Sisters of Heart and Snow (23 page)

S
AN
D
IEGO

Present Day

A
fter Alan bids Drew good-bye, she sits there in the coffee shop a while longer. She ought to go to Rachel's and look for a job on the computer. Instead she remembers a local music shop where she used to buy sheet music, and where she'd taken viola many moons ago.

It's in Pacific Beach. Drew doesn't know if it's still there. They sold sheet music and rented instruments and provided lessons in small rooms in a basement. This is also where Quincy and Chase took cello and violin lessons. Drew doesn't know if they still do. She hasn't thought to ask. All she has are broad overviews of the children's lives.

Well, she'll always ask in the future.

The store's not there. A small dive shop is in its place. Drew parks in front of it. Nothing's the same, she thinks. What did she expect? That the world would stop while she lived her life?

Kind of. Because being back here makes her feel like she's a fifteen-year-old girl again, still stuck in a difficult relationship with her mother, standoffish from her father.

She walks in the store anyway.

An assortment of snorkeling masks and signs proclaiming “Scuba Lessons” line the walls. Rachel used to go in the ocean often—her high school swim team sometimes trained out there, meeting in the early hours to swim in a formation.

When Drew was ten and Rachel fourteen, her father took them to Honolulu on a business trip. Their mother came along, though she hated the sun, and spent her time on the beach covered in a gigantic hat and a man's long-sleeved shirt.

Killian took them to Hanauma Bay on Oahu, a protected cove southeast of Honolulu. Once used by ancient Hawaiians for fish farming, it now holds a protected coral reef that serves as a natural barrier, populated with plenty of colorful fish for tourists to admire. They rented snorkel equipment on the beach and headed out.

There were fish everywhere in the knee-deep water, and Rachel and Drew had been content with sticking their faces in and watching the bright pink-and-green parrot fish eat frozen peas out of their hands (which you weren't allowed to do anymore).

Killian kicked water at them. “Come on. We're going out to see the real fish. This area's for babies.” He dove in and began swimming, the big black flippers splashing.

The girls didn't protest, but followed mutely. Rachel held on to Drew's hand tight; Drew wasn't as strong a swimmer. They wove through a flock of Japanese tourists in black full-body wetsuits, others with pasty white tourist legs eggbeating underwater.

Killian swam over the coral reef wall that was only inches below the surface. You had to swim against the waves to get over the wide reef, into the open bay. Rachel let go of Drew's hand so they could both hang on to the coral. You weren't supposed to touch it—both to preserve nature and because it was sharp in places. The coral scratched her bare stomach, stinging it, drawing blood. She raised her head out of the water, clearing her snorkel, and saw that her father and Rachel were already on the other side of the coral. Rachel waved.

She also saw the gaps, marked with flags, where you could swim through the coral unobstructed. If only they had thought to look first. A wave hit her in the face, washed over her head. She couldn't get there. Drew's first instinct was to cry. But she couldn't. She gritted her teeth, determined.

Then Rachel was at her side again, grabbing her hand. “Come on. Let's go in,” she said, and pulled Drew to shore.

It's funny, Drew thinks. At the time, she felt scared. Panicked. But as she remembers it, the first feeling she recalls is the thrill. Her sister helping her. How she didn't cry, and how brave that made her feel.

She wants to do something that'll make her feel that way again.

She plunks down her credit card and points to a basic mask and snorkel set. “Two of those, please.”

•   •   •

Joseph waits for me
outside a coffee shop in a strip mall near the bookstore Tom and I frequent. I walk as fast as I can through the parking lot, carrying the plastic box. “Are those the pictures?” He eyes them doubtfully. “We should get you a better box. This kind of plastic isn't good for prints.”

“I'll worry about that later.” I hand over the photos. “There's Japanese writing on the back. I'm hoping they're names.”

“I had a colleague look at the samurai book.” Joseph opens the plastic box with a click and peers inside. He looks up at me. “I'm afraid it won't get you onto
Antiques Roadshow
. It's from the early twentieth century, we think. The prints are just reproductions.”

