“Aren’t you lucky? You and Hirata just managed to dodge a catastrophe. Now you can go home and restart your life where you left off, and Mom and I will stay here to pick up the pieces, just like always.” My voice tasted bitter, and I immediately regretted being so unsympathetic. I should’ve kept my mouth shut.
But this was what Hirata did. He moved away when we were poor and struggling. He succeeded when we failed. He had all the luck in life, and we had very little. He didn’t do it maliciously, but he did it, all the same.
“Mei-chan,” Yasahiro admonished me, and Yuna broke into tears.
“I didn’t want this!” she cried, tears coursing down her cheeks. “I didn’t want Mom to lose her house or for all of our plans to go so badly. I feel terrible!”
I sighed and cursed myself. “I apologize, Yuna-ko.” I reached across the table and squeezed her hand. Sweet woman that she was, she squeezed back. “That was thoughtless and mean of me. I’m so sorry.”
Even so, I imagined her packing up everything they had left and hightailing it back to Chiba where I wouldn’t see them again until the next family holiday. I couldn’t blame them for leaving, honestly, even though I felt that Yuna had started to like her new life in the few days she’d had as a farmer.
“It may have been mean, but it was the truth.” She sniffed up. “There’s no way Hirata will go through with this now. What will we do?”
She looked up at Yasahiro standing at my back. He rested his hand on my shoulder.
“I’m not sure,” he said, “but we’ll think of something.”
The gas was working in the apartment which meant Yasahiro could still cook, and the hot water heater was on so we could all bathe, which we did immediately. I slipped into the hot bath, savoring every moment of the quiet time while I had it. Yuna had washed up both kids and taken them outside to help with the neighborhood clean up. Last I saw them out the window, they were gathering fallen branches and pulling them into piles to be picked up and shredded.
“I’ve pulled the quiche out of the oven, and there’s salad, too,” Yasahiro said, peeking his head in the door to the bathroom. “I’m going to head over to Sawayaka now to assess the damage.”
He looked as tired as I felt.
“Okay. Come back for a nap later, or you may die of sleep deprivation.”
He rolled his eyes. “This is nothing. You should’ve seen me in culinary school. I barely slept an hour a night then, for months at a time.” His face softened with the memories. “You take it easy. You’re the one carrying a baby.”
“Right, right.” I waved to him. “I’ll see you later.”
“And we’ll talk about what to do about your mom then, too,” he called out from the other room. The door clicked closed not long after.
Yeah. What would we do about my mom? I sank down into the water, letting it come up to my chin. I had no idea. For once, I was at a loss. When I thought we’d help Mom, we had planned to knock the house down anyway and put up a new one. But that was before the Hirata mess and the typhoon, and now we’d lost all the crops as well in the flooding. I doubted many of them would survive, and I wasn’t sure how long it would take for the flood waters to recede either.
After our heartfelt apologies, Mom had been quiet on the way back to town on the boat, squinting her eyes out at the water and not saying a word. If she had strong thoughts on what she wanted to do next, she wasn’t telling anyone until she was ready.
When I entered the bedroom after my bath, Ria’s red sketchbook on my bedside table caught my eye right away. I’d never finished the manga! I became so caught up with finding photos of Watanabe and then the typhoon that After School slipped out of my thoughts.
I dried off, dressed, and sat down on the bed to enjoy the rest of the manga. I felt I owed it to Ria. Even though I’d found Ria and knew she was dead, it would take days for the police to locate her in that watery landscape, and we had to catch Watanabe. There were still missing motives and unanswered questions. Maybe the manga could answer them?
Opening the sketchbook, I found my place again and raced through the drama. Shizuka was fretting over her affair with the boyfriend’s best friend. She wanted to come out and tell the boyfriend, Hiromi. Kuro, the clandestine lover, cautioned that it was dangerous. Hiromi was way too jealous and controlling for that ever to work out.
Kuro hovered over Shizuka in the hallway after class was over.
