was always a strong girl, but every person has her limits.

She opens each drawer, shuffling through stacks of notes, paperclips, scissors, and a graveyard of spent pens. The top left drawer is unlocked, and she finds nothing there worth her interest. Her arm jerks as she tries to open the bottom drawer. Snap, snap, snap! Standing up, she forces her weight against the handle, but it refuses to open.

“This!” She points at the desk, and if I didn’t know her any better, her next move would be to get an ax from the gardening shed.

“Where’s the key?” She screams into the house, her face lifted to the ceiling. In two strides, she crosses the room and grabs her coat, pulling a key chain from her pocket. But I don’t recognize this key chain. I’m sure she’s out of luck.

Mieko is a full blown mess by the time she makes it through every key on the chain. She slams the ring onto the desk, stands up, takes a deep breath, and exits out to the yard. I harden myself for an onslaught, but none comes. She is out of fight.

“Why? Why did she keep her life from me?” Her voice is so full of sorrow, a bit of me dies and sheds a shower of petals on top of her. It’s the only comfort I have to give.

“How much did you expect to learn?” I wait a moment for her crying to slow. Harsh truths are sometimes just harsh, if you’re not ready for them. She is. “She had a life, a life she enjoyed living, but she was always distant, always a little closed off. She never told me the secret she kept before you moved here. Those secrets were for her. No one else.”

“Even if… Even if she had some secret life she kept from me, why keep all of these regular, mundane life events secret from me? So what, she helped the fishermen every morning? So she tutored kids in the afternoon? It wasn’t anything to be ashamed of. If I had known, I would’ve donated too! I have no husband, no kids. I have savings. I could’ve helped.” She slams her fist against my trunk a few times and then shakes it out, wincing at the pain she’s caused herself.

“Don’t do that, sweetheart,” I coo at her. “I hate to see you suffering.”

She falls into a lump at my roots, her back turned to the street.

“Let me ask you something because I’m only a tree and I only know what trees know. But I’ve watched people my entire life, so I feel as though my guesses may be correct.” I pause, waiting for her to give a sign she’s listening or that I should go on, but all I sense is her breathing. “When you make a habit of something, it means you always do that something over and over again, right?”

She grunts, which I believe admits agreement.

“So let’s say you always walk a certain path to work every day and forcing yourself to walk a different path would be difficult, no?”

“Sure, I guess.”

“Well, what if you were so good at hiding secrets that you couldn’t help but hide everything? You don’t need to hide those things, but you’re so used to walking the path, you can’t change.”

Mieko breathes deep and sighs.

“Your mother wasn’t a bad person, but she had her own past. She lived a whole life before you came along, and another life came after. Lots of parents don’t tell their children everything. The people who owned this house before you kept plenty of secrets too. The husband and wife fought all the time because he constantly cheated on her. His mistresses were the talk of the town, and their daughter was bullied so much at school because of it that she ran away when she was in her teens. I heard from other trees she went to America and was never seen again.”

“Wow.” Mieko’s eyes dry, and her breathing slows.

“So, I know it’s hard to accept that your mother kept things from you, a lot of things. But she was a kind and caring person. She loved you and loved her life. Try not to take it to heart.”

Mieko lifts herself from the ground. “I don’t want to, but I also don’t want to leave all these people in the lurch. Mom had plans and commitments with them. What if they still need whatever she was providing?” She sniffs and pulls a handkerchief from her pocket. She has a point. “I haven’t seen the will. What if she meant to provide for people and she never got around to it?” She presses her fist to her chest. “I could never forgive myself if I didn’t take care of them too.”

Pride surges through my roots and all the last remaining flowers on my limbs open in exultation. Mieko is such a good person. Her mother raised her right.

“I’m going to take a nap and then go to the library this afternoon. We’ll see what awaits me there. I hope it’s not some secret sibling I’ve never known of.”

I laugh, but I really shouldn’t. She could be right.