I sit down. “I'd never sell the book anyway.” Perhaps the woman who sent my mother the book inherited it from her family. Whatever the truth is, I keep expecting Joseph to translate a sentence that reads, “Here is my big secret . . .” But of course there is nothing so obvious. We string together pieces to make a narrative.

I rest my chin on my hand and watch Joseph study the printing. These photos might tell me what I need to know, but they don't look like they're pertinent to what my father said about having something to tell that could harm my mother.

Joseph pushes his glasses back up his nose. From his laptop briefcase, he produces a pen and some address-sized labels in a plastic sleeve marked ARCHIVAL.

I get him a coffee as he begins taking out photos, labeling each one. I notice he's looking at the picture with the baby, turning it over in his hands, and I can barely keep myself from jumping out of line to ask him what he's learned. When I return, I pick up the photo of my mother with the baby, turning it over to read the label.
With Yoshimi.

“That's it?” I say, turning the photo over again as if I've missed something. I squint at the woman. I've never seen a photo of my mother when she was in her twenties, so maybe she looked different—I'd just assumed it was my mother. “Could it be her sister, and the baby's my mother's niece?” I guess.

Joseph places his cup down carefully, away from the photos. “It only has her name.”

Who is Yoshimi? I'll have to take it to my mother. Her lucid moments are increasingly random, but I have to be optimistic. My phone tells me it's already four o'clock. I won't have time today. I gulp my coffee, burning my taste buds. The pain shocks me back to reality. “The others?”

He hands me the photo of the young woman with my mother. “This is her mom, all right. Emiko. And her father, Jun.”

“Okay.” I'm waiting for more. There seemed to be a lot of writing on the back for just names. But Joseph only shrugs.

“The others don't tell us much, either.
A pretty
fall day. Hatsuko and friends.
Things like that.” He finishes labeling and puts his pen away. “I'll send you more of the translated story tonight. What do you think so far?”

Mentally, I replay parts of Tomoe Gozen, and how she had to obey Yoshinaka at all costs. “I don't think I could have coped in her place. They treated women like chattel.” I trail off, unable to imagine it. “I wish that Tomoe and Yamabuki would leave that place, leave Yoshinaka.”

He peers closely at me. “You only exist in the time in which you're born. We can't impose our modern viewpoint to disparage her choices. It's like armchair quarterbacking, nine centuries later.”

I sit back, heat on my face. He was right. Do any of us, even today, have unlimited choices? I certainly have the privilege of many options—but I concede that some paths are closed to me, due to my age.

Joseph continues. “Anyway, like I said, even some scholars think Tomoe was a legend. Exaggerated for dramatic effect.”

I blow on my coffee. “I think she was real.” I want to point to Tomoe and say, “Look at what this woman did—you cannot dismiss her accomplishments.” Disappointment wells up in me as I consider the possibility that Tomoe is only a story. As mythical as Athena. I shake it off. “What does it matter if Tomoe is history or fiction, if her story feels true? If it teaches us something we need to know?”

Joseph opens his coffee lid, pours in sugar. “You're getting a lot out of it.” He smiles.

I think about the years the story encompasses. Seventeen so far. “They spent a long time doing basically nothing while they geared up for the war.”

“But that's life, right? Occasionally, interesting things happen, but mostly it's just day-to-day living.” Joseph spreads his hand out to encompass the coffee shop. “Even famous heroes don't spend every day in battle. Look at Odysseus. Ten years getting home, and maybe five big things happened. It's just that people like to skip over the other parts.”

I tilt my head. “So, do you have any other books about the culture or Japanese history I can look at?”

He writes a few down for me. “You're getting into this. Catching the history fever.”

This is true. I haven't been so enthusiastic about learning anything since I was pregnant with Quincy and read all those terrible pregnancy books that told you every possible thing that could go wrong. Or maybe that one year when I learned how to decorate cakes, made frosting roses and disguised pound cake and ice cream cones as a castle for Chase's tenth birthday. I thought I was just doing this for my mother, but I realize—it's mostly for me. “I guess so,” I say.

