Follow follow follow me
I was glad to be your shadow
Always flying like Peter Pan
You never let go of my hand
Together, forever, the way it should be
Until one day
When you left
Left me all alone
Maybe I left you, too
Good things, they never stay
But now I’ve found you again
I want you back in my life
I want you to let me in
Forget all the anger and strife.
Time is always wasted
Dwelling on our sins
But all we have is now
Never what might have been.
Please—let me in.
Let me in.
Let me in.
I’m your shadow.
You’re my shadow.
Always in my heart.
She rubs her eyes and looks at her phone. Five o’clock. At last her fatigue hits her—she hasn’t stopped to make coffee or anything. She’s gotten out her musical notation paper and jotted down the beginnings of the melody, before she forgets, the notes coming to her like Morse code.
She turns off the light and lies in the dark, but sleep doesn’t return. Just that melody still.
The afternoon she played in the library comes to mind. Alan. How he makes her feel somehow more Drew-like. His acceptance of Drew for who she is, not how he thinks she ought to be. And she for him. How time passes like it’s nothing when they’re together.
Her heart sounds loud in her ears, as it often does when there’s no other sound. But she remembers something else, from Tomoe Gozen.
“Do you love him?” she asks aloud, into the darkness of her apartment, and waits for her inner heart to answer.
Yes.
She’s in love with Alan.
She takes in a deep, surprised breath.
Dammit.
She’s in love with him.
It’s crazy and maybe it makes no sense, but it’s real and true and Drew knows it. Just like she knew turning down Jonah was the right choice. She wants so much to be strong. To be like Tomoe and do the right thing, like when Tomoe let little Yoshitaka go.
But if she does that, she’ll regret it for as long as she lives.
She gets dressed. If she leaves soon, she’ll miss most of the morning traffic. This time, she packs her viola.
• • •
The corridors of the hotel are empty and quiet. Everyone’s out or sleeping the daylight away, waiting for night. I find Quincy and Ryan’s room and knock. Our special family code: TAP (pause) TAP (pause) TAP-TAP-TAP. It’s from the Crest commercial in the eighties, where the little plaque monsters sang, “We make holes in teeth. We make holes in teeth.” The commercial’s been off the air for decades, but that’s how Tom and his brothers knock on doors, and therefore how we do it. Nobody answers. I give it a minute, knock again, normally this time. Nothing.
I sit down in the hallway. I could go down and try my luck with the slots, or attempt to play blackjack—but I’m so terrible at cards that the rest of the table invariably rises against me, like I’m Alice in Wonderland playing against the Queen of Hearts. I settle against the wall, consider calling my sister. But what can she do?
I think about Chase and try to work up a little self-righteous anger. She should have told me. I remember the days when I’d get angry at Drew and shut her out. Hear her pitiful voice at my bedroom door. Please let me in, Rachel, she’d plead, sobbing. I’d put on my headphones. It didn’t matter what the transgression was. If she did something I didn’t like, that’s what I would do.
Then she’d write a note and slide it under my door. Sry I Am a bad Sistr, read one in her childish, misspelled crayon. God. Why was I so mean? Quincy had never acted like that with Chase—both kids relented and made up quickly.
“You’re not a bad sister,” I whisper.
She probably doesn’t want to hear from me at all.
I open up the Tomoe Gozen story to the chapter about little Yoshitaka and reread it.
Little Yoshitaka was going to be used as insurance for Yoshinaka to not throw a coup. I swallow. I’d learned from some of the history books that this was commonplace. In fact, Yoritomo, the leader, and his brothers had something similar happen to them when they were young. Their father was killed by Kiyomori Taira, and he’d planned to kill Yoritomo and his siblings. But Taira’s wife had pleaded with him to spare them. So instead, Taira sent them to live in exile, where they grew up plotting revenge and a new takeover.
I keep reading. A sentence sticks out.
Let him go and he may come back to us.
