Between the exacting work, and the stress, I was soon wet with sweat. I dropped the kuginuki, and when I moved to retrieve it, the watch was jarred and its light went out. Now I realized that my feet had gone to sleep. This condition had crept up on me occasionally when I was sitting in a classic Japanese seiza position. I began to wiggle my toes, desperate to get the blood flow back. I’d need my feet to run.
Was it my imagination, or had the car slowed? I had no concept of time. Now I was beginning to lose my perception of speed. My fingers closed around the tool, its edge pricking my thumb as I picked it up. I got my watch back in position, turned on its light, and resumed my work on the latch.
The car was picking up speed again, but not as fast as it had been on the freeway. And I could hear sounds of other cars passing us. It might be a suburban road.
Finally, I felt it. The latch turned all the way. I’d opened it, I could tell, because I could lift the lid. I held it open just a sliver to see the dark sky outside, and to hear the rush of the car over the road. If I let go of the trunk lid, it would fly right open.
Keeping one hand on it, I began to ready myself, turning my body so that I was on my hands and knees. My feet weren’t completely in working order yet, but I would move them.
How fast was the car going? Thirty, maybe forty miles per hour? There were other cars around now. There might not be any, in a little while.
I thought about Kendall one last time. She’d been left alone in the car trunk, unharmed. But my situation was different. I couldn’t trust them to leave me alone, and I couldn’t trust anyone to rescue me. I put on my watch again and looked at the time. We’d been driving for almost an hour. We had to be at least fifty miles from Washington. Far was not good.
The car turned again, knocking me against the inside of the trunk. Another street. They were proceeding toward their destination. I took a deep breath and lifted the trunk a fraction. I’d thought we were on a smaller road, and I was right. It was a double-lane country road with farm fencing on either side. No streetlights, and no car lights behind me. Still, it would only get quieter. They were driving into the country, not the city.
I lifted the lid all the way and moved into a crouch. There was no more time to think. I launched myself out of the trunk.
I seemed so slow, compared to the car. I was free, for a few seconds, soaring through the air, tucking my head in position for an airborne forward roll. I’d flown off a bike once this way and survived.
I circled through the air too quickly and hit the ground on my left side, landing on the kuginuki that I’d returned to my pocket. Oh, God. It hurt so much. I wanted to stay there forever, but I couldn’t. Either they’d come back for me, or someone would hit me. I was bleeding. I couldn’t tell if I’d broken anything.
Already, in the back of my mind, the pain was squeezed out by a terrifying sound, that of squealing brakes. Whether the sound came from ahead of me or behind, I didn’t know.
I heard a rumble of voices. The rhythm felt Southern, but the sound was still far enough away that I couldn’t guess race or even gender.
I rolled over on my belly and began to crawl. Now the pain was radiating out from my belly, a strange cramping so intense I had to clench my teeth not to cry out.
A circle of light was crossing the road. Don’t see me, I pleaded. Let me disappear into the blackness of the earth. My turtleneck was black, and so was my hair. The zebra skirt had been torn all the way up to my waist. I curled into a ball, covering my legs as best I could.
The pain from my fall had intensified. Now I couldn’t raise my arms or legs. I felt myself lifting out of my body, looking down. A small Japanese woman, left along the side of the road like a wounded animal. We were one and the same. Thirty years separated us, but time, as I’d learned tonight, meant nothing at all.
The light found me. I felt it hot on my head, and my back. I didn’t bother to lift my head. I knew they’d gotten me. There was a hubbub of voices, now all men’s. They were black and white and Southern and Northern. More than two men, worse than I’d thought.
For a split second, I came back down to earth, and I saw boots: not fashionable women’s boots like mine, but the big, steel-toed ones, the kind that men wore to do construction work. The horror of the boots was the last thing I remembered before I felt hands turning my body, and I decided not to think anymore.
19
“She is waking.”
I opened my eyes. I could see out of only one, and all I beheld was a fluorescent light that turned the white sheets covering me even brighter. The glare was overwhelming, so I closed myself against it, again.
The same woman’s voice spoke again, in Japanese. “You’re here with us. You’re safe now, Rei-chan. You will be fine.”
I opened my working eye again and deduced the blurry outline of a middle-aged Japanese woman. Was it Sadako? Even though the words were comforting, I knew the worst had happened. I was alive, but I was in whatever hell was reserved for Japanese women who ran astray in America.
“She doesn’t recognize me, Hugh-san,” the voice said.
Hugh? Now I was really confused. I forced my eye open again and saw him, out of focus.
I opened my mouth. How dry it was. “Where,” I said, unable to finish the rest of my question.
“You’re here with Norie and me in a hospital in Quantico, Virginia,” Hugh said. “You were smashed up pretty badly. A group of Marines riding to their base found you lying on the road. They called for an ambulance, which brought you here.”
Black boots. I’d thought that my time was up when I’d seen them, but they’d really been on the feet of the men who had saved me.
“I was taken,” I said. “A car. Two men.” I stopped. My tongue was working so slowly. Painkillers, I guessed.
“You can tell the police when you’re ready,” Hugh said, holding a glass of water for me. I sucked down the coldness greedily.