•   •   •

Later that afternoon,
Drew crosses the field by the local rec center, heading to the pool to watch Chase's water polo game. This afternoon a group in Renaissance knight costumes, complete with armor and swords, spar next to soccer practices and a dog agility class, as they often do at this community park. Drew wonders how they don't all collide.

She stops for a moment to look at two sparring knights, clanking their broadswords together, unsteady in their armor, holding their shields in their free hands. Rachel, in her research, told her that the samurai sword was lighter and supposedly stronger than these types of swords, that the samurai sword had one edge for cutting and one edge for defending, so they didn't need a shield.

Tomoe Gozen, with her lighter sword and greater skills, could conquer all of them. First she'd shoot them with her arrows, then she'd leap off her horse and fight them, hand-to-hand.

Rachel said that once a year, the Renaissance people hold a festival with welders and sword demonstrations and roasted turkey legs, and everyone speaks in fake English accents. Drew pictures her whole family dressing up like samurai, pulling up in the minivan, and challenging the Renaissance people. Like one of those TV shows,
Who Would Win? Samurai or Knight?

She enters the pool deck and finds a seat on the metal bleachers in the front row. From here, all the water polo players look the same. Chase's team has dark green swim caps and the other team has blue. The goalies wear red caps. Finally Drew locates Chase and keeps her gaze fixed on him as the game begins.

The players throw the yellow ball around—it's like soccer played in the water, as far as Drew can tell. Chase has the ball when an opposing player jumps on his back, clinging to his neck like a monkey, and Drew stands up, her heart pounding. “Is that allowed?” she asks the mother sitting nearest to her.

The woman shrugs. “It's a rough sport. Kids have to be tough.”

Chase throws the ball to another teammate, but still the opponent won't let up. Suddenly Chase sinks underwater. The other boy still has his head up. Drew sees the other boy's shoulder muscles straining. He's holding Chase down.

The parents murmur.
Illegal. Not allowed
. Even the woman next to Drew looks concerned. The ref doesn't seem to notice, not amid all the other activity and churning water.

“Hey!” Drew yells. She starts moving to the pool, ready to jump in.

Chase's face emerges. He takes a gasping breath and shoves the other boy away. “What the fuck?” The ref blows the whistle and points at Chase, says something Drew can't hear.

“Red card for swearing,” the woman next to Drew says, shaking her head. “He's out for the game.”

Chase swims to a sort of holding pen at the side.

Drew can't stand it. He's getting penalized? She opens the gate to the pool fence and walks in and over to him. His coach squats next to him. Chase has red marks around his throat and angry tears in his eyes. “Are you okay?”

Chase nods, touching near his Adam's apple. “He held me under.” His voice sounds hoarse.

Drew looks at the coach, a man in his mid-twenties. “You can't let them get away with it. It's not allowed, is it?”

“Of course it's not allowed,” the coach says. He looks grim. “But the ref didn't call it. You better go sit down. He's okay.”

“Coach doesn't let
us
play
dirty
,” Chase shouts for the other team's benefit.

The ref points at Drew. “Parents. Back in the stands.”

Drew feels all the blood rush out of her head, or maybe into it. They can't hurt her nephew and ignore it. For a moment she's about to leave quietly, without a fuss. She thinks of Tomoe Gozen, of the injustice. She's not letting this pass.

Without thinking, she walks in two long strides to the ref, a man dressed all in white. “What the hell?” she asks, her voice low and tight. “That kid held him under by the neck. That's not safe. He could have died. Don't you care?”

The ref won't meet her eyes, just points to the exit. “You're ejected. Get out of here.”

“You're not going to do anything?” Drew widens her eyes. True, she's never played a sport, so maybe she doesn't know what things are supposed to be like—but she's pretty sure they're not supposed to be like this.

“I'm going to have your son's team forfeit if you don't get out of here,” he replies.