Bridge of Scarlet Leaves (3 page)

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Authors: Kristina McMorris

BOOK: Bridge of Scarlet Leaves
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3
I
t was on nights like this that Maddie missed her most, when her love life seemed a jumble of knots only a mother could untangle. More than that, her mom’s advice would have fostered hopes of a happily ever after.
The woman had been nothing if not a romantic.
She’d adored roses and rainstorms and candlelight, in that order. She had declared chocolate an essential food for the heart, and poetry as replenishment for the soul. She’d kept every courtship note from her husband—who she’d sworn was more handsome than Clark Gable—and had no qualms about using her finest serving ware for non-holiday dinners. Life, she would say, was too short not to use the good china. As though she had known how short hers would be.
Maddie tugged her bathrobe over her cotton nightgown. Unfortunately, no amount of warmth would relax the wringing in her chest. Always this was the cost of remembering her mother. The one remedy Maddie could count on was music.
She placed the violin case on her bed. Unlatching the lid, she freed her instrument from its red velvet–lined den. The smooth wood of the violin, of the bow, felt cool and wonderful in her hands. Like a crisp spring morning. Like air.
An audience of classical composers—black-and-white, wallet-sized portraits—sat poised in the lid’s interior. Mozart, Mendelssohn, Bach, and Tchaikovsky peered with critical eyes.
Do our works justice, Miss Kern, or give us due cause to roll over in our graves.
She rosined and tuned in systematic preparation. Then she positioned herself properly before the music stand. Bach’s Partita No. 3 in E major. The sheets were aligned and ready. She knew them by heart but took no chances. She placed the chin rest at her jaw, inhaling the fragrance of the polished woodwork. A shiver of anticipation traveled through her.
Eyes intent on the prelude, she raised her bow over the bridge. Her internal metronome ticked two full measures of allegro tempo. Only then did she launch the horsehairs into action. Notes pervaded the room, precise and sharp. Her fingertips rippled toward the scroll and down again, like a wave fighting its own current. The strings vibrated beneath her skin, the bow skipped under her control. And with each passing phrase, each conquered slur, the twisting on her heart loosened, the memories faded away.
By the time she reached the final note, the calculated stanzas had brought order back to her life. She held her pose in silence, waiting reluctantly for the world to reenter her consciousness.
“Maddie?”
Startled back, she turned toward the doorway.
“Just wanted to say good night.” Her brother held what appeared to be ice cubes bound by a dishcloth on his right knuckles. His scuffle with Paul suddenly seemed days rather than hours ago. “Got a game tomorrow morning. Then I’m taking Jimmy’s shift,” he reminded her.
“Are you sure you can do all that, with your hand?”
He glanced down. “Ah, it’s nothin’,” he said, lowering the injury to his side.
TJ’s hand could be broken into a thousand pieces—as could his heart—and he’d never admit it.
“That sounded good, by the way,” he said. “The song you were playing.”
She offered a smile. “Thanks.”
“You using it for the audition?”
“I might. If I make it past the required pieces.”
“Well, don’t sweat it. I know you’re gonna get in next time.” In contrast to this past year, he meant, when she had blown the audition at I.M.A.
Under the Juilliard School of Music, the Institute of Musical Art had been established in New York to rival the best of European conservatories. Maddie’s entrance into the program was a goal her dad had instilled in her since her ninth birthday. He’d gifted her with a used violin, marking the first time he had ever expressed grand hopes for
her
future, versus her brother’s.
“You know, I was thinking... .” Maddie fidgeted with the end of her bow. “When I visit Dad this week, you should come along.”
TJ’s eyes darkened. “I got a lot of stuff to do.”
“But, we could go any day you’d like.”
“I don’t think so.”
“TJ,” she said wearily. “He’s been there a year and you haven’t gone once. You can’t avoid him forever.”
“
Wanna bet?”
Resentment toughened his voice, a cast shielding a wound—that wound being grief, Maddie was certain. She had yet to see him shed a tear over their mother’s death, and those feelings had to have pooled somewhere.
After a long moment brimming with the unspoken, his expression softened. She told herself to hug him, a sign she understood. Yet the lie of that prevented her from moving. Their father, after all, had never even been charged. How many years would TJ continue to blame him?
TJ studied his ice bag and murmured, “I’m just not ready, okay?”