A couple walks by, smoking, laughing. My eyes water and I cough. They don’t even glance at me. Apparently women sitting in hallways by hotel room doors is not an uncommon occurrence. Probably they wouldn’t bat an eye if I was sprawled in the middle—they’d just step over me. I stretch my sore back, read the sentence again.
Let him go.
My legs feel numb. I stand up, shake them out.
If they fought now, a bad outcome was certain. If they waited, at least they had hope.
I imagine the scene: Tomoe and Yamabuki watching the little boy being carted away. Tomoe could have perhaps defeated the group of soldiers who came to pick up the boy, but doing so would destroy their future. The battle would be won, the war lost.
I imagine myself confronting Quincy again. Her shutting the door on me, literally and figuratively. Never speaking to me again because I tried to control her. I’m the intruder here.
Becoming like my father to her.
Flushing red, I slump against the wall, staring at the beige wallpaper on the opposite wall.
I thought I knew better than Tomoe, in my modern age, with my ability to travel and my Western-style hubris. I thought that if Tomoe had a choice, she would have done what I’m doing.
But it’s Tomoe who has all the wisdom. Even now.
“Mom?” Quincy stands in front of me in the same sweats she wore to Thanksgiving, holding a large brown mailing envelope stamped with CLARK COUNTY MARRIAGE LICENSE BUREAU in red. Ryan stands behind her, his forehead wrinkled, his hands at her waist. “What are you doing here?”
My throat closes. I look down for a long moment at my feet in their black sneakers, considering my next words. Trying to sweep away the debris of what I want versus what my daughter wants. What am I doing here?
At last, I figure it out. The core of why I wanted to come. What matters the most. I stand up.
I take Quincy’s free hand and look into her hazel eyes. When I speak, my voice is steady. “I want to be there when you get married. I want to be a witness.”
The words seem to have physical form. They’re a rope, a lifeline between me and my daughter.
My daughter stares at me in shock. For a brief second I think she’ll turn me away.
Then she bursts into tears and hugs me tight.
• • •
The next morning, I walk down to Quincy’s room. I stayed down the hall from them. Today, all we have to do is walk across the street to the chapel, pay the fee, and order the service. It will be done. I wonder if Quincy needs help with her makeup or hair. What will she wear? For all I know, she’s getting married in her sweatsuit. She said she didn’t need help. For the ceremony itself, I’ve promised to call Tom on speakerphone. I’ll also get the chapel to record it on a DVD, so we can share it with everyone. A plan. Plans are good, I reassure myself. Even if you have to change them later.
I do the family knock. There’s no answer. I knock again. Muffled footsteps. The chains rattle. At last Quincy pulls the door open. She wears a white robe and her hair is unbrushed, her makeup not done. Her face is drawn. “Hi, Mom.” She does a shuffling turn away.
“Where
’s Ryan?” I step inside, onto the red carpet that looks the same as the one in my room. Only one light is on, and the curtains are drawn. A single king-sized bed sits in the middle, the red cover pulled up. Her duffel bag sits on the dresser, next to the dark television set. Ryan’s bag is nowhere.
Something’s wrong.
The bed creaks under Quincy’s weight. She stares at her bare, ringless fingers. “He’s not here.”
I put my purse down. “He left you?”
Quincy’s jaw flexes. “Yeah. He went home.” Quincy’s eyes have purple bags under them, and she won’t meet my gaze.
I sit down, sinking deeper into the bed than I want, and put my arm around her. “Q, what happened? Did you have a fight?”
She flinches away. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.” Quincy goes into the bathroom and shuts the door firmly.
I should be relieved. Thanking my lucky stars. Instead, a deep chasm opens in my chest. I remember how in love I was with Tom. The excited flutter I felt on our wedding day. I love making him laugh. I love how he makes me laugh. We looked into each other’s eyes as the clerk read the marriage text, and again, as I had when I first held my newborn sister, I felt that inexplicable sense of connection. As if we could touch each other with only a glance. That was the yardstick by which I measured every loving feeling I’d had since. How devastating it would have been if he’d left like that, right before we got married.
