CAITLIN WATCHED from across the table as Naomi mopped up egg yolk, dragging a corner of toast in broad sweeping strokes. First her fingers drew the strip of toast along with a twist of her wrist, but soon her elbow rose, her arm swung with the flowing motion, and her posture straightened. Head cocked, Naomi began marking the radical of a kanji, as if she were with brush and ink. Caitlin followed the stroke order with intrigue, wondering which component would be added to the radical, but suddenly self-conscious, Naomi glanced up and scribbled over it. She mopped the plate clean and began to nibble at the toast. Her posture returned to defeat, but Caitlin noted that her eyes were brighter at least.
Caitlin tried to recall herself at that age. She could remember jeans she wore, shoes, earrings, but she had no sense of how she’d appeared to someone several feet away, studying her the way she now studied Naomi. She could recall sensations, moods, and places: waiting for her event at swim meets; predawn winter practices when her hair froze afterward on the way to the car; the circles of cliques in the junior high corridors; the inside of her locker. She would linger by her locker, fingering her books, feigning academic decisions, all the while agonizing over which group to join before the bell rang for homeroom—until she discovered one day in study hall that she was actually adept at putting up a joking front to her classmates. How easy it was to dupe them into thinking she was having fun.
From then on, she went through a period of chronic lying, and the circles formed around her. The more she lied, the more friends she had. She pretended to have boyfriends at other Boston schools and made up weekend ventures and pranks. And they bought it. After a while she forgot what was true and what wasn’t, and she began to lose track of who she was and who she wasn’t. And once she’d begun acting chipper, her mother eased up on her, stopped the embarrassing calls to classmates’ mothers to arrange shopping outings or museum trips. As long as she feigned good cheer, she was left on her own in the afternoons. She could close herself in her room and brood, take off on her bike, ride to the arboretum and just sit, or even hop a bus or the T and head to Back Bay, Cambridge, or the Common and lose herself in the crowds.
But she could remember afternoons when she’d lie on her bed unable to raise a limb. When she couldn’t stand even the sound of the clock radio. When she covered her face with a pillow and tried to imagine being smothered. And summers in Pittsburgh, those stultifying summers when Lee was still young enough to go off and play but Caitlin couldn’t bear the thought, when she wasn’t old enough for jobs other than occasional yard work or babysitting and when, except for swim workouts at a Y, day after day she’d sit on the front porch, not reading, not moving, just wondering why she was there. Sometimes Ma Ruth would discover her, haul her up by her shoulders, and force her outside to weed, prune, paint, or run to the market, just to get her in motion—“You have a life, girl. Live it!” she’d scold, and at the recollection of these words, their tone so clear, Caitlin started.
Naomi looked up from her plate. “What?”
Caitlin touched her hands to her ears. “It was as if I just heard my grandmother’s voice.”
“Then she must be thinking of you.”
Caitlin shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I found out last night that she died. My parents had called yesterday.”
Naomi stopped chewing. Then she bowed and muttered something in Japanese—she seemed at a loss for the words in English. Eventually she added, “Were you close to her?”
“Well, yes, she was my grandmother.” This sounded more impatient than Caitlin had intended.
“Did she live in Boston?”
“No. Pittsburgh. That’s where my parents are from. Where we spent summers.”
“Oh.” Naomi sat back, then frowned.
“What?” Caitlin asked.
Naomi bit off a corner of toast. “Nothing.”
“Come on, tell me.”
“Well, I just hope Yamashita Ojiichan doesn’t die soon. I doubt he will, not for a while—he walks a lot. And he has a glass of shochu every night like that man who’s a hundred and four. Did you hear about him?”
Caitlin nodded. “From Miyazaki.”
“Think he’ll make a hundred five?”
“I don’t know.”
Naomi seemed to be weighing the odds, then said, “My grandfather and I were talking about going to China next year. There are ferries now, you know. We’d go on a shodo and sumi-e trip, see places the masters painted and buy supplies.”
“Really?” Caitlin said, shocked to hear Naomi volunteering anything about shodo.
But Caitlin’s enthusiasm seemed to trigger a sudden nonchalance. “Yeah, well, we’ll see.” Naomi stood and set her plate in the sink.
Caitlin rose. “Naomi, don’t take him for granted. If he’s made the offer, and he’s well enough to travel, do it. Do it while you have him.”
“Yeah.” Naomi placed both hands on the edge of the stainless drain board, as if to close the conversation.