Maddie knew better than to push him, mule-headed as he could be. Besides, she couldn’t discount his admission, which held promise, if thin. And truth, the core of his existence.
“Fair enough.” She tried to smile, but the contrast of her ongoing deception soured her lips.
Lane.
Her steady.
It had been Maddie’s idea to keep their courtship a secret, at least until the relationship developed. With TJ’s temperament heightening along with his protectiveness of her, why get him hot and bothered for no reason? His friendship with Lane aside, society’s resistance to mixed couples wouldn’t have helped her case.
Tonight, though, from her brother’s old smile to his old laugh, his defending Lane with gusto, she saw an opening for his approval. She needed to act before the opportunity closed.
“Well, good night,” TJ said, and angled away.
“Wait.”
He looked at her.
The words gathered in her throat, but none of them suitable for a brother. She didn’t dare describe how a mere glance from Lane could make her feel more glamorous than a starlet. How his touch to her lower spine, while guiding her through a doorway, would cause a tingle beyond description.
“What is it?” TJ pressed.
Time to be square with him. She clutched her bow and hoped for the best. “The thing that Paul said,” she began, “about me and Lane ...ogether ...”
He shook his head. “Ah, don’t worry.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Maddie, it’s fine.”
Stop interrupting,
she wanted to yell. She had to get this out, to explain how one date had simply led to another. “TJ, I need to tell you—”
“I already know.”
Her heart snagged on a beat. She reviewed his declaration, striving to hide her astonishment. “You do?”
His mouth stretched into a wide grin. The sight opened pores of relief on her neck before she could question how he’d found out.
Of course ... Lane must have told him. In which case, how long had her brother gone without saying so? All these months spent fretting for nothing. She couldn’t decide which of them she wanted to smack, or embrace, more.
“Seriously,” TJ mused, “the two of you dating? That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.” He bit off a laugh, and Maddie froze. “Lane’s part of our family—the only family we’ve got left. Even if he ever did get a wild hair to ask you out, he’d come to me first. He’s not the kind to go behind a pal’s back. Paul was just drunk, and he was egging for a fight. Don’t let anything he said get to you, all right?”
The implication struck hard, shattering Maddie’s confession. “Right,” she breathed.
“Listen, I’d better hit the sack. Sleep well.”
“You too,” she said with a nod. Though with her uncertainties and emotions gearing up to battle, she expected anything but a restful sleep.
4
“S
hhh.” With a finger to his lips, Lane reminded his sister to keep as quiet as a ninja. Her analogy, not his. Emma gave him a conspiratorial smile. In her blouse and pleated skirt, black bob framing her round face, she stood next to him behind his bedroom door. Their secret quest lent a twinkle to her chocolate, Betty Boop eyes.
He donned his sunglasses, a necessary measure. Not as protection from the cloudy morning light, but to prevent a scolding should they fail to sneak past their mother. Although he felt rather proud of his inaugural fistfight, the bruises encircling his puffy left eye would hardly earn parental praise. At least Maddie wouldn’t see him like this. His train would depart hours before she’d be off work.
Lane pushed aside his suitcase that barricaded the door. His clothes were packed, ready to nab once he and Emma returned, en route to the station. One cautious step at a time they crept down the hallway. The polished wood floor felt slick beneath his socks. Navigating a corner, hindered by his shaded view, he bumped something on the narrow table against the wall. Their mother’s vase. The painted showpiece teetered. Its ghostly sparrow clung to a withered branch as Lane reached out, but Emma, lower to the ground, made the save.
He sighed and mouthed,
Thank you.
Emma beamed.
They continued down the stairs. A Japanese folk song crackled on the gramophone in the formal room. The female singer warbled solemnly about cherry blossoms in spring and a longing to return to Osaka, the city of her birth.
It was no coincidence the tune was a favorite of Lane’s mother.
From the closet in the
genkan,
their immaculate foyer, he retrieved his trench coat with minimal sound. His sister did the same with her rose-hued jacket. Their house smelled of broiled fish and bean-curd soup. The maid was preparing breakfast. Guilt eased into Lane over her wasted efforts, yet only a touch; he always did prefer pancakes and scrambled eggs.
