I packed as many belongings as I could into my giant rolling bag and booked it to Tokyo Station. If I caught the next train, I could be home by 18:00. The real problem would be navigating the crowds of rush hour with such a large bag. But once I boarded the train, I found a seat near the window for the ninety minute trip home.
Chikata, the town where I grew up, was west of Tokyo. It was a quaint little town that had seen better days. The dilapidated business district and overgrown farm fields made the place feel deserted. Like many of the surrounding farm towns, Chikata was dying out. My neighbors had migrated out of the area to find work in the city, and since they couldn’t sell their farms, they left them to turn to dust. I wasn’t the only one who left. Everyone my age had abandoned Chikata for Tokyo, but my mother and most of her generation stayed behind. She grew up in this town, and she couldn’t leave her friends. I couldn’t blame her. Look how well I did in the city.
The train pulled into the station, and I wheeled my bag out onto the platform. Only a few people exited when I did, immediately crossing the tracks and heading towards the cobbled streets of the downtown shopping district. I paused and secured my hair into a quick knot. Had I really lost my job that morning? And what was I doing back at home?
My phone sat silent in my bag, no one checking up on me, and I remembered I forgot to call Mom back. And here I was, showing up on her doorstep, with a bag packed for longer than a weekend. I sighed and loosened my shoulders. She would know I lost my job. She would take one look at me and say, “Mei-chan, what happened?” She could read me like Chiyo reads tea leaves.
I tugged my suitcase through the streets of Chikata, looking in every window along the way. This main part of town was still doing well. A thriving tourist trade kept the local businesses alive since a prominent Buddhist temple was just north of us one more stop on the train or a bus ride up the mountain. The majority of remaining residents lived in the houses and apartments close to the station. The omiyage shop that had been open since I was a kid bustled with activity, tourists buying everything from tea to tiny Buddha key chains. I waved to old Minatoru-san sweeping up the steps outside of his building, and he waved back, bowing, and muttering kind words in my direction. I bowed too, trying to be happy-faced and excited.
Up the street near the corner, where the town divided off with the township buildings on the left and the rest of the business district on the right, a new restaurant beckoned in a stream of people. Huh. When did that open? The building used to be a seamstress shop and kimono repair business back before everyone bought their clothes in the city or online, and now an open, airy, bright eatery with a line of people waiting outside for a seat took up the entire first floor. Young couples, messenger bags slung over their shoulders, talked or texted on their phones while the sound of boisterous conversation leaked out the front door.
“Excuse me,” I said, interrupting a cluster of twenty-somethings sitting on a bench outside, “how long has this restaurant been here?”
“About ten months now,” a young man responded, nodding his head politely. “The chef was trained in France, and he had another restaurant in Tokyo.”
“It’s supposed to be delicious,” the woman beside him said, huffing. “Not that we would know. We’ve been waiting for an hour now.”
“I see.” I stretched up on my toes and tried to peek in through the front window, but all I saw were heads bobbing and eating and a mostly open kitchen near the back. The place was packed. “I’ll have to try it out. Sorry to bother you.”
I backed away from them, kicking my suitcase out onto the sidewalk next to me. The lantern and light at the front door read “Sawayaka” meaning “fresh or refreshing.” Interesting. I had never heard of the place, but I hadn’t been home in almost six months. Mom usually picked me up from the station, so I completely missed this place.
At the intersection just past the restaurant, I waited for the light to turn so I could cross, daydreaming about what it would be like to own a restaurant. I imagined myself as a famous chef, conjuring up recipes, and winning Michelin stars while getting married and having a family all at once. Wow. That must be an amazing life to be creative and busy all day. Not that I could ever be a chef. I hadn’t cooked anything in years.
Turning to the right, I squinted my eyes into the setting sun. About three blocks from the main intersection a brand-new building took up a whole block that used to be empty space. It looked almost complete, lights on inside, and a green triangle lit-up sign outdoors. A Midori Sankaku grocery store! I couldn’t believe they were opening one here. The town’s tiny local grocers had always done well without the big chains.
Sirens blared and knocked me straight out of my head. I tripped over my suitcase, falling down hard on my butt at the corner. Ow! I cringed at the pain radiating up my spine as two police cars, blue and white lights blazing and sirens wailing, zipped past me and headed out of town to the outer farming houses.
Towards my neighborhood.
The quiet town of Chikata didn’t need a large police force. In fact, I think they only had five cars total. They flew by too quickly to see if I knew anyone inside. Goro, my mom’s best friend’s son, was a policeman in the town precinct, and I wondered if he worked a desk job or patrolled in the local koban, police box.
I increased my pace across the street, my heart beating faster as my legs tried to keep up with my thoughts. The family house was about a kilometer from here, past the school, the town hall, some closed up businesses, and the town’s only gas station.
The sun started to set, and the road lost its sidewalk as the land flattened out. Rice fields took over the vista to my left and soy to my right. Damn, I should have called my mom and asked to be picked up, but I was only a ten minute walk from home now.
I switched my suitcase handle around and pulled my phone from my bag, dialing up Mom and hoping she was home.
“Moshi moshi! Mei-chan, is that you? Is everything all right?” Mom’s breath came in puffs on the other end.
“Hi Mom. I’m fine. I decided to come up for the weekend since you said you needed me. I’m on San-dōri right now walking out to the house. I should be there in ten minutes —”
“I’m coming to get you right now,” she said, keys clinking in the background and a door slamming.
“What? Mom, that’s not necessary. I’m only ten minutes away, and it’s still plenty light outside.”
Another door slammed on her end of the phone, and I heard a car engine start.
“I see police car lights at Akiko’s house. I’m coming to get you and we’ll go there.”