Caitlin had her mouth open to say more, but held her tongue and sat down again. Naomi remained at the sink, motionless. After a time, with slow deliberation, she began to wash her dishes.
Caitlin glanced at the clock. “So. What time should we leave for the interview?”
Naomi turned to eye her. “We?”
“Yeah, we. I can go with you. Wait in a coffee shop or something while you have the interview and tour. I have letters to write anyway. If you want.”
Naomi’s eyes widened but conveyed neither pleasure nor displeasure. “The interview’s at one o’clock. I should call my aunt though, she was going to take me.” Then a deep shadow crossed her face. “I guess I should apologize to her.”
Caitlin nodded. “Yes, and to your uncle. He was really panicked. Tell you what. You call them and make sure it’s all right if I take you, and I’ll go get myself ready.” On her way out of the kitchen she gently shook Naomi by the shoulders. “But don’t fret about yesterday, okay? Just apologize,” she said, and went upstairs.
Caitlin was already roasting in her cotton pants. She changed into a light dress then went into the bathroom. She rubbed some ointment onto her gouged leg, then rifled through the medicine cabinet, and with some gauze and tape, concocted a bandage that covered most of the scrapes. They weren’t especially deep, but against her pale skin they looked frightful. She hadn’t thought up a story yet, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to admit the truth about this one to anyone. She hoped the skin would be mostly healed by the time she saw Hiroshi.
She studied herself closely in the mirror. Her hair was straggly and unkempt. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had it cut, and she didn’t know why she hadn’t noticed until now, but it was thin at the ends and too long for her face. Which was pale, considering it was summer. She hunted for an elastic in her toilet kit to pull her hair back, thought of wearing her baseball cap, but decided it’d look ridiculous with her floral print dress. She tried to get a glimpse of her body in the mirror, but it was only a medicine cabinet mirror, and even craning her neck she could only see down to her waist. She felt like she’d lost weight, too much maybe, but it was impossible to tell with her loose dress and such a small mirror. Her sides did feel bony. She pictured Lee, those protuberant shoulder blades, ribs, and knobby elbows.
Caitlin put away the bedding in Nobuko’s room, and when she heard Naomi hang up the phone, she threw her hairbrush into her day pack and made her way downstairs to join her. But she stopped still in the entrance to the front room when she discovered Naomi kneeling before the butsudan.
Caitlin followed her gaze as it traveled from the wooden altar up to the transom and the stark black and white photographs of Mie and her grandparents.
“That’s her?” she asked, pointing at Mie.
“Yes.”
“Her name was Mie?”
“Mieko.”
Naomi nodded. Then she turned to Caitlin. “Will you go home for your grandmother’s funeral?”
Caitlin shook her head.
Naomi stood. “You know, we could go to a temple and light incense for her. Your grandmother, I mean. And Mie, if you want. Let’s pick out a temple to go to today. After the interview, okay?” Caitlin nodded and pursed her lips together, looking past Naomi. Naomi switched modes for her, turning away from the altar. “My aunt gave me directions to the school. We take the train, then a bus. But Caitlin, I don’t have any clothes.” Naomi was dressed in the outfit she’d worn the day before—shorts and a sailor-type shirt that made her look much younger than fourteen.
They went upstairs to Nobuko’s room, rummaged through her closet, and finally found a simple short-sleeved dress that looked to be small enough. Caitlin wrote a note to Nobuko, thanking her, as Naomi washed up and changed.
On the train, Naomi grew introspective and quiet, and Caitlin thought she was mulling over her future again, the nagging citizenship decision that was still six years away. Caitlin let her ruminate alone and sat quietly beside her watching the houses and stations outside and the housewives, mothers with children, and elderly people that boarded the late morning train.
When they transferred to the bus Naomi began to fidget. Caitlin assumed she was growing more nervous about approaching the school; it was a momentous occasion, after all. But Naomi startled her by turning suddenly and whispering, “Caitlin, listen to me. Don’t think I’m crazy. But did you ever think maybe I’m her reincarnation?”
Caitlin was taken aback. “What?”
“Maybe I am. Just think about it.”
“My grandmother’s reincarnation?” Caitlin laughed a loud exaggerated laugh.
“No, no, Mie’s,” Naomi said. “I wasn’t born yet when she died. You see? Maybe I’m her reincarnation. Maybe it’s fate, our meeting.” Her face lit up as she said this.
