America, Present Day
The morning of my father’s doctor’s appointment, we packed up his Cadillac convertible and headed east. The two-lane highway would take us all the way to the Taussig Cancer Center in Ohio, passing fields of soy, stalks of corn and miles of whirling metal. The massive turbine pinwheels filled the horizon with wind farms as far as you could see. Pops lifted the bill of his newsboy cap, dabbed his brow with a handkerchief and watched them through the rolled-up window.
With sidelong glances, I watched him.
We hadn’t spoken about his letter from Japan—what it meant, who it was from, how he reacted—but it didn’t mean I hadn’t thought about it. How could I not? He’d brought it. I caught the familiar flash of red on the dash before we left. Pops tracked where I looked, picked it up and folded it in his pocket. He didn’t say a word and I knew better than to ask, but besides worrying about his running fever, I thought of little else.
Who had sent it? An old shipmate perhaps, but then the letter would have originated in the States, not traveled from overseas. A charity thank-you or newsletter crossed my mind. Pops did sponsor kids and causes all over the world, but it wouldn’t have garnered that kind of reaction. I’d only seen him with tears like that once—at Mama’s funeral.
Pops barked a chesty cough, trying to clear his throat in vain, then glanced in my direction. “You’re quiet.”
“I’m concentrating,” I said, and I was. While the 1958 convertible was a showstopper—red-button-tufted interior, pearl-white body and deep red pinstripes that ran from finned headlight to exaggerated tail—the extended size made it difficult to drive. It was also the first time I had driven it.
Although, when I was younger, before my mother could object, he’d have me slide in between them and I’d help steer. She’d scream when he’d release the wheel, keeping it steady with only a raised knee, and scold him to “slow down” when he pushed past the posted recommended speed. Riding in my father’s Caddy was always a fun adventure.
Driving the classic convertible was a different experience. It was hard to manage, and as cars flew past, we were wind-whipped from all directions. Even with the windows up and my sunglasses on, I couldn’t keep the hair from my eyes. Having the top down wasn’t quite the thrill I’d remembered. I told my father as much.
Like magic, he conjured a streamer of red from the glove box. It colored the wind and billowed like a majestic sail.
My eyes grew wide with recognition. Mama’s scarf! I hadn’t seen it in years. I could still picture her wearing it—her ash-blond hair, pin-curled the night before, tucked in and under the pretty floral design.
As I tried to position it over my hair, Pops reached for the wheel—the irony wasn’t lost even though the lane was. We drifted, causing another car to swerve and honk. I hurried to tie the tails under my chin, then grinned at my father.
He smiled in return. “It suits you. You should keep it.”
I glanced in the rearview mirror, saw my face instead of my mother’s. “I couldn’t. It was hers.”
“No, I mean it.” He shrugged a shoulder. “Truth is, I always intended for you to have it, but your mother found it, and then what could I do?”
My heart rose high in my chest. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I want you to have it. It’s important.”
I straightened it in my hair and smiled. I did love that scarf. When worn, the red-and-white motif converged to paint the most beautiful color story, but when opened and smoothed flat, according to my father, the scarf’s design told one.
“A secret one,” he’d say, running his fingers along the hand-rolled hem. Then he’d tell me how China kept the secret for almost two thousand years. He’d point to the floral in the scarf’s design, say they were the same flowers found in the palace garden, where the young empress first discovered something valued more than gold—silkworms.
“She’d been enjoying tea when a cocoon fell from the sky, and to her surprise, it landed square in her cup.” His eyes grew wide to demonstrate, and I’d giggle when he made the face. Then he’d pretend to fish it out, just as the empress had, claiming it unraveled into a single shimmering thread almost a mile long.
The royal family, so impressed by the pearlescent sheen, used the delicate filament to weave exotic fabrics to trade throughout the world. And because the rare silk grew to that of legend, the emperor issued an imperial decree to keep the source—the silkworms living within their garden mulberry trees—a secret. “And it stayed that way, until...” Pops would hold up a finger.
I’d move closer, knowing from there the story would change.
Sometimes it was a spoiled princess, betrothed to a prince from a faraway land. She couldn’t bear to live without the luxurious garments, so she hid cocoons in her wedding headdress.
Other times, my father claimed two Nestorian monks used their tall bamboo canes to smuggle out the worms. But my favorite was always the Japanese spies who traveled the long Silk Road of China—which my father said was woven into the scarf’s design. I’d spend hours imaging their 4,000-mile journey while tracing the design’s varied lines.
If the Caddy was my father’s prized possession, the memories of my mother’s silk scarf with its intricate pattern and hidden stories were mine.
“You’re quiet again,” Pops said, tugging me from memory.
I looked over. “I was just thinking about the empress, and how the silkworm cocoon fell into her tea.”
“You remember that?”
“Of course. I remember all your stories. There was the one about the ships battling far out at sea, the fight for the Japanese princess...” Sometimes in that one, he’d claim the boy was a Samurai whose clever words were swifter than his sword. Other times, a wealthy prince who could afford to give her everything except the one thing her heart desired. When I’d ask him what that was, he’d smile lopsided and say, “Me.”
“Oh.” I tapped the steering wheel. “And there was Tea with an Emperor.”
“Empire.” My father laughed through his nose. “He was a merchant king with a vast trading empire. How could you forget that one?”
“You have a lot of stories with tea.” And Japan. I glanced at my father. “You could remind me.”
He favored me with a smile. And in that exact moment, time slid back. To when a larger-than-life man told epic stories to a little girl who loved them. It was a welcomed reunion.
“Well, I can tell you this much, aside from silk...” He cleared his throat. “Nothing good ever came from tea.”