“This is a bad idea. I think he’ll go crazy. You’ve never seen him mad like I have,” Kuro said.
“Yes, I have. He’s always angry over his sister and father getting everything they want,” Shizuka countered. “We should tell him now and get it over with.”
Something about the way Ria had drawn Kuro niggled at me. He was tall and skinny, his shaggy hair always in his face.
Come to think of it, if Ria had put a cigarette in his fingers, this guy could’ve been Kohei Watanabe.
I stopped reading and flipped back through the manga. Now that I knew what Kohei had looked like as a teen, this Kuro was a dead ringer for him. And Kuro meant “black,” a color Kohei wore all the time in his teens if Akai’s photos were any indication.
I returned to my place, watching the drama play out. Shizuka went out on a date with Hiromi where she confessed to him that she didn’t love him anymore. I thought the poor guy would be crushed. He had doted on her quite a bit during the length of the story.
But no. Ria had drawn him cold and distant. He withdrew so completely and easily that I actually got a chill.
“No one loses attention this quickly,” he said, as Shizuka backed away from him. “You were fine the other day.”
“I was pretending. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you’d be hurt.”
“I’m not hurt.”
And anyone who read the manga would know he wasn’t hurt, he was angry. Vengeful. Ria had captured the emotion so perfectly, his state of mind jumped off the page at me.
I flipped the page, eager to see what happened next, but I was met with nothing. The rest of the sketchbook was empty despite my furious flipping of the pages.
Closing the sketchbook, I huffed a sigh and set it aside.
What was Ria’s point? That the boyfriend, Hiromi, got mad enough to hurt or murder Shizuka? Did he confront Kuro?
I had too many questions, and my viewpoint of the whole situation flipped, changed in an instant.
What if Ria had been dating someone, someone other than Itsuki, but then she was having an affair with Kohei on the side? If the manga was the major clue, it wasn’t Kohei who killed Ria. It was the boyfriend.
Panic surged through my aching chest again.
Oh no. It was the boyfriend, not the lover who killed Ria.
Who was the boyfriend?
I groaned as I laid down. Two steps forward and one step back.
But Kohei knew where Ria had been buried.
Either way, he had been involved, and when the police found him, I would confront him if it was the last thing I did.
Chapter Thirty-Two
I woke up in the fetal position on the bed, curled around the red sketchbook and my phone. It took me a few seconds to realize I was awake because the power had returned. Yay! Cool air wafted down on me from the air conditioning unit on the wall, and the boys in the other room cheered. I definitely couldn’t be mad about them waking me because I was pretty happy about it myself.
Lying in bed, I took a minute to wake up, stretching and trying to reboot my brain. I turned on my phone, hoping the wifi and internet connection would be on. I was eager to see what had happened on the news, especially since NHK had been in town interviewing people.
But my phone rang in my hand. It was Goro.
“Good news! You have power again,” he roared into the phone. I had to pull it away from my ear so I wouldn’t go deaf.
“Yeah, we have power. I think it just came back. I was taking a nap.” I yawned for good measure.
“Well, I hear there are only a few more stre
ets to be taken care of. I just checked on Akai, and her place doesn’t even look like it saw a typhoon. There are branches down in her yard, but she says all of her UPS’s stayed up, and her generator kicked on right away. Plus she’s on the side of town closer to the mountain so no flooding.”
“What’s a UPS?” I asked, still trying to wake up.
“They’re like big batteries for computers. Anyway, the other good news I have is that Tokyo Metro Police nabbed Kohei Watanabe at Haneda about an hour ago.”
I sat up in bed, and my stomach growled. “At Haneda? Was he trying to flee the country?”
“He had a plane ticket for Okinawa.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. We’ll have him back in the precinct in a few hours. Want to come by while we interrogate him? The chief said it’s okay for you to be there.”
“What kind of question is that? Of course, I do.” I giggled, letting my imagination run wild with what he would say.
“Great. I’ll send Kayo-san to get you around 15:00.”
