Fifty Words for Rain(68)

“Did your mother teach you this?” I ask her, eager to know more about her. She is always so quiet, and though she smiles often, there is a lingering sadness about her.

Her hands don’t miss a beat, but I see the swift flash of agony cross her face. She composes herself quickly, but I catch it.

“My mother is gone,” she says simply. “Someone else taught me this.”

I reach up to catch her hand in mine. “When did she die?”

Nori twists the two sections of my hair together and binds them with a pin. “She’s not dead. Just gone.”

I cannot fathom this. I am stupid—everyone in my family has always assured me of this—but still. I decide to try a different tack.

“My mother died when I was seven. I have two older sisters, Anne and Jane, and they raised me along with my father. So I know what it is like not to have a mother to look after you.”

Nori smiles as if she finds my comment very quaint indeed.

“I am glad you had your siblings. That must have been a comfort.”

I wrinkle my nose. Some comfort. Jane is a hateful cow, and Anne is just generally unpleasant. I don’t love either of my sisters. I don’t even like them.

“Well, you have Akira. You seem close.”

This is not quite true. Her fervent devotion to him seems painfully one-sided. She is always hovering at the edges of his vision, hoping he will look at her. From what I can see, he rarely does.

She places one of her decorative flower pins in my hair. “There, done. You look radiant.”

I smile appreciatively at my reflection. I do know that I am very beautiful. I don’t think this is vain—everyone tells me I am—and besides, it is the only thing I have going for me, so it’s just as well.

I have no money, for Will controls the purse strings. He gives me an allowance, but it’s only to keep me out of his way. I have no name, for my father has stripped me of it.

For now, at least.

“You have such lovely hair,” she says longingly. She plucks at one of her curls. “So silky and straight. I wish . . .” Her voice trails off into nothing.

Now I feel guilty for thinking she looked odd.

“Nonsense,” I say. “You have the prettiest eyes. Your skin is perfect and I’d kill for your figure.”

She flushes. “You don’t have to flatter me.”

I gesture for us to switch places, and she takes my seat on the velvet cushion. I must say, now that I think on it, she’s not the worst case I’ve seen.

“What do you want to look like?” I ask her.

Her eyelashes flutter. “I don’t know. More like you.”

I look at her honest face and am deeply moved. There’s something about her that lets me know I can trust her.

The same simplicity that made me look down on her is the reason I know she won’t hurt me. And the same things that drew me to my old friends, my old love, are the reasons that I have their knives buried in my back.

“You never asked me why I came here.”

She inclines her head. “Alice.”

I feel sick all of a sudden. “Yes?”

“Why are you here?”

I tell her before I lose my nerve.

“I didn’t have a choice. My father sent me away for bringing shame on our family. I fell in love with a stable boy, it’s so cliché, really, it’s . . . I thought he loved me too but . . . he betrayed me, he sold the story to the newspaper, so I . . . I . . . Nobody writes to me, nobody. I was sent along with William on his travels, but he hates me, he has hated me since we were children. He treats me like—”

I break off and feel the hot tears pouring down my face. I can see myself clearly in the mirror looking like a fool.

“I have been abandoned by everyone I thought I could trust. I can’t go home. I don’t know when I’ll be forgiven, if I’ll ever be forgiven. Even in Paris there were too many people from our circle, so we couldn’t stay there either. So now I have nobody.”

The truth of this washes over me and I say it again, in the vain hope that I might finally feel clean.

“I have nobody.”

A hush falls over the room. Nori’s face doesn’t change. She turns to face me and takes both of my hands in hers. Her touch is like salve on a burn.

“I have something to tell you.”

I stifle a sob. “What is it?”

She gives me a wry smile. “You should sit. It’s a long story.”



Tokyo, Japan

July 1954

Nori turned fourteen in a haze of blue light.

The summer festival was bustling with people, and she held tight to Akira so that she would not lose him. He had bought her a deep blue kimono embroidered with golden butterflies and tied with a gold sash. She’d spent hours straightening her hair, and she’d sewn together a flower crown she’d made from scraps of silk.

Akira noticed neither of these things, but Nori did not mind.

Alice was home with a chill, and Nori missed her dearly. The two of them had become inseparable. Akira gave his tacit approval, but William was not handling it well. He couldn’t stand to be eclipsed. He had no patience for anything, and worse, he had no empathy. She had thought he was like Akira: that underneath the initial coldness there would be a deep well of kindness.