Fifty Words for Rain(54)

When the sun has set and the stars are starting to wink down at us, she finds me again. She is holding her paper lantern and her hands are wet with ink because she has tried to scribble in kanji, using a brush in the old way. She has a smudge of ink on the side of her mouth, and there are leaves sticking out of her hair.

“I could have done that,” I chide her. “Look at you, you’re a mess.”

“I can do it myself.” Her voice drops an octave, the way it always does when she is serious about something.

I frown at her illegible scribble. “I can’t even read that.”

She shoves it into my face so that I can see clearly. “It says kibou.” Hope.

My lecture dies on my tongue. I told her to make a wish, and that is what she has done. She is determined to help me, to help us, and this is all she can do. She wanted to do something herself.

I look into her honest eyes, and I know that she is a rare creature, this little half sister of mine.

“Very well, then.”

She beams. “Do you think God will understand? Even though I drew it wrong?”

I don’t want to crush her spirits, but I can’t lie. I have never believed in anything but my own talent, death, and the ability of people to fall far short of expectations.

“I don’t believe in anything. You know that.”

She smiles as if she knows a secret that I don’t. I can never keep track of her mercurial faith. One moment, she is devout; the next, she swears that she has outgrown it. I think she just needs someone to complain to.

I can’t say I blame her.

“So who are we wishing to?” she presses. “Where does the lantern go?”

I am driven to honesty. “I think it goes as far as it goes, Nori.”

She presses the lantern into my hands. “That’s okay. We’ll let it go together.”

After a moment, I let it go. She is a second behind me. It floats upwards, a glowing little ghost among hundreds of others, before disappearing into the night.

She tucks her hand into mine and sighs deeply, as if a great weight has been lifted from her tiny shoulders. Mine are still heavy. I lack her faith. In truth, I have very little in common with her at all.

I am still coming to understand, every day, what it is that makes her feel like mine.



* * *





The day of the meeting finally dawned. If Nori believed in omens, she would say that the thunderstorm raging outside last night was a sign that it was all over for them.

As it was, Akira had assured her that it meant nothing. He was confident of their success.

“She needs me,” he insisted. She wondered which one of them he was trying to reassure.

He had drawn up a list of demands that he would not let her see. Nori assumed that he didn’t want her to be disappointed if they didn’t get all of them.

She had asked to be present for the meeting and was turned down flat. She was to stay in her room, with the door bolted shut.

Akira spent the afternoon pacing in the garden, rehearsing his speech. She watched him from the porch but did not approach him. She had dressed in her finest, with her pearls wrapped around her neck like a heavy chain. Somehow, this made her feel better.

Akira had not bothered, and was wearing a simple button-down and black pants. But then, he had less to compensate for.

She could wear a crown of solid gold and he could wear a dirty sheet, and it wouldn’t change the way that the world viewed either of them.

Akira breezed back into the house, his anxiety seemingly spent.

“Can I get you anything?” she offered.

He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Like?”

“Coffee?”

“Do you even know how to make coffee?”

She bristled. “I’ve seen Ayame-san do it.”

“And if I want coffee, I’ll ask her. That’s what we have staff for.”

Nori rolled her eyes. Not for the first time, she wondered if he was as willing to part with his status in life as he claimed. She doubted that he had ever cooked a meal for himself, or even thought about how to wash his own clothes. That was servant’s work, and what’s more, it was woman’s work.

Not that she had either, but she was prepared to learn. She liked to be useful, and she had no pride to speak of.

“Can you keep paying them out of your inheritance?” she asked nervously. “If Obaasama doesn’t give you the allowance you want?”

Akira shrugged. “For a while, at least. My father was not so rich as others, but he left me everything, and I received it last year. Mother came with a dowry worth a fortune, but I can’t touch it until I turn twenty.”

She shifted from foot to foot. “I could take up some duties around the house,” she suggested. “We don’t need quite so many staff. I could cook and clean.”

He offered up a small smile. “Really? Shall I send you down to the fish market with the rest of the housewives? Will you mend my clothes? Are we thrifty now?”

She flushed. “I don’t mind.”

He laughed at her, and though it stung, she liked to see the light spring to his eyes.

Now was as good a time as any to broach the subject again.

“I want to be with you today,” she said, barreling on before she lost her nerve. “I want to sit next to you.”