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Molly's eyes filled with tears as she flipped through more photos, watching the years of her short marriage pass before her. She had known in some peripheral way that Rodney was exchanging letters with his aged grandparents in Japan, but until his death--until she found a stack of letters addressed to him in a neat, precise hand--Molly had not known the breadth and depth of his correspondence with these elderly people.
She looked at them now, sitting at their wooden table, watching her expectantly. They seemed like lovely people, and to her it mattered not what the reasoning was for their falling out with their own son; all she knew now was that it had prevented them from ever getting to meet the one person she felt most honored to have known: Rodney.
"His mother wrote to us when he died," Issei explained. He looked haunted as he said these words. "And now we have no grandchildren. No great-grandchildren. No son who will speak to us."
Molly slipped the photos back into the envelope as she looked out the window at the peaceful garden, filled with rocks that had been raked into a perfect pattern. Rodney had wanted to come here first--no matter what, he'd insisted that their around-the-world journey start with this destination, and now she was here. Alone. With nothing to console Rodney's grandparents but a handful of dust to leave with them.
"You will stay?" Hana asked, lifting the teapot and beginning to pour more into their cups.
Molly stayed. She stayed for two weeks. She learned how to make the perfect cup of tea from Hana, and how to let her mind fall into a truly meditative state as she raked the rocks in the garden with Issei. She slept on a mat on the floor that was more comfortable than any bed she'd ever slept in, and she drank sake at dinner as Issei sipped his and told long stories about business dinners in San Francisco that were mostly funny to him and that made Hana shake her head in amused disapproval.
She walked the streets of Nishinomiya with her Japanese-English/English-Japanese dictionary tucked into the flap of her cross-body purse, and she spoke to anyone who would engage with her about any topic for which they could find enough common ground and shared language to converse.
At the city's shrine she met a group of elderly men watching a Shinto wedding take place. The wedding party wore traditional dress, and the bride and groom stood beneath a giant red umbrella as their families gathered behind them, hands folded reverently.
The older men were keen to practice their English words with Molly, telling her she was "pretty," and "fair," and that they loved Disneyland and Coca-cola and hoped she could enjoy some sushi while in Japan.
To that end, she entered any sushi restaurant she could find, tryingikura gunkan, which was salmon eggs wrapped in seaweed,toro, a fatty bluefin tuna belly on a tiny ball of rice, andanago, which was saltwater eel. All of it would have turned her mother's stomach to see, but Molly ate with relish, dipping things in soy sauce, gleefully adding drops of wasabi for more flavor, and washing it all down with sencha and matcha and oolong tea.
One day she took the bullet train to Tokyo, and the six hour ride was worth every minute as she wandered the giant city in awe, snapping photos with her Kodak camera.
Hana arranged for Molly to spend one night with her elderly, unmarried sister, and the minute she arrived on Kumi's doorstep she realized that she'd completely underestimated the woman, expecting a quiet, spinster sister in a bland apartment instead of a cheerful, laughing woman of seventy with a tattoo on her ankle.
Kumi's apartment was full of silks in rich jewel-toned colors, with throw pillows on every surface: floor, chairs, couches, bed, and a turntable with Fleetwood Mac'sRumorsspinning as they flopped on the floor together (yes,flopped! A woman of seventy with short spiky hair and bright pink lipstick!) to talk.
"America," Kumi explained with a shrug and a laugh when she caught Molly looking at the tattoo of a small rose. "Boyfriend with motorcycle!" She giggled some more before opening two beers and handing one to Molly. Then they talked in Kumi's halting English about Dustin Hoffman (Kumi adored him inThe Graduate), New York City, Rodney's death, whether coffee was truly better than tea, and why Nancy Reagan always wore red.
Kumi set Molly up on her couch with a pillow and a gorgeous velvet blanket, then showed her the tiny bathroom so that Molly could take a bath and change out of her traveling clothes.
That night they went to a bar on a side street filled with neon lights for more beers and the singing of Japanese songs with men in business suits, and then Kumi bought Molly a Japanese freshwater pearl on a rope, which she tied around her neck with a flourish and then looked into Molly's eyes seriously.
"For Rodney," Kumi said, holding Molly by the elbows as they stood in the tiny shop filled with pearls of every color.
"For Rodney," Molly agreed, nodding with tears in her eyes as she fingered the smooth, lavender-hued pearl on the rough rope.
When Molly returned to Nishinomiya the next evening, Hana greeted her with a look of concern. "My sister was well?" she asked, one eyebrow arched ever so slightly.
"She was well," Molly confirmed, but gave no more detail.
She stayed for a few more days, and on the final day, she and Hana and Issei stood outside in the backyard garden, surveying the tiny bonsai bushes, the koi swimming in the pond, and the weeping petals of the Japanese water iris.
"I think here," Hana said, pointing at a spot beneath a ginko tree. "I like this."
Issei nodded firmly and got down on his knees, saying a silent prayer over the spot his wife had chosen.
For the occasion, Molly had chosen a small ceramic box that she'd found in a shop in Tokyo. It had a lid that could be sealed with four latches, and so she'd gently scooped out a portion of Rodney's ashes, laying them reverently inside the box that she'd leave with his grandparents.
Hana handed her husband a small, handheld shovel, and with it he dug a deep enough hole for the box. Molly held it out to him and he stood up to take it, bowing deeply to her. Molly bowed back.
Without words, Issei gently placed the box containing his only grandchild's remains in the ground, scooping mounds of dirt back over it and patting it all into place with a finality that choked Molly's throat. The waterfall in the garden rushed in her ears, and her eyes blurred everything around her; she hadn't expected it to be this hard to leave a piece of her husband behind in the ground of a country that she may never visit again.
As Hana began to quietly sing a song whose lyrics Molly could not understand, she let her mind wander and drift, meandering like the fish in the pond.
Suddenly she was no longer in the backyard of Rodney's Japanese grandparents, but instead she was on the open water with her husband, learning to sail for the first time. Before long, her life took on a shape that included wind and water and canvas. She learned to keep the starboard and port sides level, to set the sails by the wind, and when to lower the sliding keel. Her joyful voice got lost on the wind as she shouted to Rodney with laughter and wind-pinkened cheeks. And once the course was set and the wind had taken hold, there was always a moment when he'd come up to her and grab her around the waist, kissing her neck as he called her his First Mate.
In fact, Rodney had proposed on a sailboat, letting someone else captain for a change so that he could ply Molly with inexpensive champagne and afternoon sunlight. They'd stood near the bow of the boat, watching the water as they sliced through it, each envisioning that they'd cut through their future as smoothly as this vessel traveled across the waves.
But it was never that easy--nothing was. They'd moved to Maui and gotten married, renting a small house while Rodney worked on a fishing boat. There had been many bouts of homesickness for Molly, who didn't like living so far from her family, and there had even been a time when she'd been certain that a woman who Rodney worked with had turned his head and gotten his attention in ways she shouldn't have.