I put my head on my hands. I’m suddenly paralyzed by the possibility that I’ve had it all wrong, that my presence here has ended the relationship. Tom’s mother hadn’t interfered with us—perhaps she’d wanted to—what would have happened if she had?
I get up and knock on the door. “Quincy?” I call. “Are you all right?”
The water runs. “Go away.”
I rattle the doorknob. What is she doing in there? I’m afraid, momentarily, that she’s hurting herself. She wouldn’t, I think—but then, I don’t know my children as well as I thought, either. “Q, I need to make sure you’re okay.”
The bathroom door opens. Quincy’s dressed in jeans and a UCSD sweatshirt. Her hair is brushed and bound back. She’s dabbed concealer under her eyes, put on some lip gloss. “I haven’t eaten since yesterday afternoon. Can we get some food?”
I smile at her. That sweet, brave baby girl who was always so quick to shake off a softball hit to the head is still there. “Of course.”
• • •
We leave the casino and head to a diner down the street. In the sunshine, the lights of the strip try to compete with the sun and fail. Everything looks more like a fading carnival than a multibillion-dollar tourist attraction, the plaster statues chipped, the sidewalks gray and littered with flyers for strip clubs.
Quincy says nothing. Our feet move in unison, right-left, right-left.
We sit in a booth, slightly sticky with pancake syrup, and I wave down a busboy. Quincy slides in next to me, instead of opposite. We sip our coffee, watching people wander by the window, elderly tourists, parents with young children, homeless people with their carts. I’m waiting for her to talk. Or not talk.
The waitress puts down our pancakes in front of us, three each, with a great glob of butter on top, plus scrambled eggs and bacon. Quincy smears her butter into the pancakes and pours out what looks like two cups of syrup, making a lake on her plate.
When her pancakes are gone, Quincy blows out a breath so powerful it moves the empty creamer tubs, spilling their last white drops onto the tabletop. “So. This is what happened.”
I put my fork down on the side of my plate.
“Last night, after you said you wanted to see me get married,” Quincy crumples her straw wrapper, “Ryan realized he wanted his parents to see it, too. He said we should put it off. Like, until after I graduate. He said we should ‘rethink things.’
“Then I said he should have thought about that before we drove out here. Before I got out of school and gave up my dorm room. I didn’t want to wait. Then he said . . .” Quincy’s lower lip trembles. She begins sobbing, real big nonverbal sobs, the kind I haven’t heard her emit since she was two and couldn’t form words to express what she wanted to say.
I put my arm around her. “It’s okay, Quincy.”
“Are people looking?” She blows her nose with her napkin.
I glance around. Nobody has blinked an eye. “It’s Vegas.”
“Then . . . he . . . said . . . he . . . loves . . . me.” She begins hiccuping. I pat her back until she can talk again. Her breath is hot. “And then he called it off.” She takes my napkin and dabs at her nose again. “He said we’re not ready to get married. He’s not ready. He said he has a lot of training to do, so it’d be best to wait. And I said it was all or nothing—we already got our license—and he chose nothing.”
“Oh, honey.” Seeing your kids in pain is the worst. Even necessary pain. I put my hand over hers. If I could, I would absorb every bit of her angst so she wouldn’t have to experience it. This is that invisible thread Tomoe spoke of, the one tethering us to our children forever.
Quincy wipes at her swollen eyes. “Well. I’m waiting.”
I dig out the tissues I keep in my purse. “For what?”
“The I told you so.” She blows her nose. “You were right and I was wrong. Yay, Mom.”
“Quincy.” I lean in close to her. “All I want is for you to be happy. The only reason I objected—well, the biggest reason—is because it seemed like you were losing yourself in him.”
Quincy’s face goes splotchy. Her eyes flash. “You think I’m so perfect and sweet. Well, it was my idea to get married. Mine. Not his.” She shakes her head. “He’s in the military. You don’t understand. When he’s gone, he’s gone. No phone a lot of times. No e-mail. No texts. Sometimes for a couple of days, sometimes for weeks. We don’t always know beforehand when he’ll go.”
I nod.
