Secret Keeping Sakura – Chapter 8

SAKURA

Mieko returns to the house with a box cradled under one arm, drops it at the front door, and then joins me on the lawn. The weather today is pleasant for spring, and my branches sway in the fine breeze, losing petals in a shower amongst the birds. In a few days, they’ll all be gone.

“What did you find at the library? Or should I not ask?”

“An old flame, believe it or not. Or he was into me, and I ignored him.” She kicks at the pile of cherry blossom petals, her face aimed at the ground. I can’t read her when she’s like this. She could be depressed, resigned, or excited. She lifts her face, and with her jaw set and her eyes narrowed, she’s determined. “I found the key to the desk. What do I do?”

“What do you want to do? This is a secret I don’t know. I can’t give you advice because I don’t know what you’ll find.”

She’s silent for a moment, turning her face into the breeze. Her chest rises in three long beats and she exhales before she looks at me again.

“I’m going to open it. There’s no going back now. If I sell the house —”

“If? Did you say ‘if?’”

She scowls at me. “If I sell the house, I’ll have to sell the desk and empty it anyway. I can’t get away from it. If she had seen her death coming, she would have hidden those things from me.”

She’s never been stronger, more beaten, or determined in her entire life. She powered through grade school straight through college, but not with the kind of love and passion she has this moment.

If only her mother could see her now.

I don’t want her to sell. I don’t want her to go. I don’t want strangers in this house. I don’t want to learn another’s secrets for a long, long time.

“See for yourself. You can’t stop this. You have to face whatever she had in there.”