The other Sutton women crowded around Yoko, eager to help her. Only Lily hung back, her brow furrowed, looking at Yoko as though she understood that her stomach was not the only problem.
Yoko was adamant, and eventually, Esme gave up her anxious prodding and helped her gather her things. Yoko insisted they eat the red-bean pie, and Esme looked at it nervously, as though she’d never seen anything like it before. Yoko didn’t care what any of them thought anymore. With her coat on, she hugged her son goodbye and, in Japanese, told him she’d see him later. His eyes were still on the screen, where the football game raged on.
When Yoko returned home, she sat on her sofa with one of Kendall’s old laptops on her thighs. The snow outside swept thick and fast through the darkness. Via several online searches, Yoko finally discovered the website for her old tennis coach—a man she hadn’t seen since she’d fired him to work with Coach Reynolds. On the website was his photograph, updated to show him in his mid-sixties with salt-and-pepper hair, along with prices and a list of both past and current clients. Yoko’s photograph from the early nineties was included, her face fierce, her eyes like an animal’s. There was also a phone number.
It was twelve hours ahead in Osaka. When it struck 7:30 p.m. on Nantucket, Yoko decided she couldn’t wait any longer and dialed him. She wanted to make sure she nabbed him before he had his first lesson of the day.
It nearly brought Yoko to tears to hear someone greet her in Japanese on the phone. “Good morning,” he said. “How may I help you?”
At first, Yoko couldn’t speak. How was it possible that this was the man who’d coached her from her fledgling tennis years, all the way to her first Wimbledon? How was it possible that she’d abandoned him? He’d been a sort of father figure to her.
“Hello,” she said finally. “It’s Yoko.”
With that, her old coach burst with excitement. “Yoko! You don’t know how many years I’ve longed to hear from you. Where are you now? Are you still living in America?”
Yoko closed her eyes. She was overwhelmed with generosity and what felt like love for this older man. She told him where she was and what she’d been up to, that she had a son and a house on Nantucket Island. He told her about his recent successes in the coaching world, but “I never had another player like you, Yoko! You were one of a kind.”
But he wasn’t finished. “You are still celebrated all over Osaka. I see your photograph a few times a day. You brought great joy and pride to our city.”
Yoko’s throat felt thick with sorrow. She didn’t know what to say.
“When will you be back in Japan?” her old coach asked. “We must get together and eat! Oh, but I must warn you. I’m a very old man these days.”
“I’m old, too,” Yoko said.
“Not as old as me,” her coach said.
Before she got off the phone, Yoko apologized for leaving her coach behind and for going to the United States to train. Her old coach laughed. “You knew just as well as I that I couldn’t help you anymore,” he said. “We’d reached our limits together. You had to run off and see what you could do elsewhere. It was the smart thing! Your parents knew it, too.”
Yoko stretched herself out on the sofa and stared at the ceiling, listening to the winds howl against this overwhelming house. She’d spent every minute of her time in the United States feeling frightened and tired and meek. But her old coach—and her friends in Osaka—didn’t think of her like that. What if she went back? Would she see herself the way they saw her? Could she cancel out all this darkness and find herself again?
Chapter Twenty-One
It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and Lily was over at her grandparents’ place, playing board games with the Suttons and Liam, finding beauty in the coziness of being together as a snowstorm swirled outside. This was what Thanksgiving weekend was all about: family, connections, and plenty of food. And it wasn’t that they’d focused only on her family. Last night, she and Liam had gone out to dinner with a few of Liam’s old friends from Nantucket, men and women who had big-time careers in Manhattan and Los Angeles, who spoke excitedly about Liam’s upcoming television show and wedding. Lily was pretty sure they liked her, although they’d hardly asked her a single question and had focused intently on Liam, on what he’d been up to since they last saw him, on how good he looked.
Now, as Grandma Esme howled with fake sorrow, Liam was announced the winner of Monopoly.
“I almost got you!” Esme said, shaking her fist.
Liam laughed like a cartoon villain and waved his fake cash in the air. “I haven’t lost that game since I was fifteen,” he explained. “My dad taught me everything I know.”
Lily felt her smile wane. Slowly, she shifted forward in her chair and helped her grandma and aunt clean up the Monopolypieces and board. By the time the table was clear, Aunt Bethany had suggested the next game—one more accommodating for her younger children—and Grandpa Victor was recruiting his soon-to-be adopted son, Kade, for a round.
But Liam got up from the table and announced he had to head home. “I have a few interviews tomorrow morning,” he explained, “and I hate that my mom’s home alone tonight.”
“It’s cold out there,” Grandma Esme said, getting up to fill a Tupperware with sweets for Liam and his mother. “I hope you and your mom get cozy tonight!”
“What’s the plan?” Aunt Valerie asked.
“She likes to watch old Japanese films,” Liam said. “I like them, too. They remind me of my childhood.”
Lily decided to head back to the house with Liam. She was frightened by how much she didn’t want to go with him and decided to push through it, forcing herself. She said goodbye to all the Suttons, donned her coat, and hurried through the snow to the car. Liam drove slowly, tapping his palms on the steering wheel, until they reached the mansion. Despite the lateness of the hour, every single window was black. Lily had never seen it like that.
“Did your mom go somewhere?” she asked.
“Where would she go?” Liam parked the car in the garage, closed the garage door behind them, and hurried inside, flicking on lights as he went. “Mom?” he called, before switching to the Japanese version of “mother.”
But something in Lily’s chest pounded with recognition. As she followed Liam inside and inspected the kitchen, living room, and study, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. Everything was clean; everything had its special place. The television gleamed, and the plants frothed from their pots. The fridge was just as stocked as it had been the last time they’d been here, with a mix of Japanese ingredients, vegetables, and things Lily had pickedup for herself from the store. But Yoko wasn’t there. It was almost as though she’d evaporated.
