she slept. With her eyes closed she’d listened, visualizing his large hands as they collected his even larger-sized shoes from the cabinet. The streetlamp outside her window was the only source of light when the sliding door opened, then shut, indicating his departure. Later, with the sun cresting the sky and the familiar sound of the television announcing the return of her happy life, she joined her mother for breakfast. As usual, her mother served tea with the morning meal, which she sipped while her mother tended to her futon. From the other side of the wall, she could hear the thump the dusting stick made, which she knew meant Tuesday, the day the futon needed to air. Once the futon had been stored, her mother smiled at her from the doorframe, and she followed her to the main sitting room to pray.
The small shrine held a beautiful and perfect miniature world, its black lacquered doors opening to a shining gold Buddha who sat peacefully against the back wall. As her mother prayed, she watched the steam rising off the bowl of rice placed before the Buddha. She’d eaten the same rice with fish for dinner the night before, and again for breakfast with egg and pickled vegetables.
Nothing out of the ordinary had happened, nothing to signal danger. Her mother had lifted the gate latch, then turned back to secure it before taking her hand. She’d worn her winter gloves, which her mother had brought out again after having stored them away, because the cold weather had returned. A frost covered parts of the footpath, creating patterns of ice for them to sidestep. Her mother had used the word “disgrace” to describe the fallen petals that dotted the walkway, making it slippery. The plum blossoms had been ruined, but in their place the closed pink buds of cherry blossoms had started to show. The ancient trees stood along the still-deserted path, just as they had for hundreds of years. Her mother had told her about the history of the park. She was fond of the trees and had once been lucky enough to unfurl the tight bud of a cherry blossom between her fingers.
As they walked, light filtered down through gray, almost silvery clouds. Hanging low along the horizon, the half-moon seemed to be playing a game. It hid behind the branches of the fruit trees before reappearing. They had just entered the park grounds and passed the child’s favorite stone statue of a dog when a small white van stopped and the driver got out. Her mother pulled her hand close to her body and held it there momentarily, then released it with a slight tug. “Matte.” She cautioned the child to wait where she stood before walking ahead to greet the driver.
The side of the van hid the driver so that only his head and the bottoms of his pant legs were exposed. The incongruity of this fractured image reminded her of a wooden picture puzzle her father had given her. The puzzle man came with several expressions and clothing items, and each segment could be changed to suit your mood. But in this case the man’s face had been turned away and the van door had obstructed the torso and the upper part of the legs.
The weatherworn face of a neighbor soon replaced the puzzle image. It was Ichinose-san, calling out to her, his steps quickening as he approached.
“Why are you trembling?” he asked, squeezing her gloved fingers together in his strong hands. “You mustn’t stand here by yourself.”
Grasping her forearm, he ushered her along the path she’d walked with her mother, leaving her at the police kiosk at the entrance to the park.
The desk workers stopped what they were doing and looked up when the tall man entered. As he made his way through the crowd the child mouthed the word “stranger.” She hadn’t comprehended at first that it was her father, noting only a well-dressed man, taller by a head than anyone standing around him, his thick black hair pushed to one side. He did not look familiar, but she recognized the irisblue-tinted shirt her mother had taken from its paper wrapping and placed in a stack with the others inside his black lacquered dresser. Each drawer held a different clothing item, which she recalled from top to bottom as she waited for him to find her behind the waist-high counter.
He repeated the word her mother had used, but this time in the form of a question: “Matte?”
His expression changed from expectant to worried as she searched for something more to offer him. She knew what he was asking for, and she wished she could satisfy him with an answer that would lead them both to her mother. She’d stood waiting, as she’d been instructed to do, her hands clasped in front of her as they still were. “A man stopped to ask directions.”
“What did he look like?”
The picture puzzle image appeared again, and she tried to banish it from her mind. She’d seen close-cropped hair that seemed to signify a man, but she was no longer certain even of that. The door to the van had opened, and through the rectangular window she’d seen a navy sport coat and, at the bottom, sticking out beneath the door, a pair of shiny brown shoes.
Concern etched itself into her father’s face and she pitied him. How could her mother have just disappeared? More important, why had she let go of her mother’s hand? Why had her mother not wanted her to go along? For her father’s sake, she thought through the scenario until her head began to throb: maybe she’d gotten it wrong. Her mother would have resisted. Her mother would never have allowed herself to be separated from her. How could she, being right there, not have perceived a struggle?
But the answer was simply that there had been no struggle. The van had sped off as she’d waited, alone under the boughs of the fruit trees, transfixed by the sight of the half-moon hovering over the high wall.
She’d waited, believing only later how lucky she’d been to have her childhood intact, that vanished period of innocence and trust. She’d spend years afterward judging the motivations of the adults around her, unable to find among them a reasonable substitute for the care she’d received from her mother.
Of course the story would change as she reconstructed what had happened. Events she’d once assumed to be factual might really have just been remnants of an imperfect memory. But the feeling that encapsulated her childhood didn’t change; the first nearly five years of her life had been sealed inside her. Those years during which she had lived in the constant presence of her mother had endowed her with fortitude and the insistence that meaning lay beneath the fabric of her existence, even when at times it should have been obvious that there wasn’t any.
The long shadows of morning had just barely given way to full-on sunlight, and already the pavement that lined the shops along East First Street had soaked up the summer heat. Blotting sweat from her chin on to the strap of her sundress, Daidai cursed at the shopping totes that pulled at her arms like children, slowing her pace. Ordinarily, she was not one to be thrown off by a couple of bags of groceries. She was tall, thin though not wispy, and prided herself in being able-bodied, but Hiroshi’s persistent and extraordinary demands the night before had taken their toll.
She’d looked forward to spending time in Little Tokyo as a way to lighten her mood, but so far she’d enjoyed nothing about the day. Marukai had been out of several ingredients she’d needed, the checkout lines long and slow moving like the traffic into downtown. Now her sinuses stung from the sulfurous tang of hibachi grills, and she raised an elbow to wipe back the hair that had stuck to her cheek. A pretty child smiled as she passed, pulled along by her well-heeled mother, who quickened her gait and cast Daidai a nasty sideways glance. At least I don’t need to get laid, she thought, arching her brows at the
