Fifty Words for Rain(102)

“Do you think she hated you?” Noah asked, with that country bluntless that she hated and loved so very much. “Do you think she will say that she hated you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, obviously you must read it, then. Come on, I’ll sit here with you.”

She gave him a pained expression. She could not bring herself to tell him that it took her hours to read one line, days to read one passage, months to read one full entry. This journey through her mother’s past was like a very steep climb. She had always done it carefully.

And now Noah wanted her to just read it.

He laughed at her pout. “Come, come, love. You wouldn’t have told me if you didn’t want to read it. You’ve always wanted to know, but you doubted that you could bear it. After your brother . . .”

“Please don’t,” she whispered through numb lips.

“I only mean that without him, you could not risk it.”

“Risk what?”

He squeezed her hand. “Anything.”

She looked away. “Oh, Noah.”

He smiled that enchanting smile of his. “But I’m here now,” he said brightly. “So you can put your past to rest, and the future is all ours.”

She shook her head. “I can’t read this with you here.”

“Of course you can,” he teased. “I’m to be your husband. You can’t hide from me, Nori. You really must stop that.”

He chided her as an optimist to a cynic, and she knew that there was no point in arguing with him. Besides, she did not want to disappoint him. She had grown protective of his joyful spirit, as one should always be protective of rare and delicate things.

And he was right: she was ready now to face whatever lay inside these pages.

“Fine,” she conceded, ignoring the frantic pounding of her heart. “But you must turn away. I really can’t do it if you stare. And I may take my time.”

He beamed at her. “I’ll go up in the tree,” he promised. “I won’t come down until you summon me.”

“You can’t climb trees, my love,” she said warmly.

“I have been practicing. Soon I will catch up to you, and where will you hide from me then?”

He stood up and leaned down to kiss her tenderly on the mouth. “I love you,” he said simply.

Her cheeks blazed; she could feel the heat from her collarbone to her forehead.

“I love you too,” she whispered.

She took the diary and retreated to a small corner of the garden, sinking down into the damp grass.

And then she read.



* * *





April 13th, 1939

My Akira is a marvel.

Every day I look at him, and I look at his fool mother and his dull father, and I cannot believe we have made him.

He is going to be a prodigy, I’d lay my fortune on it. He can already read music though he is only three and he can play the piano better than I could at twice his age.

He has perfect hands. Perfect.

He plays the violin too, and I think he likes it better. But I do hope he keeps playing the piano.

I am teaching him French as well and he can remember whole sentences—this morning he recited a poem I taught him last week.

And such a handsome boy! He looks just like me, not like his father at all—thank God.

But he is so serious, terribly serious. He is shy with his smiles, and when he laughs, he covers his mouth as if he is ashamed. He is soft-spoken and thoughtful, and though he is just a child, he judges very carefully before he acts.

This he does not get from me.

I must take great care or his father will ruin him. Yasuei says that I will make him soft, that he must be molded from the cradle for his calling in life.

But I want a happy child. God knows there is precious little joy in life—I want him to have his sunny years.

I want everything for him, actually, and I have never known pain like the pain I feel when I think that I really have nothing to give him.

I will take him to the countryside this summer and dip his precious toes in the salt water of the ocean. I will feed him sweets and teach him to play Beethoven.

I will wipe the frown from between his brows and kiss his cheeks until he giggles.

And I will pray that he remembers.

I think it will be the worst thing in the world to watch him grow up. Unlike other mothers, I cannot hope for my boy, I cannot dream what he will become.

I know what he will become.

And I can find no joy in it.



* * *





May 2nd, 1939

My mother is here.

She has invited herself, of course, and told nobody that she was coming. She says she will stay for an entire month. Yasuei has taken up an assignment abroad just to avoid her, so now I am all alone.

She has brought her own servants because she says that she cannot trust mine to do anything properly, and they must have rooms as well.

I cannot see how I’m going to bear this. The only mercy is that she did not bring my father.

I don’t need him looking at me like I’m a whore.

He would have beaten me within an inch of my life when I returned from Paris, but Mother didn’t let him. She said that I could not have marks on me before the wedding.

Actually, that’s the funny thing about Mother. She is ruthless, but she is not sadistic. She does not enjoy cruelty, she doesn’t inflict pain for the sake of it like Papa does. And sometimes, when she appears most awful, she is actually protecting me from something worse.