This has got to be hard for you to handle. I would prefer to tell you over the phone but respect your wishes.
I plan to visit Watanabe-san again later this week and will ask whatever else you want me to ask.
Also, Nicole, if you want me to tell you about your scar, I can. Whenever you are ready to hear, let me know. I was there.
Only an email away.
Fondly,
Harrison
I admit, I like his fondness.
Chapter Eighteen
I have never known my face without the polka-dot scar in the middle of my forehead. In the picture of Mama and me, there is no scar, but it doesn’t always show up in photographs, so I don’t know if the scar arrived before or after that day when Mama and I, dressed in kimonos, smiled into the camera. I’m used to the scar; it’s a part of me. Except for rubbing it, I usually don’t give it any attention. What’s bothered me over the years is that, like so much of my life, it’s a mystery.
Once I concluded I was born with it. Just one of those things that happens. Like my apple birthmark on my lower back. Of course it clearly looks different than my birthmark; a nursing student at UNC-Greensboro told me that tidbit of medical information for free. She said she could tell that the skin had been opened, like a wound, and then healed, leaving the tiny scar.
Still, she could be wrong. She was, after all, still a student.
My cousins in Wyoming had another twist on it. One summer when they spent a week with Ducee and me in Mount Olive, they informed me it was a magic symbol, given to me at birth by the Princess of Susunanastan. I was nine before I realized, thanks to my geography teacher, that the country of Susunanastan doesn’t exist.
Ducee said it was most likely a mark left by Mama’s lips, where she used to kiss me every day.
And now, with the newest message from Harrison, my scar’s origin has been revealed. The mystery is solved. All the years of wondering have ended with this day.
Move over birthmark, Mama’s daily kiss, and even Princess of Susunanastan.
One afternoon, after school, while Rita and Mama drank tea at our house in Kyoto, Watanabe-san took Harrison and me to the park. I’d just turned two. Harrison was six.
Having no siblings of his own at the time, he treated me like a baby sister. That day, he pushed me on a swing for a bit, not very high, because he knew I was just a small girl. Then a dog, a stray mutt probably, came racing through the playground and I, terrified of animals, screamed. I either jumped or fell— Harrison’s not certain—off the swing and hit my head on a scrap of wood that someone had abandoned. The wood on the ground near the swing had a nail sticking out of it.
Harrison ran to pick me up off the ground. He and our maid took turns holding me as the blood gushed from the cut on my head. Watanabe-san carried me home as Harrison walked beside me, grateful for my sobs because that meant I was still alive.
“I remember thinking dead people don’t cry, so she must still be living,” Harrison wrote.
At our house, Mama examined me. She, along with Harrison’s mother, both nurses, decided the cut didn’t need stitches. I had just received a tetanus shot the month before, so they figured I was covered. They taped a white bandage to my head, a large one made from an old sheet. It circled my whole head.
Harrison said he let me have all his chocolate milk that afternoon and even gave me one of his favorite Matchbox trucks, sent all the way from the U.S.A.
I stand in front of the bathroom mirror and touch my scar. It feels different to my fingers now. A scar with a clear story behind it is more satisfying than a magic symbol given at birth by the Princess of Susunanastan.
I thank Harrison for helping me. I still have more questions to ask him, hopeful he’ll either know the answers or find out from Watanabe-san. What about my doll’s shortened sleeve? Where did Mama get the doll? What was the song I was singing in my crib the night of the fire?
I tell him to please hug Watanabe-san the next time he sees her. “Hug her for me,” I write. “She saved my life. Tell her how grateful I am.”
How I wish she could have saved Mama, too.
I go out and sit on my front step. I don’t need a coat; a light sweater keeps the spring breezes from cooling my skin. In the distance, the crickets and bullfrogs serenade each other. It’s like an orchestra performing just for me.
I find the brightest star. Now when I wave to Mama, I feel I know her so much better.
