Japan, Present Day
Riding the train to Hiratsuka to visit the monastery, I stood, wired with “what-ifs.” What if the monastery had lots of information on Brother Daigan? What if the orphanage he worked with had records? What if I found my sister?
I stifled a laugh. I was getting way ahead of myself. Because what if the monastery had no idea who Brother Daigan was? And like my father’s military records, what if it was another dead end?
What then?
I would visit the Girl with Red Shoes statue. Even if it meant a later flight. I owed it to Naoko, my sister, to Pops—for what he’d tried to tell me. The Girl with Red Shoes stands at each port on either side of the ocean to remind us of the thousands of innocent children lost between them.
Who were still lost.
What if one could be found?
There’s a tether linked between families and there’s a natural pull to reel them in. I could feel it. I was close. I sat down, wiping tears from my cheeks. My emotions ran rampant.
The train coasted to a stop, letting more passengers off than on, and leaving my car near empty. Almost there. My stomach twisted in anticipation. Hiratsuka would be next, and the monastery a quick walk away.
I planned to run.
Settling into a seat, I watched the landscape roll past. The sleepy countryside I imagined from Naoko’s stories didn’t match the urban sprawl of modern buildings that now covered it. On the other side, the train line hugged the sea. Even that intoned of industry.
We slowed, and I jumped up, ready to go. Stepping out onto the platform, the sea air greeted me with a salty kiss and damp embrace. I debated my direction. Naoko said it was a straight shot from the station, but the street split in two.
“Excuse me?” I asked, but the woman smiled and kept walking. I sidestepped a bike only to force a moped to swerve. I spun around, trying to get my bearings. Shops, office buildings and traffic with bicycles in between. Hiratsuka was not a sleepy rural city in the least; in fact, it bustled.
And yet my phone wasn’t connecting to maps. One bar. I approached a shop and peered over the counter. An old man sat in front of a small TV, eating. He smiled.
“Hi. Is the monastery this way?” I asked, and pointed down the street. “Monks? Brother Daigan?”
He wrinkled his nose and lost his smile. I repeated myself, then gave up, stepping the way I’d indicated.
The more I walked, the farther apart the buildings became. They changed from cubed offices to stacked apartments to modest, stand-alone homes, many of which were abandoned. Some had partially caved-in roofs with windows and doors missing. I’d read that over eight million homes were abandoned due to Japan’s aging nation and shrinking population, but to see it in person was eerie. A real-life ghost town made ominous by the fading sun. I walked faster. Afraid I’d find the monastery closed. If I found it.
Naoko also said the walk wasn’t long, but I had walked awhile. I asked a few others but couldn’t understand them. One pointed left, another right. I thanked them with a bow and kept going in the same direction.
A high fence ran along the road across the street.
My heart jumped. A bamboo fence.
I hadn’t even considered the maternity home could still be there.
Crossing the street, I peeked between the stalks, but found only dense brush on the other side. I remembered Naoko’s words, We’re trying to get to the other side. My child, you are on the other side.
She had wanted out and here I was, some fifty years later, desperate to get in. Instead of a locked gate, an open arch covered the entrance. I ventured through, careful not to trip on the uneven pavers embedded in the walkway. The late sun mottled under the canopy of trees, casting inconsistent shadows that swallowed the street behind me. Birds trilled warnings of my uninvited arrival.
There were more woods ahead and thick forest on either side. I spun around to consider going back when someone called out in Japanese. I was trespassing. I shouldn’t have been there.
The man’s bald head appeared first over the raised incline, then the rest of him. A monk in white. His robe swayed to and fro as he approached, like a broom sweeping away debris. He carried a small bag as if he’d just returned from the store. Calling out, he thwacked his walking stick on the ground.
I gave a wave and approached him. “Hello, is there a maternity home back there?”
He blinked and stared. Maybe he didn’t speak English, but as a monk, he might recognize the name. “Do you know of a Brother Daigan?”
His thick brows furrowed.
“Brother Daigan, he helped babies?”
His chin lifted. “Ah, babies.” He patted his belly and then pushed rounded cheeks high into a smile. His eyes creased like crescent moons. “Ojizō-sama, Brother Daigan?”
“Um, yes?”
“Okay, yes. Come.” He floated ahead. When I didn’t follow, he repeated himself, waving with fervor. “Babies. Ojizō-sama, Daigan, come.”