“What do they say happened?” I was starting to get my voice back.
“I haven’t heard it from them, but the police told me they saw your body first, and then saw the car ahead. It took off when they stopped.”
“They saved my life.” Despite my grogginess, I felt a wave of relief wash over me. Marines. I immediately regretted the many times I had been antimilitary. If there wasn’t a military, there wouldn’t have been this group of sharp-eyed Marines who had decided to stop and help me.
“They did,” Hugh said. Why was his voice so sober?
“Rei-chan, I should never have let you go home by yourself.” I heard Aunt Norie’s voice again. “I cared for you in Japan, but I did not care properly for you here. You will not forgive me, ever. I am not worthy of it.”
I shook my head.
“Norie, could you do me a favor and find Rei’s nurse, please? I want her to bring an extra pillow.”
“Of course,” my aunt answered. I heard the sound of a door closing.
“Rei, darling, I’m so very sorry. For all the reasons.” Hugh put his face against mine. “If I hadn’t gone out to stay in Potomac, you would have gotten home safely.”
I shook my head. “It was meant to happen.”
“What do you mean? That the bastards would have come after you another night, that they’d marked you as their target the way they had Kendall?”
“I don’t know. It felt like fate.” I couldn’t explain the strange feeling I’d had while lying on the road, that Sadako’s and my destinies had intertwined. I didn’t believe in ghosts, but at that moment, I felt as if I’d seen her.
“I won’t accept that it was meant to be. Never.” Hugh’s voice was hard. “Rei, I have to tell you something before your aunt returns. During your—abduction—a very sad thing happened.”
“You mean, you and Kendall.” I stopped, too depressed to spell it out.
“What about Kendall and me?” Hugh sounded puzzled.
“I thought…maybe…you…got together.” Each word was so hard to utter.
“Y
our wonderful cousin,” Hugh said dryly. “When I arrived at her place, she was having a teleconference with some Snowden campaigners, oblivious of me, not to mention the bairns, who were tearing the house apart. I helped the au pair put them to bed. Then Win returned, drunk as a skunk, and I had to put him to bed. I was frankly exhausted at the end of it all and tucked myself into the guest room without bothering to phone you good night. I’m sorry about that.”
Hugh had sounded so normal and believable that I was filled with remorse. “I practically drove you into staying there. There’s no need to apologize.”
“The thing that happened.” Hugh paused, as if he didn’t want to go on. “It happened to you.”
I thought about how I couldn’t see. “Did I lose an eye?”
“No. Your right cornea was scratched in the fall, which is why it’s got a temporary bandage on it. That’ll heal. It’s—oh, hell.”
I lay still, waiting. How hurt was I? Was it paralysis? Would I never walk again?
“The baby’s gone. You miscarried during the fall.”
“Baby.” I said. My one eye stared at him, shocked. “How could that be?”
“You were hemorrhaging during the transport to the hospital. That’s when the tissue came out, the beginnings of our…” Hugh’s voice trailed off.
“Oh, Hugh.” So that had been the wracking pain as I lay on the road: the journey of a child, breaking apart and pouring out of my body.
“Did you know?” Hugh asked. “We haven’t had any time alone together since I came back. I thought maybe you did suspect something, but didn’t have a chance to tell me.”
“I didn’t know. If I had known I wouldn’t have jumped—”
Hugh sighed heavily. “But if you hadn’t jumped, you might not be alive today. And if that had happened, I don’t know how I could have gone on.”
“Who knows if they would even have done anything to me?” I was beginning to hyperventilate. “Kendall waited to be rescued. She did the sensible thing.”
“You were brave to get out the way you did. It’s just that—my heart is breaking,” Hugh said. “I never thought I would feel this way. I didn’t know about the baby, I didn’t have any time to dream about it or get—attached—but I still feel so…”
“I was stupid not to know.” I’d gained weight, I no longer had the energy to run well, and I had no taste for wine. Unconsciously, I’d been protecting the baby—protecting it until the moment came when I killed it.
“Usually there’s a sign,” Hugh said.
“I had a period about six weeks back.” True, it had been light to the point of near invisibility, but I had just chalked that up to stress. There had been a lot. First, the preparation for the restaurant opening, then Kendall’s kidnapping, and finally, my aunt’s surprise visit. That raised a new question. “How much does Norie know?”
“Not everything,” Hugh said. “She knows about the eye, and that you have multiple fractures of your fingers, and that you took a hard fall. But I didn’t tell her about the baby, and I asked the doctors to keep it private. Actually, there are new hospital privacy laws that are extremely strict. Even though Norie is your aunt, the only way either of us could be at your bedside is through permission of your parents, who, as you already know, are in Fiji. I managed to reach them. They’re in shock over the whole thing, but very glad that you’re alive.”
“How long do I have to stay in the hospital?” The longer I stayed in, I knew, the worse I’d feel about my life.
“They may let you out today. Then you’re supposed to treat yourself gently for about a week. I’m taking leave from work and not letting you out of my sight until you’re completely mended. I told Norie I was moving in to protect you both, and she didn’t utter a word of protest.”