———
When I look out the window, the daffodils in Hilda’s front garden seem to be at the height of their beauty. I click on a message from Harrison in my inbox. He has visited our former maid once more. In the long email I see the words, “She wants you to come to Japan.”
In a hurry because it is time to leave for school, I print the letter and stuff it in my tote bag. I’ll read it during lunch.
On the drive to school, I feel my stomach buckle. Come to Japan. That’s absolutely absurd. Placing a hand against my stomach, I pat it, soothe it. Really, you don’t need to worry, I tell it, we are not going to Japan. You won’t have to deal with the turmoil of motion sickness because I won’t get on an airplane. To go anywhere.
I don’t ride airplanes, motorcycles, or roller coasters.
Come to Japan.
As my students would say, No way!
Chapter Nineteen
After the last bell rings, I head out the main door with dozens of chattering students, all busting with the energy that displays itself with the approaching end of the school year. You can hear it in their steps; only seven more weeks until we are free from this institution. Seven more weeks and then, no homework, no waking up early to catch the bus, and best of all—no English class with Ms. Michelin!
The long, lazy days of summer wait just around the corner.
In my car, I take a few breaths and roll down the window. Relief hits me, too. It’s Friday. No more students for a whole weekend. One thing that students don’t realize—adults enjoy some time off from them, too.
Once out of the parking lot, I just drive. Pretty soon I’ve left Mount Olive. I have no idea where I’m headed, but I’m headed somewhere. I don’t know where I’m headed, but I am headed somewhere. It sounds like good bumper-sticker material.
My grandfather Luke swore by leisurely drives to nowhere. He said there was nothing like an unexpected ride down a familiar road, a wonderful recipe for thinking and unwinding. Some Sunday afternoons he would let Ducee and me come along in his delivery truck, as long as we didn’t insist on stopping to bargain shop or make a number of restroom breaks.
Grandpa Luke’s love of driving must have sunk into my genes; already I can tell this ride is helping ease the tension in my muscles.
The warm sun soaks into my arms and legs as I sail down Route 117. Along the road, purple wisteria—bountiful and aimless—sweeps around the high limbs of trees. In front lawns, yellow daffodils stand straight and proud.
I pass Warsaw, and then Rose Hill, home to the largest vineyard and winery in North Carolina. When the Welcome to Wallace road sign greets me, I smile because now I know where I’m headed. It won’t be much farther. Wow, this little road trip is just what I needed. After the email message from Harrison, I need a place to be free, like the wisteria, to spread out and absorb.
Come to Japan.
No.
I am delighted that Watanabe-san wants to see me after all these years, but perhaps if her interest in being with me is so strong, she could jump on a Japan Airlines flight and fly to North Carolina.
The clock on my dashboard reads three-fifteen. This means it’s early Saturday morning in Kyoto. Harrison is sleeping. Soon he’ll wake to his alarm, which is set to a classical music station out of Osaka. He’ll get out of his futon, shave, and put on a cologne for men by Shiseido. For breakfast he’ll eat raisin toast and oatmeal. Grits? Never. Earl Grey? He had it once, he thinks. Must not have liked it, because he’s never had it since. Hot coffee, extra strong, is what he makes to start the d
ay.
After glancing at the headlines of the Japan Times, he’ll brush his teeth. At eight-thirty he’ll catch the bus to a special school for handicapped kids. Every Saturday he volunteers at the school with a group from his church. He writes that working with these kids is the highlight of his week. “I like being the professor and teaching English at the college, but my time with these special-needs children is when I learn more than I could ever teach. The mornings are valuable lessons, molding me more into the person Christ has hope I will become one day.”
———
When I cross over a bridge, I’m in the coastal city of Wilmington. At a traffic light, I roll down my window until it won’t go down any farther and breathe in the salty air. Ah, this is life, I think, because that is what my grandfather used to say whenever his lungs filled with the aroma of the ocean or the Blue Ridge Mountains.