Maybe it still was a maternity home? I hoped he didn’t misunderstand and think I was pregnant.
I caught up to walk beside him. Water trickled somewhere ahead. A stream? Yes, and a small footbridge. Naoko’s persistent fish! I smiled and gazed over as we crossed. Fish with fins of gold, white and black circled below in shallow eddies. Naoko and Satoshi were in this exact spot discussing the story. And he’d been right: Naoko was like the fish, she had persistence and fight. And Naoko had been right, as well. She had needed it.
Ahead, the trees parted. A building with rust-colored tiles peeked through. Or maybe the color was cast from the sun hanging low overhead. It had several newer buildings constructed around it. “Is that the maternity home?”
He shook his head, then veered away from the house to a side path, pointing ahead. The new path was smaller and somewhat overgrown. We had to walk single file. I stepped faster to keep from trailing behind. The property sloped, dipped, then climbed and climbed.
With the sun setting, I worried I made a huge mistake. That the monastery had closed for the day.
“Okay, babies.” Ahead, the monk had stopped. The sun shone bright before him, rolling long shadows off his back.
A branch snagged my arm; I stopped to release my sleeve.
“Come.” The monk beckoned me forward like the lucky blessings cat.
Pushing through the thicket, I took one final wide step to stand beside him, then squinted in the light and gasped. Wild red blooms decorated the unkempt grasses as far as I could see.
“See?” The monk offered the field. “Babies.”
I covered my lips with a hand.
Naoko’s words whispered from memory, From the clearing’s mouth, the earth bleeds red, and I peer into death’s pregnant, bloated belly.
It was beautiful and disturbing. The concrete sculptures with fabric bibs and caps of red stood every which way, without any set order. Some sat in neat rows, some climbed the embankment, others faced one another in silent conversation.
The monk turned to leave, but I tapped his arm. He’d misunderstood. “No, I’m wanting info on Brother Daigan. Brother Daigan who helped the babies.”
“Yes. There.”
“There?” I blinked.
He indicated to a statue. “There.”
“That’s a Jizō statue. I’m wanting info on Brother Daigan.”
“Yes, Ojizō-sama, Daigan. There.” He pointed to another one. “And there.”
I pushed past the monk to encroach the clearing below, needing to understand his meaning. A Jizō smiled up at me, its bib of red faded pink from the sun. I spun to the monk at my heels, then pointed. “This? This is Brother Daigan?”
“Yes. Ojizō-sama, Daigan.” His thick brows pushed down.
“And this one?” I asked, almost yelling while pointing to another.
“Yes.” The monk again presented the field of red. The one we now stood in. “All Ojizō-sama, Daigan.”
Prickly fingers crawled the length of my spine. Fingers that pinched little noses and covered their cries.
“Ojizō-sama...” I said it slower, breaking the syllables apart. “O-jizo.” My jaw dropped.
Jizō statues.
All.
Naoko said, “Mizuko, water children—the stillborn, miscarried and aborted—cannot cross over alone. Jizō wears the baby’s clothing, a bright red bib and cap, to show their connection.”
Tears welled up. Brother Daigan wasn’t a monk who helped babies find a new home, at least not a living one. He was the spirit that helped the babies cross over. Naoko had told me as much.
My heart jumped.
Oh, my God, the pact.
“If we could not keep our babies or keep them safe, we would seek out Brother Daigan and allow him to take them with honor and respect to a better home.
“After, I couldn’t bear it.”
Oh, Naoko.
I spun around, breathing hard, and searched the landscape for the monk. “Wait!” I yelled, then chased after him. “Wait! Please.”
He turned. The white robe shifting a beat behind.
“Where are the other babies?” My heart bulged with chaotic beats. Fear strangled it. “Um, half, Hafu.” I pointed to the field. “Where are the Hafus?”
“Ah...” His furrowed brows lifted and then the monk took the lead.
I followed, taking deep breaths, fearful for what I might find. Jizōs with little stone faces watched us as we passed. One had chubby cheeks and smiled. Another scowled. Some prayed in silence.
“There.” The monk pointed.
A grove of nonnative trees just like Naoko described it. Dark gray bark and leaves like spindly fingers. Some climbed the sky and towered above. Most were just over my head. This is where the mixed-blood babies lie, Hatsu had told Naoko.