She spreads out her hands. “So while he’s gone, I get busy doing my own stuff, seeing my friends again.” Quincy takes a sip of water. “But when he gets back, I want to see him. I drop everything. I blow off my friends. Of course, my friends got tired of it. I blow off my classes. I can’t just ignore Ryan, not when he might leave again at any time. Possibly to die. You know?” She rubs her eyes. “He wasn’t controlling me, Mom. It was me. I felt so guilty if I had to do anything else while he was home. I thought if we were married, then I’d feel more secure. We could be together more.”
She inhales. I wipe her cheeks with a fresh tissue, touched that she can open up so much to me. “I understand.”
Quincy puts her hand over her face. Her left ring finger bears no trace of the engagement band, no tan line or mark. “Will they let me back into school?”
“Yes. Do you want to go back to school is the question?” I kind of hold my breath for this.
Quincy thinks about this for a minute. She shrugs.
I put my hand on her arm. Tomoe’s words come back to me and I say them aloud: “It is all right if you are afraid. We are all afraid.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Quincy asks grumpily. Grumpy means she’s almost back to normal.
“It means you’ll get through it, Q. We all will.” I hug her from the side. “I love you and always will, no matter what.”
“What if I’m a secret serial killer?” Quincy takes her bacon between her fingers. “Will you still love me then?”
“I refuse that hypothetical.” I finish my coffee. “You are not a serial killer, nor will you ever be.”
“Moooommm. You’re no fun.” Quincy rolls her eyes.
My phone rings and I lift it to my face.
SHINOWARA TOWN
CENTRAL-NORTHERN REGION
HONSHU, JAPAN
Early Winter 1183
During the night, Yamabuki went into labor. Tomoe awoke to soft sobs coming from Ya
mabuki’s mat. She crawled over to Yamabuki’s sleeping roll and touched her leg. “It’s time!” Tomoe called to awaken her mother.
In the dim light from the fire, Yamabuki looked greenish red. She lay on her back, her legs apart, already pushing. Tomoe touched where the baby’s head should be and felt a cold foot sticking out. She withdrew her hand. The birth water smelled foul. Infection and breech. They needed to get this baby out.
Yamabuki gripped Tomoe’s forearm. “I cannot. It hurts too much.”
Chizuru ran over with rags and began manipulating Yamabuki’s stomach, trying to coax the baby to turn. Tomoe spoke to Yamabuki. “No. It’s not in your nature to give up. Your body remembers what to do. Remember the iris blooming in the frozen ground?” She stroked Yamabuki’s forehead. “You told me that, remember?”
“True.” Yamabuki shifted and shot Tomoe a bittersweet smile. “Long ago. When I was young.” She shouted as the baby’s foot poked farther out, then retracted. Panting, she gripped Tomoe’s arm. “Don’t leave me.”
“Never.” Tomoe knelt beside Yamabuki’s head, pulling it into her lap.
Chizuru’s gaze met Tomoe’s. Her mother shook her head. Yamabuki screamed as though someone was stabbing her in the throat.
“You must fight,” Tomoe said sharply. “Push him out!” Yamabuki screamed again, but this time it was more of a loud moaning shudder. The baby slid out into Chizuru’s waiting hands, the umbilical cord gleaming like an oyster shell in the light.
Chizuru’s face fell as she held the bloody infant close to her breast. “A boy,” she said sadly.
She handed him to Tomoe. He weighed no more than a handful of green beans, his limbs scrawny. She swept his finger through his mouth, sucked the liquid out of his nose with her own mouth, spat. He did not take a breath. Tomoe slapped him on the back. Nothing. She put her lips to the boy’s and blew, feeling his chest move up and down. Again and again. Her fingertip on the boy’s chest waited to feel a pulse. Stillness.
The baby’s head was round and perfect, but too big for his tiny body. His nose was squashed and slick, the eyes white and unseeing. Tomoe had thought his skin red, but no, that was the reflection of the fire. His skin was the perfectly pearly blue of an early winter sky. She pushed more air into the tiny lungs.
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