Fifty Words for Rain(62)

Ayame fidgeted. “The old master . . . Obocchama’s father was a proud man. I don’t think he would have . . .”

Nori nodded. Of course. The half-breed daughter of his adulterous wife living in his house would probably send Yasuei Todou flying out of his grave. It would be the ultimate disrespect for Akira to bring her there.

Ayame looked guilty. “That’s not the only thing. It was not a happy home. Obocchama . . . I think he wants to be rid of that place for his own reasons.”

Nori’s curiosity was piqued, but she knew not to press her luck. There was nothing she could do either way. She weighed the box in her hands. She recognized the feel of the contents and her heart sank.

“These are books. Why have you given me books? You said when I was feeling better you would tell me about my mother.”

Ayame raised an eyebrow. Like Akira, she was often short on words. But her face was far more telling.

“Just look.”

Nori did as she was bid. Inside, there were several leather-bound volumes. She counted half a dozen.

“What are these?” she whispered, but deep inside, she already knew.

“Diaries,” Ayame said. “Your mother’s diaries. She always kept them, since she was a girl. These are just the ones we found. After she disappeared, she sent one final diary back to my mother, and it later passed to me. She asked that we save it for Obocchama and give it to him when he was old enough to understand. She wanted him to have it.”

Nori’s blood whooshed into her head, every drop of it, all at once.

“I don’t remember her keeping diaries.”

“What do you remember?”

She ran her fingers over the cover of the first diary, hoping that she would feel some kind of spark. But nothing happened.

“I don’t remember anything,” she confessed, and she was surprised at how much shame she felt. She was hardly a little girl anymore, and her memories had still not returned to her.

Ayame leaned forward. “Obocchama already knows about them. He won’t read them. He asked me to keep them for him.”

The idea that Nori could ever be privy to something that Akira was not seemed entirely implausible to her.

“He . . . Does he know about this?”

Ayame’s face fell. “No. And if he knew . . .”

“I won’t tell him,” she swore. She hesitated. “But you love my brother. You’ve been loyal to his family your entire life. Why are you doing this for me?”

The older girl looked away. “I loved your mother too,” she said simply. “And I think you have a right to know who she was.”

Nori allowed herself a wry smile. “And do you think I will love her? When I’m finished?”

Ayame shrugged a slim shoulder. “I cannot say, my lady.”

“Have you . . . have you read them?”

“No, my lady. It is not my place.”

“Do you . . . do you have pictures too?”

“Yes, many. Would you like to see them?”

A part of her wanted to say yes. But she knew it was the wrong part.

“No. Not yet. Maybe tomorrow.”

Ayame nodded. They both knew it wouldn’t be tomorrow.

“I’ll leave you alone, then. Before your brother gets back from Paris, everything will have to be put back in its place.”

Nori made a small sound to indicate that she’d heard. She wasn’t really listening anymore. She opened the cover of the first diary and saw a date written, scrawled in a shaky hand.


August 1st, 1930

She snapped the diary shut. Her knees began to shake. It was several moments before she could bring herself to open it again.


Today is my birthday. I think that I’m a very lucky girl to have my birthday here in Paris, and not at home under Mama’s watchful eye. She would have me in a room full of very old men. How very boring that would be.

But instead I received this lovely journal from Madame Anne, and now I can write all about my travels. I will write about my studies and the concerts I will play.

I did not want to take the piano, but as it turns out, I am very good at it. This is good because Mama says that I am an idiot. It’s nice to be good at something. And look where it has brought me! I am studying here in Paris, and all of those other girls are stuck in Kyoto being engaged to gray old men. I don’t want to marry, as it sounds ever so horrible according to Mama’s descriptions of wifely duty, but I do want to fall in love. I want to feel what the poets feel. I want to know what it’s like to turn someone’s world.

And maybe I will.

And maybe I will. Everyone in Paris says I am very pretty, of course. This happens everywhere I go.

Mama was a famous beauty, so it is nice that I’m not ugly. She’d never forgive me. But she never forgives me for anything anyway.

I wasn’t her boy.

Oh, they are calling me for dinner. I will write more later, though I know I am only writing to myself and nobody will read this. It is much more fun this way.

Nori did not know this woman at all. This was not the mother she remembered in tortured fragments. This was a silly girl, just turned eighteen years old, full of hope for the future.

She had none of Nori’s racking insecurity, none of Akira’s seriousness, none of their grandmother’s fervent devotion to the Kamiza name.