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“I need to see my husband’s family,” she said, trying to steady her voice and sound authoritative, which was something that she did not feel. “I have something to give them.”
The woman’s eyebrows lifted as she crossed her legs, the clipboard resting on one thigh. “I’ll need you to unpack your bag so that I can examine the items. It’s highly irregular for an American woman to enter the country alone by boat, wanting to visit locals without her husband along to translate or introduce her to his family. You must understand how this looks.”
But Molly didn’t understand how it looked; was she being accused of ferrying some sort of contraband into the country? Of being a drug mule? Of…things she couldn’t even guess?
Molly lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “I’m not sure how it looks,” she said, unzipping her bag nervously. One by one, she took out the items and set them on the painted concrete floor. She placed her personal toiletries next to the leg of her chair, followed by a small stack of dresses and shorts, and a pile of clean underwear and socks. She had one pair of shoes in the bag, which she set out carefully next to her own feet, and then finally, with reverence, she pulled out the item she was most worried about and set it on her lap, holding both sides of it gently.
“And this is?” The woman frowned at the big black ceramic canister on Molly’s lap. It was covered with golden vines and white flowers with pink tips. Birds flitted through the vines and one red cardinal was painted on the lid. Molly cradled it in her lap like a priceless objet d’art.
Something fluttered in Molly’s chest and flew up into her throat, stopping there and nearly blocking her words. “This,” she said in a choked voice, “is my husband.”
Understanding dawned on the woman and she sat back in her chair, looking defeated. “Oh,” was all she could manage to say. From the hallway came the echo of a heavy metal door slamming shut, but both women ignored it as they stared at the black urn on Molly’s lap.
“Rodney Kobayashi, date of birth: January ninth, 1956. Born in Pomona, California, last address in Maui, Hawaii,” Molly said, hearing how robotic her own voice sounded in her ears.
“And you’re bringing him here to leave him with his family?” the woman asked, her own tone softened considerably with the change in situation.
Molly shook her head, meeting the woman’s eye. “Not all of him,” she said quietly. “He wanted to travel the world, and we had a plan to do it together. Now it’s just me, and I’m going to take him all the places we wanted to go, and I’ll spread some of his ashes everywhere I stop.”
Molly was grateful in that moment for their lack of a language barrier, and as they both contemplated the meaning of her words, they locked eyes and nodded.
“Okay,” the woman said, all severity and artfully constructed toughness gone from her face. “Okay.” She nodded and stood up, waiting as Molly zipped all of her items back into her rucksack and put the straps back over her shoulders.
She led Molly back to the desk and said something to the Customs agent in Japanese, and he held out a hand once more for Molly’s passport, which she gave him.
With a firm punch, he stamped one of the pages with a black ink insignia and passed it back to her. “Welcome to Japan,” he said in English, waving her on.
The woman with the bun bowed just slightly, and Molly mirrored the action, bowing back.
“Good luck,” the woman said, pointing at an exit that led out into the afternoon sunlight.
Molly crossed the giant port, her sandals pit-patting against the concrete floors as she carried Rodney on her back. Her first hurdle was behind her, but her first challenge was still ahead: leaving a bit of the man she loved with the grandparents he’d never even met.
She stepped out into Nishinomiya and took a deep breath.
Molly
The Scuttlebutt is the heart of Seadog Lane--maybe even of the island--if you ask Molly Kimble. She'd opened the coffee shop on Shipwreck Key in 1990, and while the island itself has grown and changed (most recently with the high profile additions of the former First and Second Ladies), The Scuttlebutt has remained the same warm, cozy, coffee-scented space with its view of the main street.
"A likely story," Molly says to Ephraim Jones on the phone early one morning. "Your boat has a flat tire, huh?"
Ephraim laughs his booming, hearty laugh. "You got me, Ms. Molly," he says. "I got no excuse for my late delivery other than the fact that I went with my son to Sarasota for a long weekend. His bachelor party," he adds. "I'm probably too old for nightclubs and dancing women, but an old dog like me still wants to get his ears scratched, you know?"
Molly snorts. "Don't I know." She's scribbling numbers and figures on a notepad as the sun rises over Seadog Lane and the Gulf of Mexico, which is just visible between the buildings on the opposite side of the street. There are no pedestrians or golf carts out this early on a May morning. "Listen, Ephraim." Molly clears her throat and gets serious. "You delivering my order late causes me some hardships. I'm low on my Texas pecan beans, I need more flour, and without that order of cups and lids, I have no way to serve my customers a cup of coffee to go. So let's get down to the nitty gritty: what can you do to ease my hardship on this one? I don't begrudge a man a night of watching the ladies dance in Sarasota, but I need to get my back scratched here too."
Ephraim laughs loudly again. "Indeed you do, Ms. Molly." He pauses. "Let's see. How about if I take ten percent off this order and get it to you by tomorrow at noon?"
"How about if you make it fifteen percent off and get it to me by ten tomorrow?"
Ephraim gives a low whistle and chuckles. "You drive a hard bargain, Molly Kimble. Yes, you do. But I think I can do that for my favorite customer."
"Favorite customer, my arse," Molly grumbles, turning around and writingEphraim, delivery--10:00on the wall calendar in the box for the next day. The calendar is one called "The Flowers of Maui" that Molly's niece sent to her as a Christmas gift the year before, and the flower for May, the frangipani, is a gorgeous pinwheel of white and yellow and pink. She'd carried a bunch of frangipanis in her hands as she walked across the sand to marry Roger at Makena Beach nearly forty-five years ago, and the image of it is still vivid in her mind's eye.
"You are a gem, Ms. Molly," Ephraim says now, pulling her away from the memory. "A priceless gem. I'll see you tomorrow morning."
"Not if I see you first," Molly says with fondness in her voice. She and Ephraim Jones have been doing business and teasing one another for more than a decade, and if she's being honest with herself, seeing him is one of the highlights of her week.
The shop is quiet once again after she hangs up the phone, and Molly walks over to the window to look out at Seadog Lane. With her arms folded across her chest, she watches as the sun comes up over the quiet street, tossing shafts of light here and there like bits of confetti and glitter.
