Toshio refastened his robe around his waist. “Haruto owes me no debt. It is I who owe him. He has but a fraction of the lifehe was meant to live. My failure stole the years he was supposed to have with you.”
“It was not your fault, Otou-san,” Hana said, her voice hard. “It was my mother’s. She was the one who was selfish. She did not just steal Haruto’s life. She stole yours.”
“That was never her intention.”
“I do not care what her intentions were. Why did you even want to find her, Otou-san? A monster belongs with monsters.”
“Toshio?” a woman’s voice called from behind Hana.
Hana turned. The woman she had known only from one faded photograph stood in front of her. Hana staggered into Keishin. He clasped her by the shoulders, keeping her steady. “Okaa-san…”
“Toshio?” Chiyo’s eyes flew from Hana to Keishin. “What’s going on? Who are these people?”
Toshio led Chiyo to a seat. “You must be tired. You should sit down.”
Chiyo lowered herself onto a floor cushion and smiled up at Toshio. “Are they clients? The pawnshop has not had any clients in so long. But you are here now. That is why business is better.”
“They are not clients, Chiyo,” Toshio said. “This is Keishin.”
Keishin bowed.
“And this is Hana,” Toshio said gently.
Chiyo tilted her chin. “Hana?”
Hana pulled her shoulders back, refusing to bow. “Yes.”
Chiyo smiled. “You have the same name as our daughter. May I offer you some tea?”
“Chiyo…” Toshio took a seat next to her and clasped her hand. “Sheisour daughter.”
Chiyo laughed. “Forgive my husband. He is confused. Our daughter is still a baby.”
Toshio took her hand. “No, Chiyo. Hana is not a child anymore. She has grown up.”
“That is not possible. I remember Hana. I know who my daughter is. I have told all her brothers and sisters about her. I was holding her in my arms when—” Chiyo yanked her hand away from Toshio. She wrapped her arms around herself, rocking in her seat. “Hana is a baby. You are wrong. Hana is a baby.” She pointed at Hana. “And you are a liar. Liar! Get out of my house! Get out!”
Toshio hurried over to Hana. “She is just in shock. I will explain everything to her.”
Hana shook her head. “I should just leave. You were right. Coming here was a mistake.”
“No. Don’t go. She doesn’t recognize you, but she will. Ipromise. Wait in your room. I will talk to her. I will make her understand. Please, Hana. She is still your mother.”
—
It was strange being in her old room again, surrounded by things that were supposed to be familiar but were not. It was like looking at her mother’s face. The mother she found was both the woman in the picture in her head and a stranger. In this version of the pawnshop, her room was still the space where everything that did not have a place to live anywhere else in the pawnshop found a home. She ran her fingers over stacks of books and overflowing boxes of odds and ends, feeling an affinity with things that didn’t belong anywhere.
“Are you all right?” Keishin asked. “I’m sorry that she didn’t recognize you.”
“I did not recognize her either. She is like those creatures outside. She looks like my mother, but she isn’t. I will never forgive her for what she did to Haruto and my father. I wish I never came here. I was a fool.”
“Loving your parents and wanting them to be safe doesn’t make you a fool.”
“It does when all this time, I should have been caring for only one of them. My father never hid my mother’s crime from me. I knew that she was a thief, and yet I didn’t care. I justified her actions. I told myself that she did not deserve to be punished for what she did and that the Shiikuin were cruel. They were not. They were too kind. My mother has a life here. A family. A home. Haruto will have none of that. And my father, he is too blind to see that she is stealing the little time that he has left.”
Toshio burst into the room, his face pale. “Hana…”
“What’s wrong?” Hana stood up.