He pulled out a brief note explaining their excursion, set it on the cabinet stocked with slippers for guests. Then he threw on his wingtips and handed Emma her saddle shoes. As she leaned over to put them on, coins rained from her pocket. This time she reached out too late. Pennies clattered on the slate floor.
“Get them later,” Lane urged in an undertone, and grabbed the door handle.
“
Doko ikun?”
Lane bristled at his mother’s inquiry. “I’m ... taking Emma to Santa Monica, to the Pleasure Pier. Remember, I mentioned it yesterday?” He risked a glance in his mother’s direction to avert suspicion. Even in her casual plum housedress, Kumiko Moritomo was the epitome of elegance. Like an actress from a kabuki theatre, never was she seen without powder and lipstick applied, her ebony hair flawlessly coiffed. A small mole dotted her lower left cheek, as dainty as her frame, underscoring the disparity of her chiseled expressions.
“Asagohan tabenasai,”
she said to Emma.
“But,
Ok
san ...
” The eight-year-old whined in earnest, an understandable reaction. What child would want to waste time eating breakfast? Cotton candy and carousel rides were at stake.
Their mother didn’t bother with a verbal admonishment. Her steely glare was enough to send the girl cowering to the kitchen. “
Ohashi o chanto tsukainasai,”
their mother called out, Emma’s daily reminder to use her chopsticks properly. Crossing the utensils, though it more easily picked up food, symbolized some nonsense involving death. One of many bad omens to avoid on the woman’s tedious list of superstitions.
She shifted to Lane and jerked her chin toward the formal room. “We have an issue to discuss,” she said in her native tongue. Despite having immigrated to America with her husband more than two decades ago, she spoke to them only in Japanese, which Lane now honored in return. The show of obedience might help at least delay a stock lecture.
“Why don’t we talk when Emma and I get back? Before the train. I did promise to take her this morning.”
“We will speak
now
.” She turned to fetch her husband from the den. Negotiating wasn’t an option.
Why couldn’t she have had a Mahjong game scheduled? Or her flower-arranging class? Either activity, required by her societal ranking, might have prevented whatever was to come.
Lane shucked off his shoes. In the formal room, he dropped into a wingback chair. The surrounding décor emanated a starkness that carried a chill. Decorative katana swords and encased figurines created a museum display of a heritage to which he felt little connection.
He bounced his heel on the ornate rug, checked his watch. Perhaps if he could guess the impending topic, he could speed things along. The laughing fit he and his sister had barely managed to contain at yesterday’s funeral seemed the most likely possibility, given that the high hats of Little Tokyo had been in attendance.
But really, who could blame them?
Pretending to grieve for their father’s predecessor, the widely despised manager of Sumitomo Bank, would have been hard enough without the suffocating incense and silly Buddhist rites. The frilly green dress their mother had forced Emma to wear—complete with an onslaught of matching gloves and bows—befit a Japanese Shirley Temple. The sole element lacking absurdity had been the priest’s droning chant. Surely the audience would have fallen asleep if not for the blinding altar of golden statues. Another prime lesson from the ancestors: gaudiness to celebrate humility.
He scoffed at the notion, just as his father entered. Although Nobu was several years short of fifty, more salt than pepper topped his lean form. His Kyoto dialect reflected the gentleness of his eyes. He wore his usual
haori,
a twenty-year-old kimono jacket, simple and humble, the same as him.
“Good morning,” he said in Japanese.
Lane proceeded in his parents’ language. “Good morning, Father.” A slight bow sent his sunglasses down the irksomely low bridge of his nose. He nudged them upward to conceal his wound.
In the corner, his mother tended to the gramophone. Her song had ended, giving way to a loop of static. As she stored the record, his father settled on the couch across from Lane and absently rubbed dried glue off his thumb. Assembling his latest model airplane had tinted his fingernails red and blue.
Lane was tempted to kick-start the discussion, an acquired habit from his collegiate council position, but refrained. His family didn’t operate as a democracy.
Finally, his mother moved to the couch and claimed her space. She folded her hands on her lap. Prim. Poised. A usual gap divided the couple, as if flanking an invisible guest.
“Your father would like to speak to you,” she prompted, a verbal tap of the gavel.
“Mmm,” his father agreed. He folded his arms and let out a deep exhale that stirred Lane’s curiosity. “It is the matchmaker in Japan. He has been working very hard for you, searching for a well-suited prospect.”
Shit,
Lane thought,
not this again.
