AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Prologue
Twenty-four days after she’d watched the Hawaiian islands disappear behind her, Molly Kimble was docked in Nishinomiya port, dipping a cloth into a basin of water and wiping at her face as she looked into the cracked mirror in her boat’s tiny commode, hoping to make herself somewhat presentable to the authorities. Her hair, already a light, wavy brown, had gone golden in the sun, and her high cheekbones were bronzed and smooth. She swiped at the dirt behind her ears and cleaned the back of her neck, then dug around in her bag for a tube of colored lip balm and a hair brush.
First stop: Japan.Molly slipped on a pair of sandals and yanked her sweaty green t-shirt overhead, tossing it onto a growing pile of items that she’d need to clean and set out to dry in the sun. In its place she wore a pink tank top, which she smoothed over the flat of her stomach. Dining while on the water was a simple affair: crackers, canned goods like tuna and chicken, apples, the jars of granola her mother had made and packed for her, and cans of soup or beans eaten cold with a spoon. But no matter how much Molly ate, she still lost weight. She spent her days running from bow to stern, starboard to port side, cranking pulleys and raising or lowering the sails. Even simple navigation seemed to burn calories and leave her exhausted, so when she slept, she slept hard, dreaming of pirates and storms and solid ground.
As she stepped off the boat and onto the dock, Molly hoisted her weather-beaten rucksack onto her shoulders, placing her arms through the straps carefully. In the front pocket of her bag she had her passport, her tiny red address book with names and phone numbers written in her careful hand, some American dollars, and a pocket-sized English-Japanese/Japanese-English dictionary.
“Ummm,” Molly said, stopping as she reached a man in uniform at the Customs desk. “Konnichiwa.” She shifted the bag on her back and felt her cheeks burn. Molly knew her accent was not good, but she knew enough Japanese to feel confident in at least greeting the Customs agent. “Watashi no namae wa Mary-Margaret Kimble-Kobayashi desu.”
The agent stared at her from behind his desk and gave a single, sharp bow of his head. “Passport, please,” he said to her in English, holding out a hand.
All around them, people moved through the port, some carrying bags and others pointing at signs and talking in urgent tones. Behind Molly were three more travelers, each looking as tired as she felt, each with their own ragtag duffel bags and passports in hand.
“Margaret-Mary,” the agent said with a Japanese accent, looking up at her as if to compare Molly’s face to the photo on her passport.
“It’s Mary-Margaret,” she corrected, smiling at him. “But I prefer Molly.”
As if he hadn’t understood her, the man went back to examining her passport. “You are visiting?” he asked, glancing up at her again.
“Yes,” Molly said, slipping the straps of her rucksack from her shoulders. “I am.”
“Where will you visit?”
“I’ll be here, in Nishinomiya. Visiting relatives.”
“Relations? You have family in Japan?” The man looked at her dubiously as he closed her passport book and set it on the counter, but not in a way that suggested Molly should reach for it.
“My husband’s family,” she said, swallowing hard and letting her eyes focus on the signs all around the port. They were written in hirigana and katakana, which—to the untrained eye—looked like nothing more than hieroglyphics. “They live here. His grandparents.”
The Customs agent motioned for assistance. A woman in a smart black skirt and white blouse approached the desk, her shiny black hair pulled into a low bun. She smiled at Molly, but her face was serious. The man spoke to her in rapid-fire Japanese, picking up the passport, holding it up to the woman, gesturing at Molly, and then setting it on the desk again.
“Hello, ma’am,” the woman said to Molly in perfect, nearly-unaccented English. Molly imagined that she was someone who had been raised in Hawaii and then moved to Japan with her family and found a job where her language skills were put to good use. “May I ask a few questions?”
“Of course,” Molly said. Her shoulders sagged. She was exhausted, and even without turning around, she knew that the tired travelers behind her were most likely rolling their eyes and feeling the groundswell of impatience as they waited for their turns at the Customs desk.
“Your husband’s family is here in Nishinomiya?” At Molly’s nod, the woman pressed on. “Names?”
Molly bent over and unzipped the front pocket of her bag, pulling from it the red address book. She flipped to the part of the book where all of Rodney’s family were listed. “Issei and Hana Kobayashi,” she said, giving him the names of Rodney’s paternal grandparents.
The woman scribbled something on the clipboard in her hands and then looked back at Molly inquisitively. Behind Molly a woman coughed, and she could hear people shuffling their bags.
“And where is your husband?” the woman asked, glancing at the line behind Molly. “I need to check you through together.”
“I’m alone,” Molly said after a beat, willing herself not to look away from the woman’s inquisitive gaze. “It’s just me.”
The woman frowned and said something to her coworker in Japanese. By now, they were both watching Molly with open curiosity. “He stayed in Hawaii?” the woman asked, looking back at Molly’s passport. “On Maui?”
In truth, Rodney had not stayed at home. He was not on Maui. She bit her bottom lip and gave a single shake of her head. “No,” she said softly.
The woman scratched the back of her neck and sighed. “I’ll need you to claim all items that you’re bringing into Japan,” she said, tucking her clipboard under one arm. “If you could come with me, it won’t take long.”
Molly picked up her bag and nearly left the desk without her passport, but remembered it just in time, dashing back to get it before she lost the woman with the bun in the crowd of people.
She caught up just as the woman was knocking on a metal door along the back wall of the port building. After a few seconds, the door swung open and the woman indicated that Molly should enter, so she did.
As she sat in a small, square room outfitted only with an uncovered window that looked out into the hallway, and two tan-colored chairs, Molly felt as if maybe she’d made a mistake by coming.
“What are your intentions while in Japan?” the woman with the bun asked, sitting in the chair across from Molly.
