Ryann
“A voice mail from Carmandy? Messy ass Mandy . . . called . . . me?” I mutter, staring at my cellphone, which Ryoichi had finally returned to me. “That’s the last thing I need after Ryoichi’s antics yesterday.” I’d done my best to clear my head. I’d slept on a bed of clouds and breathed in eucalyptus mist as I showered, so I didn’t expect my chest to tighten quite like this. Mandy is Essence’s friend. Not mine. And she’s friggen . . . calling . . . me?
I won’t admit that I’ve envied Mandy’s ability to tell it like it is over the years. But Messy Mandy can go too far in certain instances. Now seems to be one of those times.
Her recorded rant comes loud and clear through the receiver. “Girl, if you don’t give some-damn-body a call within the next twenty-four hours, I’m postingthepicture of you all over my blog, all over social media, everywhere. You know the one I’m referring to. Essence is looking for you, girl!”
I shove my fingers into my hair, lips pursed. Yeah, I can imagine the picture Messy might share on social media with a call-to-action, begging for my current whereabouts. That heifa snapped a shot of me falling out of a Land Rover in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa. Instead of a word of caution as she was exiting the next SUV, the witchy witch snapped a picture. I landed in elephant manure because my girls found the cheapest tour guide during our excursion to the savanna. The dimmest tour guide too. With golden plains as far as the eye could see, the dude parked right next to a pile of shit.
I shake my head at the thought and glimpse the time of Mandy’s voice mail threat. It was right around the time yesterday when I’d broken my vow to myself about not allowing Ryoichi to touch me before we fully understood each other. We were on the bridge. One moment, I was explaining myself. The next moment . . .
I’m getting hot and bothered now just thinking about it.
I tug into a blouse. “Well, I have a couple of hours before Mandy calls out the calvary as a favor to my bestie. Poor Essey.”
I lacked the guts to listen to Essence’s messages and texts. Hearing her concerned voice would break me. And even though I’m being held against my will, I’m fickle like the girls in my class. I can’t hurt Ryoichi by blowing the whistle on his operation and telling anyone he brought me here. Damn, I’m incapable of offering Essence another version of the truth because my lying is worse than this one student that I had a few years back. He stuttered like a bobblehead straight out of the packaging.
I leave my room, determined to tell Ryoichi that he’s stubborn, doesn’t listen, and his opinion doesn’t matter. And in a few hours, Mandy’s creating a social media campaign to find me. Plus, chances are good that Essence may have already gone to the Embassy in Greece.
* * *
Not long afterI leave my room, I am given directions to Ryoichi’s bedroom. After a hard knock, I peek inside only to find every luxurious trinket is ideally situated. I ask around again, and a servant tells me he’s at the cherry blossom tree in the northernmost part of the property.
Follow the mountains, the manservant had said.
Another half-hour into my search, Umito calls me from one of the winding bridges. His pace is hurried.
“I’m not trying to escape,” I mumble.Or fight you. But I will.
“I was told you were in search of Ryoichi.”
I nod.
His hand sweeps out as it had in Greece, and I grimace at the thought of how polite he’s been. If I were him, I would’ve silently watched from a distance. Umito’s pace stalls as we meet a slight decline in the bridge. On the crest of the next hill, my captor sits on his knees beneath a cherry blossom tree. He removes a dipper from a bucket, washing a marble headstone. I recall an old chapter ofThe Red Dragon, where the yakuza boss showed his daughter’s headstone the same respect.
Heartbroken, Tatsun had watched from a distance, imagining that his hands were completing the process because he was the young woman’s lover. The Japanese custom moved me. So many times in our society, we forget about the ones who loved us, prayed for us, and paved the way so that we could have a better future. So many times, our ancestors’ tombstones are engulfed by weeds, and as I ponder this, I understand that they’re no longer there. Their souls are now present with God, but still, the act of remembering them should be more important, especially the ones who imparted wisdom. As Ryoichi plucks one of the petals from his freshly cut flowers, my heart constricts in my chest for him.
Unable to take my eyes off him, I murmur, “May I ask who that is?”
“His mother. Ryoichi was fourteen when she died at the hands of his stepfather.” His mouth tugs into a tight frown for a moment as if contemplating how much more to share. “His stepfather intended to sell Ryoichi as a servant,” Umito clears his throat, “of a sexual nature. He had debts to pay.”
“But Ryoichi was a kid.”
“Yes. It didn’t matter. Ryoichi’s mother only had one thing she would never agree to with her husband, and that was any harm coming to her son. Ryoichi vindicated her, however. That’s why he killed his stepfather. Once he had the means in the future, he removed her grave and brought her here. To his,” Umito pauses and then says, “yourhome.”
My home? Why has Ryoichi literally told everyone this is my home? Damn it.
Still, a stunned silence falls over me. I’m wrapped up in his mother’s story, her death. I look to Umito, whose eyes warm like pools of wisdom as if implying that this was what he’d endeavored to share all along, back in the room. That Ryoichi Ziatso had only meant to save me. That his thoughts are always with his mother. I touch my eye, which has healed. Sorrow weaves into my tone, and I murmur, “Tragic.”
“Yes, her entire life was one calamity after the other, I’m afraid. My boss’s father was robbed and pushed in front of a bullet train when he was just a child. His mother married an abusive gambler, who, at the time, had luck on his side. But if you run after luck, your shoes will wear thin.”
* * *
I didn’t interruptRyoichi’s process earlier. I only watched a few more moments after Umito bowed out. Past events have flooded me with sorrow. And I reminisced over the conviction oozing from Ryoichi every time I explained my situation. He couldn’t hear me. The way his world upended at his stepfather’s hands overshadowed any logic I could explain.
Heart snug in the column of my throat, I enter the dining room, where Ryoichi sits on the floor. He sets the jade chopsticks on the chopstick rest. “Ah, I didn’t expect you’d desire my company so soon.”
His surprise causes me to chuckle, and the outrage I feel on his behalf falls just beneath the surface. As I descend into a sitting position on the bamboo mat across from him, I ask, “What were your plans, Ryoichi? A man like you doesn’t just give up.”