I park on a side road by a gigantic beach house painted a salmon color, complete with a wrap-around white porch. In the summer months this side street would be filled with cars and I’d have to venture to another, but today, in early spring, my car’s the only one.
I stop along the sandy public beach access path to take off my shoes and socks and roll up my cotton pant legs. The sun is settling in the western sky, yet it feels hot on my arms.
As I approach the ocean and hear the crashing waves, I know this trip to Wrightsville Beach is one of the best decisions I’ve made in a long time.
Not quite as good as deciding to continue writing to Harrison months ago, even though I suspected he lived in Japan.
Then there it is before me. Sun-enriched brilliant blue sky and deep, dark blue sea. Right in front of me to enjoy as though I am the only one alive. The grand waves dissolve into foam as they crash against the shore.
A sigh rises from my lungs and out into the inviting air.
The ocean calms me as much as it floods me with awe. Beside it, I am one little creature. My problems seem microscopic.
Digging a plastic clip out of my purse, I pull my hair into a ponytail. I walk toward the moist sand by the shore. I love the way the sand oozes through the spaces between my toes.
A woman with a broad-rimmed straw hat and a little girl with a green bucket walk past and smile. The girl looks about three years old and has hair the color of Monet’s and just as much energy as she dashes ahead of her mother. She yells, “I can run faster than you, Mommy!”
For a second I wonder what Monet is doing today. I think she was scheduled to see a neurologist in Chapel Hill. I hope Dennis isn’t with that woman who drives an SUV. But then I push away thoughts of Dennis. I came here to the coast to spend time thinking. I will deal with the likes of you another time, Dennis.
Following the woman and child is an elderly woman, dressed in shorts. Her rich, even tan makes me feel as if we’ve already had months of summer. I wonder if she’s just back from the beaches of Puerto Rico.
I remove my sunglasses, rest them on top of my head, and closing my eyes, lift my chin upward so that the sun can warm my eyelids. The heat of the coastal sun is a balm for my eyes, eyes that have felt many tears.
Since I didn’t prepare for this spur-of-the-moment trip, I have no towel to sit on, but nevertheless, I find a spot on the damp sand. A timid hermit crab making its way over a large shell scurries away from me.
I did a science project on crabs once. There is the blue crab, the king crab, and the— I make myself stop. I came to the beach to ponder my life, not to recite animal life.
Slipping on my sunglasses, I take crumpled pieces of paper from my purse. They rattle with the ocean wind, and I clutch them tightly. One gust of wind could send them into the water.
These pages are from Harrison, his words to me earlier today. At lunchtime, I read his whole email message inside the janitor’s closet. It was the only place I could find free of noise.
He’d been to the nursing home again to see Watanabe-san. This time the older woman had a photo she grasped in her scarred hands. She said it was of Michelin-san and the little daughter, Nicole. In the black-and-white picture, both are wearing kimonos and smiling into the camera. The little girl holds a doll against her shoulder.
Watanabe-san said she gave you that doll. She went to Kobe one weekend and found the doll at a shop on Centagai. Centagai is a covered street that stretches for almost a kilometer with stores and restaurants along each side. Watanabe-san kept saying how you loved that doll. You cried for it the night of the fire and she picked it off the floor as she pulled you from your crib. One of the sleeves of the doll’s kimono was singed by the fire and she later cut off the damaged part.
Sink. Sink in.
With my free hand I uncover a tiny scallop, its half shell the color of a Magenta Queen tulip. I trace my finger along its rim. How nice to be a shell and just be, no thinking, no pondering, no endless questions with answers you never expected.
Mama did not give Sazae to me.
In the bleach-smelling janitor’s closet when I read Harrison’s message the first time today, I wanted to scream. All that came out was a little “Oh no” as my heart raced like the cars on the Charlotte Speedway.
Now I let my mind come up with whatever it wants to. I had to keep it in check as I taught today. I made myself play the teacher role, writing on the whiteboard, assigning homework, and grading quizzes on Emerson.
