Japan, 1958
In the monks’ covered Zen garden, I sit with Little Bird and sort my father’s words. What is best for you and what is best for that child are not the same thing.
With my toes, I push the cool sand around. The garden is meant to be viewed from the surrounding corridors, but I am on the large, flat rock, smack in the middle, messing up the perfect lines with my feet.
A storm in the monks’ sandy sea of tranquility.
I stroke my daughter’s fine hair with my fingertips. It is soft and dark like mine. Though her skin is much lighter, she tinges yellow from jaundice. It almost glows against the black of her lashes. She is too thin and struggles to breathe.
I struggle for perspective.
I wish I could visit Okaasan’s burial site. A single erect slab with both Father’s and Mother’s names engraved in the smooth front. Mother’s name in black to signify she has gone, while Father’s remains red to signal he waits to join her. All graves are inked this way. It is as beautiful as it is disturbing.
The cemetery is a strange miniature city of stone, a sprawling metropolis for insects, but I would draw comfort there. I would ask for guidance. Wait for a sign.
Without money how will I protect my baby? Provide for her? Feed her? Oh, I will love her, but love does not nurse a baby back to health or keep one safe and warm.
Look how love has left me.
My father made a significant donation to the monastery and, for it, expects my quick return. The abbot believes my father yields. He doesn’t know it is a welcome home for only me.
“Naoko, is that you, child?” Hisa calls from the pathway.
“I am here,” I say as she does the unexpected and treads through the Zen garden, adding ripples of her own.
Sister Sakura surprises me more because she walks a step behind. “The monks will have a fit in the morning.” She laughs, noticing how I’ve disturbed their peaceful labor. She slides her glasses up as she gazes down at Little Bird bundled in my lap. “Has she eaten?”
I shake my head. I couldn’t get her to take the dropper of milk.
It’s as if she knows.
My voice cracks. “We have nowhere to go.”
“What do you mean?” Hisa asks. “Your father was here.”
“My father wants only me.” I stare at my baby, sad for his stubborn stance. “He refuses her, saying she has no place in our family. He claims she is too sick regardless, that health care will be costly and pointless.” My words stammer for breath. My heart aches for refuge.
Sister Sakura gives a heavy sigh. “In some ways, child, your father is right.”
“What?” My head snaps up. “How is he right?”
Sister Sakura lowers her chin. She threads her fingers, so the robe’s sleeves swallow them whole. “She is very sick and not eating.” She shakes her head. “I fear it is only a matter of time.”
“No...” Tears trickle down my cheeks. I don’t bother to wipe them. “She was eating.” I turn to Hisa. “Can she not just stay here with you? I will come back every day or I will stay. She will eat, I know it, and...” Emotion strangles my words, so I almost choke. “I will find a way to pay.” I nod, pleading back and forth between them. “I will pay. Somehow I will.”
“Naoko, it is not about a fee,” Sister Sakura says, sitting beside me. She wraps me with her arm. “I am sorry, child. There is nothing to do but wait.”
“What about the home?” I ask, sliding up and away. “The one in Oiso? The one for mixed-blood babies?”
Sister Sakura tilts her head. I turn to Hisa but she casts her eyes away.
“They will take her.” I’m crying now, squeezing my baby close. “Can you help me take her there? Please.”
Hisa wipes her eyes. “There, she’d only die alone.”
“No! You don’t know that!” I stand, shaking my head. A warm stabbing sensation builds. It rises and flares my nostrils with each clipped breath from trying to hold everything in. I have no words.
I have only anger.
It rips through me and releases a string of accusations. “How can you say that? Why did you pretend to care before, and now won’t help?” My shoulders quake as I curl into my baby. “Why will no one help us?” My cries make no sound because I can no longer breathe.
I can’t breathe.
“Naoko, please.” Sister Sakura and Hisa stand, trying to console me.
I’m beside myself. My lips peel back to release a cry of desperation. “No. No...” I spin and run from the Zen garden. I run to my room.
I run from their bitter truth.
In my room, I rock my baby. Hisa sits outside the door in case I call, but I won’t. I wish to be alone.
Curling on my side, I wrap around my sweet daughter. Tears roll down my cheeks one after the other. I let them fall. My insides are raw from deciding between such miserable fates. Everywhere I turn, no matter what I do, it is as though fortune has decided.
For now, I tell my Little Bird stories. She fell asleep hours ago, but I talk, anyway. I talk until I am hoarse. I yawn but refuse the trap of sleep, for it is a thief that steals precious time away, and I have none to spare.
“Let’s see, I told you the gift of insults, and the one about stealing the moon...oh, but not my favorite tale. This one I have not shared.” I reposition myself and clear my throat to give the best delivery. “This one I used to make Grandmother tell me over and over. Her voices made me laugh.
“Four monks are sworn to silence...” I fall silent, not able to continue because I know she will never hear Grandmother’s version.
Instead, I tell her of Hajime through tears, of how we met and how we loved and of his proud reaction that day on his ship when he told our young guests he would be a father. I tell her of Okaasan’s valiant heart and how she brought me her wedding dress. How she stayed to see me in it, how much I need her now.
I tell Little Bird my whole heart because it breaks beyond repair.
What else? I stroke her sunken cheeks. What more can I share? That I want things to be different, but what I want is not what is best? “I am sorry, Little Bird,” I whisper near her ear as tears run down my cheeks. “Know you were wanted and loved, and I will think of you every day of my life. Every day, I swear.” She’s wheezing now. It is as though she knows.
“Jin, Hatsu and I made a pact, you see,” I say, leaning away to see her eyes and stroke her hair. “We promised one another we would spare our babies from Housemother Sato’s bony fingers of death, that your spirits would never be left waiting.” I kiss her head and wipe at my eyes.
“And I pledged if I could not keep you with me or keep you safe, to seek out Brother Daigan. To allow him to take you with honor and respect to a better home.” My shoulders shake. “But I do not want to, I swear.”
I curl around my baby and cry, heartbroken, gutted. So foolish to believe my capacity for pain had been reached. I am bottomless.
I look to the window. The sun stalks me. It stirs the shadows with a thick haze of sleepy light to shoo them away. My baby barely moves in her swaddling. Does she even breathe? I place my ear near her mouth and listen. It is faint. “Little Bird,” I whisper, and place my finger under her tiny hand, then kiss it. “I will keep my promise. I will seek out Brother Daigan.”
She blinks up with inky eyes, and I know she understands.
The vine is threadbare.
It’s time.
My throat swells, and a balloon inflates my lungs and threatens to burst. It crushes outward as I try to hold everything in. My chest convulses without breath. My face hurts from the pressure. I will keep my word, for her, I will keep my word.
I glance outside. The time is now.
With my baby wrapped tight, and me, again wearing every piece of clothing I own, I sneak around Hisa and out the door. I left a note for Sora. Thank you, I wrote. There was no need for more. The nuns will help her deliver a strong, healthy baby, then make arrangements for her baby at the adoption home. Hisa said Little Bird would only die there alone. I will not let that happen. Brother Daigan will not let that happen.
With hurried steps, I dart away. The cool air nips at my warmed skin as I work my way toward the entrance gate. Passing through, I all but run the long stretch of road.
I do not look back. I will never return.
Destiny’s coin tosses high in the air. I hope for a miracle, some twist in fate’s design, but both sides read the same. What’s best for me and what’s best for my child are not the same.
So, I will find Brother Daigan, and I will pull my daughter close, just as Okaasan had done with me, and just as quick, I will hand her over and set my Little Bird free.
I.