Jet Black and the Ninja Wind. Leza Lowitz

      CHAPTER 4

      着物

      The Kimono

      Satoko had left her daughter her only kimono, a silk beauty with the pattern of blue irises for eternal spring, their stalks standing tall on the kimono’s folds.

      Jet put the kimono on. She hadn’t worn it since trying it on so many years ago when Satoko had taught her how to tie the obi, how to stand tall and float her graces out to the world through the carriage of her spine as the silk fabric fanned out around her like waves.

      She wondered when the last time Satoko had worn the Kimono was. On her wedding day to Jet’s father, eighteen years ago? Where was he now? Another phantom man—dead, disappeared, gone.

      Whatever.

      Jet tied the obi tight around her waist. It was her mother she wanted to honor. She merely hoped she’d have a happier occasion to wear it at in the future.

      Then she wondered what Amy Williams and the girls would think of it. They knew she liked vintage clothes, liked to go to the flea market, where she discovered flowing skirts and old Navajo blankets, finding solace in the patterns as if they could give her the comforting childhood that had escaped her. She loved sifting through piles of clothes stacked on blankets, looking for things that had once been loved. She wanted to give these orphaned things a home. She sometimes wondered if the spirits of the owners still lived in their old clothes.

      Jet realized with shock that she, too, was an orphan. But she quickly pushed the thought away. It wasn’t exactly true, anyway, because she now knew that she had family in Japan. Like her eighty-year-old grandfather, Masakichi, whom she’d thought was dead.

      Surprise! she’d say upon meeting him. I’m your American granddaughter! Would he keel over in shock? Did he think she was dead, too?

      Jet looked at herself in the mirror—tall, skin like lightly roasted barley tea, silky black hair. The kimono made her look entirely Japanese. And if she held herself a bit differently, a bit more softly, tenderly, she could transform herself from tough res girl to geisha. Her mother had taught her that, too.

      Finally, Jet slipped off the kimono and put on the jeans her mother had patched. Then she gathered the kimono, obi, and a few of her things in an old black furoshiki and tied the ends together. She packed the furoshiki into an old leather suitcase and closed the latches.

      J-Bird loaded the suitcase into the truck. Together they drove down the driveway, out of the Reservation, toward the strip malls, and to the airport—away from the only life Jet had ever known.

      At the airport, J-Bird walked her to the gate. As the boarding call began, he stopped and reached into his satchel. Then he turned to her.

      “Give this to your grandfather,” he said, holding out a small wooden box tied with a red silk cord. “Your mother wanted you to bring it to Osore-zan. Your grandfather will know.”

      “Osore-zan?” Jet repeated the name. It was a sacred mountain. Her mother had told her about it in their bed-time tales.

      “Yes. Be safe,” he said gravely, locking his eyes on hers.

      “I will. I hope,” she stammered.

      She knew what the box was, and clutched it to her chest.

      “Satoko prepared this, too. She thought of everything.” He held out a ceremonial envelope. Jet took it in her hands.

      “Go on, open it,” he urged, his soft eyes watering.

      With trembling fingers, she slid the elaborate red and gold ribbon from the casing and eased the envelope out. Undoing its folds, she could see that it contained two stacks of crisp hundred dollar bills. She counted quickly. Two thousand dollars! She’d never seen so much money in her life.

      “Your mother saved it up for you over the years. She didn’t want you to be left with nothing,” J-Bird explained.

      “You mean all that time we were broke, all those times we ate just rice and beans, we could have had… steak?” Jet asked, stunned.

      He laughed. “What? You love rice and beans! All that trouble you caused me being a vegetarian…!”

      She laughed, too. “I know I’m a pain. I’m sorry. One day I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”

      “I’m not going to hold my breath on that one.” He chuckled, pushing her along.

      Jet stood, frozen in place.

      “Go on! You’re going to miss your plane!” J-Bird put his hands on her shoulders and marched her toward the gate. She gave him a final hug.

      “Go on,” he said, waving her off.

      The attendant tore off her ticket, and she took the stub. She turned to wave good-bye to the man who had been like her father for as long as she could remember.

      “I love you,” she called out.

      “Me too,” he mouthed, raising his hand in a salute.

      When the plane took off, Jet’s stomach lurched. She stared out the window, looking over the vast Southwestern desert as the plane lifted into the sky and the mesas and mountains disappeared. As her past trailed behind her and the huge mountains became mere specks in the clouds, Jet made a vow: she’d tell no one of her mother’s secret training, the American father she hadn’t seen for years, and the life she’d left behind. She’d go to fulfill her mission, whatever it might be.