He didn’t realize the words had slipped out of his mouth until his father narrowed his eyes. “Takeshi!” It was Lane’s birth name, spoken with more surprise than anger.
Right away, Lane regretted not mirroring the respect his father had always shown him. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to say that.”
Only to think it.
His mother tsked. “You are in your father’s house, not a dorm at your American university. If this is how you—” She stopped short. “Remove your glasses when we are addressing you.”
For a moment, Lane had forgotten he was wearing them, and, more important, why. His mother’s gaze bore through the lenses. Bracing himself, he unmasked his suddenly not-so-prideful mark, and his parents gasped in unison.
“What is this?” His father leaned toward him.
“It’s nothing. Really. It looks worse than it is.”
“Nothing?” his mother said, incredulous, but his father continued on with concern.
“What happened? Were you robbed?”
“No, no,” Lane assured him. “I was just at a club last night, when a brawl broke out.” Not the most tactful opening. Better to expound with highlights considered heroic in their culture; violence as a means of unconditional loyalty was, after all, a samurai staple. “Some chump I went to Roosevelt High with was there. He was being disrespectful, not only toward me but against all Japanese. So”—better to keep things anonymous—“a buddy of mine came to my defense. And when I tried to hold the bigger guy back—”
“Enough,” his father said. His eyes exhibited such disappointment, the remainder of the story stalled on Lane’s tongue. “I did not raise you to be a lowly street fighter. You have been afforded a better upbringing than that.”
Lane’s mother turned to her husband. Shards of ice filled her voice. “Did I not warn you? He is twenty-one years old, and because of you, he remains a child. All the idealistic views you have put into his head, to speak up when it suits him. As always, the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” To punctuate the ancient adage, she flicked her hand to the side. The gesture effectively illustrated the quiet criticism she sent the man in every look, every day. An unyielding punishment, it seemed, for trading the dreams she’d once held for his. But his dreams were also for his children. Lane had always known this without being told.
Japan was a tiny island, crammed with farmers and fishermen and conformists, all bowing blindly to an emperor roosted on an outdated throne. Here, possibilities floated like confetti. Los Angeles was the city of angels, the heart of Hollywood, where imagination bloomed and promise hung from palm trees. Hope streamed in the sunlight.
America was their home, and Lane’s need to defend that fact took over.
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make a difference in this country. My country.
Emma’s
country.” His delivery was gruffer than intended, but he wouldn’t say “sorry” this time. His sister, if no one else, deserved a safe place to plant the seeds of dreams and watch them grow.
Lane’s father straightened. He rested his hands firmly on his spread knees in a contemplative, Buddha-like pose. Outside of his job, his greatest displays of strength were reserved for these kinds of moments. Moderating. Keeping the ground beneath their family level.
“Your mother is right,” he said evenly, and continued before Lane could argue. “You are a man now. You must settle down. Carrying another’s needs on your shoulders will focus you on your future.” In banking, he meant. A baby rattle made of an abacus had established the reference since Lane’s birth. “Therefore,” he added, “we are pleased the matchmaker has found you a suitable bride, and he will make the necessary arrangements.”
Bride.
Arrangements.
The sentence replayed in Lane’s mind, pulling him back to the original subject.
“She comes from noble lineage,” his father explained. “The matchmaker has ruled out all the usual imperfections—tuberculosis, barrenness, and such. Her family’s financial troubles make your pairing a sensible one. Her younger sister has found a match as well, so you must marry first. The family will sail over from Tokyo in time for the new year.”
“Hopefully,” his mother muttered, “our son will look presentable by then.”
Lane scarcely registered the gouge. His mind was too consumed with the timetable his father had laid out. The rush of it all, the solidity. “But—what about school? I still have a whole semester left.”
“She will live with us after the wedding,” his father said with a small nod to his wife, as if crediting the source of the solution. “Once you graduate, you may make other plans if you wish.”
Lane’s thoughts moved in a rapid tumble, blending into a mass of confusion. From that blur emerged a simple voice of reason.
Tell them the truth. Confess, as you’ve wanted to all along.
Before he could reconsider, he tossed out his protest. “I can’t. I’m in love with somebody else.”
Tension of a new level swept through the room, conquering every inch of space. No one moved. No one spoke.
Lane wondered if anyone was breathing.

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