learning how to make the large strokes of the kanji on sheets of newspaper.
Crayons of every colour littered the kitchen table. Michiko practiced drawing umbrellas. Each day, her teacher selected a student to record the weather, and most of the children drew raindrops. One boy just scratched his crayon across the paper and said it was a puddle. Michiko wanted to draw something special. As she drew a Japanese umbrella, Michiko thought about the place where her father and grandfather were born. One day I will visit Japan, she decided.
The doorbell rang. Michiko dropped her crayon and ran down the hall.
Her aunt backed inside, closing her bright red umbrella behind her. Her high-heeled shoes left small puddles on the hardwood floor. Parking her umbrella in the enamelled stand, Aunt Sadie placed a large paisley satchel on the floor.
Michiko hoped Aunt Sadie would be staying over. When she was around, everything became fun and glamourous.
Sadie put down her satchel and removed her raincoat. Over her grey, pencil-thin skirt, she wore a long-sleeved white blouse with frills down the front. A red velvet bow peeped out from her collar, above the long row of pearl buttons. Her lips and nails were the same colour as the bow.
Sadie turned to the mirror and admired her hat. “Pretty, isn’t it?” she said. She lifted the thin dotted veil away from her eyes and pushed the box of black feathers with red tips upward and off. “I bought it in San Francisco,” she announced, handing it to her niece. “Mr. Maikawa got me a deal. I only paid $2.98.”
Michiko thought her aunt was the luckiest woman in the world. Not only did she work in a dress shop, she got to travel with her boss and his family. She knew so much about the world.
“Don’t tell me you paid three dollars for a hat,” Eiko exclaimed as she greeted Sadie with Hiro on her hip. He was newly awake from his nap, and one of his chubby cheeks still held the red imprint of a crib bar.
“I wanted it,” Sadie responded with a shrug. “So I paid it.”
Michiko cradled the hat as if it were about to fly away. She raised it a bit to look at the sides. A cake, she thought. It looks like a cake of feathers. She turned to her mother and said, “This cake isn’t just as light as a feather, it’s made of feathers.”
Both women stared at her.
“Your niece has quite the imagination,” her mother responded, “like someone I know.”
Eiko lowered Hiro to the dining room carpet, and Michiko sat down beside him. Eiko entered the kitchen and returned with a small tray. She set it on top of the white embroidered tablecloth. On it were two black lacquered bowls filled with miso soup. There were small bowls of crisp yellow radish, small green puckered pickles and rice. Michiko had eaten her lunch in the kitchen with Hiro while her mother had made manju. It was the special treat she always made for Michiko’s birthday. Her mother formed soft white balls around a spoonful of sweet red bean paste then dusted them with powdered sugar.
Michiko watched the two women slide into their chairs. They had similar oval faces, blue-black shiny hair and soft almond eyes. She knew, even though they looked alike, that they were very different.
Her mother wore her dark hair in a perfectly pinned bun, never a hair out of place. Her aunt’s hair, cut in bangs, was level with her ears. Her hair always swung and flew about her face when she talked. And Sadie talked a lot. She flounced into a room, she laughed loudly and always said what she was thinking.
Michiko’s mother said very little. She entered a room quietly and spoke softly. She never argued or offered an opinion. She usually made herself invisible.
Eiko lifted the small iron teapot from its stand. She poured pale green tea into two small blue bowls and handed one to her sister.
“When do you expect Sam back?” Sadie asked.
“He will be home soon enough,” Eiko replied confidently.
Michiko jumped up. “He has to be home tonight,” she insisted. “Tomorrow is my birthday.”
“That’s right,” Sadie said with a smile, “nine years old tomorrow.” She glanced at the small stack of gifts on top of the piano. “I hope we don’t have to wait until your father gets home before we open your presents.”
“He’s just a little late,” Michiko’s mother announced. “It’s so rainy. The roads can be bad.”
“That’s not all that’s bad out there,” Sadie declared. She put her teacup down and leaned across the table. “Did you know . . .?”
Eiko flashed her a warning look. “Not now, Sadie,” she said. She nodded in the direction of the children. Then she smiled at Michiko. “He will be here in time.”
Michiko entertained Hiro with the toy monkey her father had brought her from his last trip. After she wound the key in its metal back, the monkey hopped about on his front feet and curly tail. He banged his two cymbals together. Each time they clashed, the small bell on his tiny red hat shook and tinkled. Hiro’s eyes lit up, and he clapped his hands.
Sadie flipped through a magazine as the clock on the wall ticked. No one spoke until the shrill ring of the phone broke the silence.
Michiko watched as her mother held the receiver to her ear. She spoke only once. Her face paled as she listened. Then she lowered the receiver, almost missing the two large claws that held it in place. Michiko watched her sink onto the chesterfield beside her sister.
Something was wrong. Instinctively, Michiko pulled Hiro onto her lap.
Sadie looked up from her magazine. “What’s going on?” Seeing her sister’s face, she threw the magazine on the floor.
Eiko’s eyes brimmed with tears. She wrapped her arms around her waist and rocked back and forth.
“What’s happened?” Sadie asked as she put her arms around her sister. “What’s wrong?” Her eyes pleaded for an answer.
Finally Eiko mumbled a few words. Sadie had to lean in close to hear.
“What?” Sadie exclaimed shrilly and sat bolt upright. “Sam is in jail?”
Two
Blackout
Sadie cancelled Michiko’s birthday party. Strangers filled their home instead of her school friends, and all they talked about was the arrest. Eiko served everyone tea, and they ate all the manju that was supposed to be for the party. Michiko watched and listened. Her Japanese wasn’t good enough to understand everything that was said. Every now and then, her mother put down the teapot and stared off into space.
At the end of the day, the small stack of presents on top of the piano remained unopened.
That night, Eiko sat on Michiko’s bed studying her fingers. Michiko pushed her storybook across the bedspread and nudged her mother with it. Eiko picked up the book and put it on her lap. The pages fell open.
“Don’t read that one,” Michiko whispered. “I’m saving that one for Father.” She flipped the pages forward. “Read this one instead.”
Her