I hung up, finally feeling like things may work out for us. The power was back on, and the police found Kohei. What was next?
Lunch, apparently.
I exited the bedroom in time to see Yuna and Yasahiro bring rice to the table.
“Oh good! You’re up,” Yasahiro said, coming over to give me a kiss on the forehead. “I didn’t want to wake you to eat, but I knew you had to eat. Catch-22,” he appended in English.
“And the power’s back on!” Korota smiled from his spot at the table. “We spent all morning helping outside. Everyone here is so nice.”
“Well, that’s good to hear.” I sat in my usual place at the table and surveyed the lunch selection, soft-boiled eggs, broiled mackerel, steamed greens, rice, and pickles. My mouth watered. “How are all of my neighbors?” I asked him, wondering if he had run into anyone outside while I was sleeping.
His eyes lifted to the ceiling. “Hmmm, your next-door neighbor, the cobbler…”
“Hase-san,” I filled in.
“Yes. He says his shop is fine, and his home had no damage either. A branch went through one window of his parent’s house, but they’re fine too. He said you know them.”
“I do,” I replied, filling up my bowl with rice, greens, and fish. “I’ll have to check up on them soon. They’re the ones who gifted me the cups for the tea shop downstairs.”
“And your other neighbor, Murata-san, is fine, and her apartment is as well,” Yuna said, helping the boys with their lunches. “She had one leak from the roof in the kitchen, but her landlord has come by to fix it.”
The buzzer rang right then. Were we expecting someone?
“That’s probably your mom.” Yasahiro sprinted to the door to buzz her in. He left the door ajar, and Mom walked in a minute later.
She looked good, especially after everything that had happened the night before. She must have showered and had a nap just like I did because her hair was swept up in a twist and her skin was bright and shiny.
Everyone stood up to greet her, and the boys wrapped her in big hugs. I pulled out the seat at the opposite end of the head of the table for her and grabbed her a bowl and a set of chopsticks.
“Mom, you look well. I’m so pleased,” I said, sitting to her left.
“It’s amazing what a shower and a nap can do for you.” She smiled at me, actually smiled with warmth and love. This was something I hadn’t seen in a long time. I was almost knocked out of my chair by it.
“Before we eat, I’d like to take a moment to make some… announcements, though that’s really not the proper word for it.”
Korota and Yushin both sighed as they set their chopsticks down, their eyes on their bowls. Mom laughed.
“Okay, you boys can eat while the adults talk.” Mom brought her hands to prayer position and chimed, “Itadakimasu!” and we all said it too. The boys dug into their bowls.
“What’s going on, Mom?” Yasahiro asked. He pushed his glasses up his nose and gave her his full attention.
“I spoke with Hirata as soon as I could get through on the phone. I knew last night we were in major trouble, but this morning, seeing the floodwaters stretch out from the house, I came to a final decision. Hirata will withdraw his offer to buy the farm business. The loan wouldn’t have gone through anyway now that there’s significant damage to the property.”
“I’m so sorry,” Yuna said, bowing her head. “This was not what we wanted.”
“I know,” Mom assured her, handling this whole situation a lot more gracefully than I did earlier. “You can’t predict the weather or the wrath of the kami anymore than you can predict who will win a race.”
“So… What now?” I asked because there weren’t many alternatives.
“Well…” Mom hesitated, and I held my breath. “The flood insurance will not pay for much. It’ll only cover about five percent of the damage for the house, and then I don’t think we’ll get anything for the damage to the crops. There’s some federal insurance, and then there’s the private insurance.” She sighed before taking a sip of water. “It’ll be drawn out and complicated, and all the while, I’ll be without a place to live. So, I called Midori Sankaku.”
I realized I was still holding my breath, so I let it out slowly and looked down the table to Yasahiro. Oh no. He was frozen, waiting.
“They’ve been politely hounding me once a month, every month for the last year. They send someone by to talk, and I always told them no, I would not sell the land. Today I told them yes, and they accepted. They don’t care about the flooding because they have big plans for the whole area, anyway. Rice and other crops I never wanted to do because they’re too labor-intensive.”