“Naomi!” Caitlin wanted to howl at the idea. For it really was preposterous, that Mie would have grown into a moody adolescent, that even an atom of her old playmate lay inside this dark and fretful girl who made ash angels and wrote wills and practiced shodo in secret. Caitlin would never be able to throw her arm casually about Naomi. And she knew that if Mie were grown and sitting there on the bus with them, she’d have thrown back her head at the idea and laughed that rich, bubbling Mie-chan laugh.
But Naomi persisted: “I mean it, Caitlin,” and though she said it with a playful gleam in her eye, Caitlin saw that she did, in a way, mean exactly what she was saying. And Caitlin could see by the look in her eye that this was an offering, that Naomi was holding out her hand saying that she, Naomi Yamashita Johnson, was offering to replace Mieko Oide.
“Oh, come off it,” Caitlin said with a scowl; the notion of reincarnation was absurd, and the idea of anyone attempting to actually replace Mie irritated her, like her mother’s perpetual attempts to assign Caitlin a best friend each time she advanced a grade in school. There is no replacement for the dead.
Naomi continued to gaze on her expectantly, and Caitlin folded her arms. “Stop it, Naomi, get serious. We’re almost at the school.” The words had come out with venom, and Naomi turned away in a sulk.
They sat quietly for a bit. Caitlin wondered how it was that this girl had become part of her life. The more Caitlin thrashed to be free of her the more entangled in Naomi’s world she seemed to become. Just another week, she thought, till they were back in Kagoshima and she could deposit Naomi on her parents’ doorstep. She let out a sharp sigh of punctuation, and Naomi, still looking out the window said, “I didn’t mean anything by it. It was just a thought. Don’t be so sore.”
Caitlin nodded. She could see that Naomi was blinking back tears, and now Caitlin began to feel remorse for having once again reacted so emotionally to a fourteen year old’s fantasies. This was no time for Naomi to be down. Caitlin forced a smile, and patted Naomi’s thigh. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
They rode in silence for a while, then nearly missed their stop. “This is it!” Naomi shouted. She jumped up and hollered for the driver to reopen the doors. When they’d stepped off the bus, oriented themselves, and started walking in the direction of the school, Caitlin apologized again, adding, “I think I’m still tired from yesterday.”
Naomi nodded. They walked through the school’s imposing brick and cast iron gate, and Caitlin pointed out different features of the school, trying to cheer Naomi; if she remained sullen, Caitlin knew there was no telling what she’d say in the interview. They had about fifteen minutes to spare, so they strolled about the small campus: down corridors between classrooms bedecked with bright posters, maps, and charts and where some teachers were busy at their desks or up on chairs creating new displays—such a vibrant contrast to the barren classrooms in the Japanese schools Caitlin taught at; to the library where Caitlin ogled row upon row of literature in English, racks of magazines, and not just one but several English language newspapers; and out to the dusty heat of the athletic field and track. A few teams were practicing in preseason workouts—track, soccer, and tennis—and for a while Caitlin and Naomi stood at a chain-link fence, watching and listening. English and some bits of Japanese and occasionally other languages were shouted between players, and only some of the students there looked at all Asian in appearance. “It really is a mix,” Naomi noted quietly, as though she’d always doubted the reality of an international school or, more particularly, the existence of other children like herself who spanned two or more cultures.
They retreated to the shady footpaths and finally turned back toward the classrooms and administrative offices. Once they’d found the correct building and finally the room for Naomi’s interview, Caitlin told Naomi she’d meet her at the school library in two hours. That would give Naomi time to explore the campus on her own and to talk to some of the students after the interview and tour. Naomi nodded and straightened. But before pushing open the admissions office door, she stalled there in the hallway and eyed Caitlin.
“What?” Caitlin asked.
Naomi shifted her weight on her feet. “You don’t think there’s any chance of it?”
“Of what?”
“That I’m Mie’s reincarnation.”
Caitlin rolled her eyes. “Naomi!” she said, but this time she was careful to appear amused. Naomi stood before her, waiting, eyes pleading, chin just perceptibly trembling.
Caitlin weighed her options, contemplating various possible answers. For some strange reason, Naomi’s future seemed to lie in her hands, in the very answer she gave. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “I suppose you do have her forehead. And Mie could draw pretty well.”
Naomi grinned. And pulled her shoulders erect. Then she turned the knob and disappeared behind the pebbled glass of the admissions door.