The phone disconnected and I held it out in front of me. The police went to Akiko’s house — Akiko, my best friend growing up and friend to that day. I threw my phone in my bag and started running home until my mother’s headlights approached me from around the bend.
“Akiko-chan!” I jumped out of Mom’s car and slammed the door behind me. “Are you in there?” I shouted, cupping my hands over my mouth.
The two police cars waited silently outside of her home, but the door stood open and the lights blazed inside. Soft cries leaked out towards Mom and me, and a chill ran up my back.
“Maybe we shouldn’t interfere,” Mom said, clutching at my arm. Hadn’t she just picked me up from the road so that we could get there quicker? I thought we planned to interfere.
I ignored her. “Akiko-chan!”
“Mei? Mei-chan, is that you?” Akiko, her eyes red and face wet with tears, poked her head out of the house, and upon seeing me, sprinted in my direction. I opened my arms just in time for her to land in them. She sobbed against my shoulder, and my mom patted her back.
“What happened, dear? Is everything okay?” My mother asked, looking between the police cars and Akiko’s front door. I couldn’t imagine that anything was okay.
“Dad… Dad is dead. I came home from doing my rounds, and he was on the floor. I thought maybe he passed out somehow, but his skin was cold and he had no pulse. He probably died early in the day while I was gone.”
Oh no. Akiko’s dad was the only parent she had left, her mom having died ten years ago from a bad flu outbreak. I looked over her shoulder and saw her brother, Tama, watching us from the front porch. His face had changed a lot in the last couple of years, and the long days as a high school teacher had taken their toll, his sunken eyes red and his hair jutted out in a million different directions.
Akiko pulled away from my shoulder and sniffed. “I can’t believe he’s gone. He had been doing so well lately. He even met up with his friends more often, and his stomach aches had all but ceased.”
Tama came forward and took his sister’s shoulders in his hands. “There was only so much you could do. He was sick for a long time, and it was just his time to go.”
Akiko shook her head. “I just don’t believe it. He was fine when I saw him this morning.”
My gut told me Akiko was right. She had been a nurse for a few years already and had always been good at divining sickness in her patients. When we were kids, she was always the kid who could correctly identify which ailment everyone had at school. I never understood this. I hated being sick, I hated being around sick people, and I hated blood most of all. But Akiko loved everything about the human body and how it worked. She flew through nursing school faster than anyone else her age. Now she worked for a visiting nurse service and attended to the elderly and sick around town, including her father. Well, including her late father.
“He said he was going to go out and visit friends. I wonder if he even made it out of the house.”
Tama shook his head. “Every time I saw him recently, he was unwell, shaking and pale. You wanted him to get better. That’s not the same as actually healing.”
Three police officers exited Akiko’s home, and one of them turned off the blinking lights in each car, plunging everyone into semi-darkness before the motion sensors outside of the porch clicked on. One policeman, a rounded, barrel-shaped and tall man, approached us, and it took me a full moment to recognize Goro, son of my mom’s best friend, Chiyo.
“Akiko-san, Tama-san.” He nodded to each of them before he caught sight of Mom and me. “Ah, Mei-chan. It’s been at least a year since I last saw you. How are you?”
I inclined forward in a slight bow. “I’m well. How’s your mom and Kumi-chan?” Kumi, Goro’s wife, was a sweet, young woman a year younger than me. I had attended their wedding a few years ago.
“They’re both well. I’m sure they’d love to see you. Yamagawa-san,” he said, inclining towards my mom, no doubt addressing her formally because his coworkers hovered nearby. He saw her enough to call her Tsukiko-san.
Mom directed her eyes at the house, her hands worrying together. She was friends with Akiko’s father and mother, though they had been a few years older than her. I remembered how upset and depressed she became after Akiko’s mother died. They used to spend their days together when they weren’t working the farm, and Akiko’s mom had been an avid cook, like my mom.
Goro nodded at Mom and the two acknowledged each other enough to be considered polite. Everyone turned as an ambulance arrived, lights on but sirens muted. “Are you in town this weekend from Tokyo?”
“I… Yes.” I coughed to cover up my lie.
Tama, Akiko’s brother, glanced my way and a warmth flowed over me from head to toe. Tama was an old flame, and his smile still had a magic spell over me. It used to be that Tama and I would sneak out after dark and meet up in the grapes arbor to make out once our parents were asleep. We had dated during my high school years, but then he cheated on me, we attended different colleges, and we hadn’t spoken since. Despite the bad breakup, it never stopped me from being attracted to him. Unfortunately.
This is not the time, Mei.
“We’ll have to take your father in for a postmortem exam, Akiko-san,” Goro said, as Akiko’s head dropped and she began to cry again. I pulled her shoulder to me and squeezed. “But you’ll need to stay here and answer questions for a little while. We just need to double-check everything. It’s standard procedure. I’m sorry for the hassle.” He bowed, polite and yet forceful but empathetic. Law enforcement was a good choice for Goro. He was always good at following the rules.
I squeezed Akiko’s shoulders again and leaned into her ear. “I’ll come by and check on you tomorrow morning. Get some rest tonight.” Releasing her to her brother, I stepped back next to Mom and gave them room.
“This is no good, Mei-chan,” Mom whispered, as she took me by the elbow and directed me back to the car. “The whole town will be crawling through here the next few days. Akiko-chan and Tama-chan will get no peace.”
I opened the door and sank into my seat, pinching the bridge of my nose, my headache resurfacing. “I’m sure it won’t be that bad. I know they were popular and all, but he was an old man. It was expected.”
Mom shook her head. “You don’t know the half of it. Come. Let’s have dinner, and tomorrow I’ll fill you in on everything.”