“So where am I going to live?” Mariko demanded.
“Doesn’t your bank have a dormitory?” Richard sounded nervous.
“That’s for full-time workers. I’m trying to get them to give me more hours, but…” Mariko trailed off, looking like she was going to cry.
“As boring as you find this neighborhood, there’s no reason you can’t stay with us a while longer. Richard, you aren’t quitting Nichiyu right away?” I asked.
“Nope. We’ve got to save up for the key money and realtor fees, and I don’t want to send old Katoh off the deep end just yet.”
“As I told you before, Mariko, you’re welcome to sleep in my room,” I offered.
“But Mariko and I are living in harmony.” Richard squeezed her hand. “We lie head-to-toe on our futons so no one gets tempted, and she tells me Japanese ghost stories!”
Mariko showed her dimples, and I had an uneasy feeling her ardor had not completely cooled.
“I’ll be moving out,” I said, my mind made up. “I have to go to Shiroyama but when I get back, Hugh will probably have returned to his apartment to convalesce. I want to be there.”
“Well, it is centrally heated. I can’t blame you,” Richard said. “Will you have us over for dinner in the fabulous white kitchen?”
“As long as you don’t mind facing the paparazzi outside the building.”
“No! Really?” Richard had loved giving quotes to the tabloid reporters, and was miffed when all they had wanted were snapshots of me.
The phone rang as we were finishing breakfast.
“I can hardly understand the way these people speak in Boston, but I think I’ve located one of the men you’re looking for,” my father.
“Which son?”
“Roderick Evans. He seemed excited, actually, to hear that my daughter in Tokyo needed to contact him on a matter regarding his father.”
“He doesn’t know what’s coming.” I worried aloud. “To find out one’s father had a second family in Japan…how can I tell him?”
“You’ll be fine. Rei,” my father said. “Trust yourself.”
Trust yourself. I brushed my teeth and walked around straightening things as I willed myself to call Roderick Evans. I wrote out a list of questions. I did fifty sit-ups and drank three glasses of water. Finally, I dialed Boston.
“Mr. Roderick Evans? This is Rei Shimura calling from Japan…”
“My late father’s favorite place in the world! I tell you, I’m sorry he isn’t here to talk to somebody living there. Call me Rod, will you?” Evans’s voice was warm and free of suspicion. My father must have done some job on him.
“I’m calling because I saw a copy of his obituary. It made its way over to the Navy community, some old chiefs saw it…”
“The Veterans’ Association, right? I mailed them the notice just as my father would have wanted. So, do you want information on his retirement years for the military newspaper or something?”
“Well, I’d love to hear about what happened.” I tried to stay evasive.
“He came back home and got married to Mom—the former Peg Miller, as the obit said—and he bought his own garage, had a real good business with that.”
A garage didn’t sound like big money to me. “Did he spend any time in Texas?”
“Nope. Well, he had a buddy who moved there. I think he visited once, but maybe that was for a mechanics’ convention. Why?”
“Well, there are some papers here…I work in the historic preservation field and have come across some letters without a proper signature. I have reason to believe they might be from your father.”
“We have a fax at the garage. Just send it and I’ll give you an answer Monday morning.”
“The fact is it’s rather sensitive. I was actually hoping you could send me his handwriting sample.”
“I don’t know about that.” His voice became more guarded. “What are you really looking for?”
“I’m trying to determine whether your father was connected to a Japanese woman.” I paused. “She was half-American, actually. Her name was Setsuko Ozawa Nakamura.”
“So what?”
“Well, she had no father listed on her birth certificate.” I held my breath, hoping he’d stay on the line.
There was a brief silence, and then Rod cleared his throat. “Are you trying to say my dad was her father? Of all the…I should just hang up.” He didn’t.
“I don’t know for sure, but someone at the Veterans’ Association thought maybe it could be him. I’m really sorry.” I gulped.