I turned to take in the landscape, expecting small mounds of unmarked dirt. Instead, there were dozens and dozens of Jizō statues scattered every which way, except under one prominent tree. There, Jizō statues stood huddled in a perfect circle, their bonnets and bibs of red contrasted by blooms of white—I gasped.
Chrysanthemums.
Every week I pick the best flowers for my daughter, so she knows her importance to me. And I gather enough for her friends. The remembered words of Naoko and Shiori punctured my lungs.
Blood rushed my ears. Tears fell one after the other. I took a step, then another and another. Until I was face-to-face with Naoko’s truth. My father’s.
My own.
I dropped to my knees, folded into myself and cried.
I found her, Pops. I found my sister.
She was surrounded by friends.
One, two... I counted six. Hatsu escaped as did Sora, so one for Jin’s baby—the one with the homemade scarf? Aiko’s, maybe Chiyo’s and Yoko’s—the girl Naoko never met but heard the baby’s cries. I couldn’t think of more.
Each had its own face—two smiled, two cried, one slept—and my sister’s, with the most flowers around its base, and the only one with a wooden marker, looked right up at me.
We shared a private conversation just then. One long overdue.
It said, I’ve been looking for you and Here I am, here I am. I blinked back tears, fixed on the kanji-styled symbols etched in the wooden grave marker and painted red. What did they say?
I turned to ask the monk, but he had gone. I fumbled for my phone, snapped a picture of the writing and ran back through the nonnative trees, yelling for him to wait.
“Hello? Sir?” I wove through and around one burial plot after another. I spotted him in the distance, approaching the embankment on his way back to the trail. “Sir?”
He turned.
I ran faster, my heart pounded, and when I reached him, I couldn’t catch my breath.
Phone in hand, I clicked the image and held it out. His eyes darted from the image to mine.
“What does that say?” I pointed to the image. “That.” I motioned, trying to coax his words. Desperate to hear them.
He reached into the deep pocket of his robe and pulled out reading glasses. The wire frames balanced on the tip of his nose. He squinted. “Oh, Chīsai tori.”
My heart jumped. “I’m sorry?”
“Chīsai tori.” He smiled.
I didn’t understand.
“Ahhh...” Using his finger and thumb, he showed a small space between them. “Chīsai.” Then he looked up to the sky, looked left, then right. “There, tori.” A brown bird flew overhead with a tan underbelly. He flapped his arms and pointed again.
“Bird? Tori is ‘bird’?” Tori is “bird” in Japanese? “Chīsai tori, Little Bird.”
I looked to the picture on my phone again.
To the grave marker.
To my sister’s name.
My name.
The name we shared.
Pops didn’t forget Little Bird. He named me after her. And maybe I never would know his full story of wants or dreams, or what had happened to keep him from them. It didn’t matter because I knew Pops’s heart. And just as he said in his letter to Naoko—he carried her there.
Through tears I thanked the monk and wandered back to my sister, my mind swimming.
Letters. Naoko said there were more letters and she “buried them with her sorrow.” Did she mean she buried them here? Did my sister have Pops’s other letters all along? If so, Little Bird knew for certain the how and the why, even if I never would. But knowing the man my father was and, through Naoko, meeting the boy that got him there, I believe with all my heart he tried to return.
There was only one thing left to do.
Keep my promise.
I unfastened my mother’s silk scarf—Naoko’s scarf—from around my neck and carefully wrapped it around my sister’s Jizō statue. Surrounded by blooms of white, it not only wore a cap and bib of red, but now a scarf that had traveled the great ocean twice and passed between fathers and daughters and husbands and wives. I told my sister how we shared the same name and, in passing this scarf to her, how it carried all our love.
Her mother’s, her father’s and mine.
In parting ways, Naoko had said, “What I want, what I hope, is for you to finally make peace with your father’s past. Know that by meeting you, learning your name, you have allowed peace in mine.”
In learning my sister’s name, I have, too.
Like Okaasan had done with Naoko, and Naoko with her Little Bird, after a night of long conversation, telling stories and shedding tears with my sister, of sharing everything I could about Pops, our father, the man I still adored and knew, I set the past free.
I set it free for both of us.
For all of us.
The bird no longer in my hands.