I smiled. “So you don’t have to live at the gym or the office anymore.”
“No. And I’m really sorry—sorry that I was so hell-bent, last night, on getting to bed at a decent hour. If I hadn’t gone to your cousin’s, this never would have happened.”
Hugh was interrupted by the sound of a door opening and my aunt Norie’s voice. “Rei-chan, I have your pillow. And one of the soldiers is here to see you, if you feel well enough.”
“Can you bear it?” Hugh asked in a low voice.
“Yes. I must thank him.” I felt dazed again, like I was moving in and out of two worlds.
“The doctors said no more than two visitors at a time, so I’ll leave.”
Hugh departed, and I tried to focus with my one good eye on the tall man in camouflage standing in front of me, his hat in his hands.
“I’m Lance Corporal Henderson, ma’am. I was with the group who stopped. Just wanted to see that you were okay.” From what I could see of him, he looked to be in his early twenties—a gangly blond with a faint haze of hair over his head. He was like a spring chick, all stretched out.
“I’m very grateful,” I said. “Can you tell me how it happened?”
“Our driver had the brights on. At first we thought you were a dog—because you weren’t that big, see—and my buddy, he really loves dogs, so he wanted to stop. There was an argument because it was already two in the morning, and we’d have to muster at sunrise. But then my buddy saw what looked like clothing, so we had to stop.”
“Tell me about the car I fell from,” I said.
“It was a sedan with its trunk open. The car was going backward, fast, heading in the direction of where you were lying. But when we stopped, the car changed direction and took off. I guess that was the car that dropped you, huh?”
“I dropped myself,” I said. “I don’t suppose you saw the license plate?”
“No, ma’am. I’m sorry. We didn’t put two and two together, that you might have come from that car, until later, when we were giving the report to the police.”
“I understand. I’m really grateful.”
“Well, we’re pretty disappointed we didn’t get those guys who did it.” The lance corporal bowed his head for a minute. “We could have taken them down, you know, if we’d seen them.”
“You saved my life. I think that’s enough for one night,” I said.
“Thank you so much,” Norie said. “I think she is becoming tired.”
My aunt sat by my side after the Marine left. She didn’t say anything, which was a relief.
As my aunt’s hand slowly warmed my cold one, I thought about how every Japanese town seemed to have at least one temple with a special garden that held small statues of Jizo-sama, the Buddhist guardian of children who die too early. Women would buy a small stone statue, and then dress it in hand-sewn or knitted or crocheted jackets and hats. They laid before it offerings of fruit and flowers. The mothers visited their child-guardians as long as they needed to, sometimes until a second child was born, in other cases, for the rest of their lives.
But there were no gardens of stone babies in the United States. Even if there were such a place, I couldn’t set foot in it. I had never known my child, never worried about it, never loved it. And now it was too late.
20
Three days after the ride back to Washington, I still hurt all over.
The ER attending had prescribed Percocet, which had upset my stomach so badly that I’d flushed all the pills down the toilet. My local doctor gave me a prescription for something that bothered my stomach even more. Fractured fingers I could live with, and my eye had healed enough for me to take off the patch, but my stomach ached for what it had lost.
My parents called me every day from Fiji, on a crackly connection that often cut out. They were the only ones I could bear to speak with. Hugh shadowed me from room to room, running loads of laundry, puttering, and going out to run the occasional errand. He also kept out people I couldn’t bear to see. The press, for the first few days, were incessant. The Marines had been happy to speak and pose for pictures, but I’d refused to be interviewed and begged my police contact to keep my name private—which they couldn’t legally do. At least it hadn’t
gotten out about the baby.
After three long days, the cameramen stopped hanging around. They went back to Kendall, who was willing to oblige with her comments on the situation. She’d called up right away to offer her sympathies—as far as she knew, all I’d suffered were the bruises and scars of a kidnapping. I decided to keep the story simple, like that, because I didn’t want to become a family horror story. I could imagine the news of my lost pregnancy making the Howard family telephone rounds. “How California,” Grand might say. And the rest would shake their heads, musing with each other about why I didn’t know about birth control when, for God’s sake, I was living with a man—and why a woman who was almost thirty didn’t know it was unsafe to walk around the District of Columbia after midnight.
Kendall had offered to help me write a press release about the kidnapping, but I’d refused. Then she’d offered to take me out for a drink at Zola, but I’d declined. In the end, she promised she’d stop by one evening after work. I was anxious to have a face-to-face talk. I thought that, if we talked, I might remember more about the men who’d taken me. I wasn’t sure if my memory was so vague because I’d lost consciousness after the jump, or because I just wasn’t thinking hard enough.
Detective Burns had been frustrated with me, I knew. He’d come to visit the day of my return. I’d settled in for the morning on Hugh’s long leather sofa with an old Japanese patchwork quilt wrapped around me when the downstairs buzzer rang. I spoke into the entry phone, and I recognized Louis Burns’s voice.
When Norie opened the door, the detective nodded at her. Then he looked at me. “Miss Shimura. I’m very sorry about your loss.”
“Thanks,” I said quickly, hoping that would end it. He obviously knew that I’d miscarried.
The Pearl Diver Page 18