First, I think of Sazae and wonder if our relationship will change, since I know she is not a gift from Mama. She is from our family maid. Which means that now nothing I own is from Mama.
The waves collide into each other and all I can come up with is: She gave you life.
That is my gift from my mysterious mother. That, and my eyes. My unruly hair and freckles come from Father. My nailbiting and scar-rubbing traits are probably no one’s fault but my own.
I close my eyes to see a woman lying on a floor, flames consuming her. A Japanese maid fighting to save the life of a child as fire burns her hands. A child singing in the fire so that the maid can find her amid the smoke. And a doll, a cloth kimono doll, with a singed sleeve.
This is my past.
And this is my present.
The pain inside immobilizes me. I am like the half shell, lifeless.
I breathe in and out, taking my time. There is no hurry. Time at the beach is meant to pass slowly.
Chapter Twenty
Sitting on the beach, I grasp the sheets of computer paper and read some more.
Watanabe-san tells me the two of you used to sing together. You would wear your kimono and sometimes a green feather boa, and stand on your tiptoes, waiting. From your side she would call out, as though making an announcement, “And now, we have the Kimono Lady. Nicole is our Kimono Lady. She is going to sing!”
As your mother played the piano, you would smile and start to sing the song Watanabe-san taught you. It’s called Ame Ame and is about how a mother comes in the rain to pick up her child. She carries a large old Japanese umbrella made of wood. It’s called a janome. The child is so happy to see her mother.
Oh, my. “Oh, my!” I cry right there on the beach. I sang in Japanese. I had no idea I could once speak Japanese. “I’m bilingual.” The laughter collects in my throat, and I let it out.
A young couple, walking hand in hand, smile at me.
Yeah, don’t mind me. I’m just having a little information overload.
They linger, bodies close, an embrace, a passionate kiss. Then they amble farther down the shore.
I wonder if they’re dating, in love, married, or cheating on their spouses. Grable’s husband is threading his way into my thoughts yet again. Dennis, no good from the get-go.
My eyes scan back to the beginning, and I read the first lines of Harrison’s letter.
Nicole,
I visited Watanabe-san again today. She is so relieved to know you are alive. I guess sometimes she is confused about whether or not you were rescued. The nurses say she has her good days, and then the days when she wants only to sit in her
wheelchair and drink tea.
Today was a good day. She talked constantly. She wants you to come to Japan. She says you can sit beside her and ask all the questions you have. She will do her best to answer them.
Think about it, Nicole. I would like it if you came to Japan. I think it would be a good experience for you.
I laugh again. Neither of them understands that I can’t go to Japan. Nicole doesn’t fly.
Three sea gulls soar on the surface of the waves; one catches a small fish in its beak and, with great force, flies from the others. Squawking, the others chase after him in the air.
I watch the ocean for a while as my thoughts tumble all over each other until they are a tangled mess.
As the sun sets, the sky is filled with little puffy orange clouds that look like the bellies of goldfish.
I wonder what a sunset looks like in Kyoto, Japan.
She wants you to come to Japan.
First off, even if I could transport myself across the ocean without having to succumb to the confines of an airplane, what would I do? Go where in Kyoto? Walk up to a hotel and check in? What if I hate the food, especially the unagi, the broiled eel, that Harrison claims doesn’t taste like fish and is delicious? I could get sick. Kristine says that an ex-boyfriend of hers went to the Philippines and ate some uncooked vegetable or something like that and got an amoeba. The parasite was living in his intestines and he had to drink some horrible-tasting medicine to get rid of it. What if an amoeba makes me so sick I have to spend days in bed? What if I can’t speak the language, unable to mutter even a proper konnichiwa?
And Harrison. What if I’m so nervous around him that all I do is bite my fingernails?
He’s wonderful in his email messages. But there are those who can write well and can’t mutter an intelligent word when face-to-face with another human. What if Harrison stutters or mumbles? What if I do?
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