“You sold the house and land?” My eyes widened as her statements sank in. My home — our home — sold?
“I did. The house, the land, and all my assets there I promised to sell to Midori Sankaku.” She nodded once. “I would never get such a good deal now that the land is damaged and the house as well. I figured this was my best way out of the whole mess, and I couldn’t sell the property to you either, Mei-chan. It would’ve set you and Yasa-kun back way too far. Too much of a burden.” She reached over and squeezed my hand. “I need to say this in front of everyone. I know I gave you grief about having your wedding at the house this summer, and I regret the things I said. I’m sorry.”
I pulled back in surprise. My mom hardly ever apologized for anything, much less repeated those apologies in front of others. This was unprecedented. I held her hand in mine.
“I’m glad you were married there, and we’ll have those fond memories and photos to look at when the house is gone.”
My heart swelled with joy, though it ached. My wedding had been lovely, and I was doubly glad I’d had the ceremony and reception at the family home, that was for sure. I would still miss the house and the land though. A lot.
Yuna blinked a few times. “Where will you live? Would you like to move to Chiba with us? We have room for you, if we still have a house, that is.” She blushed, perhaps realizing she needed to talk to her husband, soon.
“No, darling. Though thank you for the offer.” Mom bobbed her head at Yuna. “I want to stay here in Chikata. This is my home. I couldn’t live anywhere else.”
Yasahiro stood up, gesturing for Mom’s bowl. She handed it to him, and he filled it with hot rice. “Well, then, I have a new proposal.”
Mom’s face fell into a frown. “I feel bad we won’t be able to implement your CSA idea at the farm. The proposal had been growing on me, and I know you worked hard on it.”
Yasahiro shrugged. “It’s nothing to worry about. I may use the idea again some other day. I have a new idea and an alternative idea as well. Mei-chan and I are going to buy two adjacent vacant lots on the north side of town.” He smiled down the table at me. “We’re planning to combine them, build a new house and have a large garden there. We’d be honored if you’d come live with us.”
“This is a great idea,”
Yuna said, brightening as she filled her bowl with food. “I love it, Mom.”
“Well...” Mom drew out the one syllable into many. “I do think it’s a great idea, but what will you do with this apartment?”
“Hmmm, we weren’t sure yet. Maybe rent it out?”
Mom locked eyes with Yasahiro. He got the hint right away.
“Or, if you’d like to keep your independence for the foreseeable future, you could live here when we move. The stairs may become a problem eventually, but otherwise, everything is on one level.” He glanced around the open space. “I’d hate to see this place with a stranger.”
I laughed, tears forming in the corner of my eyes. “Oh good. I’d wondered how I would run the tea shop with someone I didn’t know living above it. I like this idea much better.”
“Then it’s settled. This apartment is yours once we move.” Yasahiro nodded once, the deal done.
“What will you do once the house is sold? For work?” Yuna asked as we all tucked into our meals.
“Oh, I’m not sure,” Mom said, but there was a twinkle in her eye I hadn’t seen in a long time. “I have to deal with my glaucoma and possibly surgery for that.”
Right. The road ahead would be rocky, but at least we’d be together.
Mom smiled at us all. “But with my family surrounding me, I’m bound to come up with something.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
I thought this would be easy — roll into the police station with Kayo, check in with Goro, and then watch the police interrogation from the other side of the one-way glass. I’ve heard police interrogations in Japan can be rough. Unlike the American TV shows I’ve watched where people can request a lawyer right away, that’s not the way it is here, and Japanese police routinely get confessions from their suspects before the lawyers even show up.
“Hold up,” Goro warned me as I entered the station and observed the hustling activity. People were still dealing with flooded roads, downed power lines, and older people who needed to evacuate their homes. In a way, we had been pretty lucky. We had places to go in town that had survived the storm. Many others did not have that choice.
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