Laura Rowland - The Iris Fan

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Sano didn’t offer the excuse that Yanagisawa had attacked first. Nor did he say he was sorry he’d killed Yanagisawa. That would be a lie, and Yoshisato would know and feel insulted.

Yoshisato accepted Sano’s qualified but genuine sympathy with a stoic nod. In the awkward silence, Sano looked around the room and noticed a trunk and a knapsack in the corner and Yoshisato’s cloak thrown over them. “Where are you going?”

“Back to Osaka.”

“To your gang?”

“Yes. My mother is coming with me.” Yoshisato slid open the partition. In the adjacent room Lady Someko knelt by a trunk, folding clothes into it. She looked up at Sano, smiled, and bowed. “It’ll be a fresh start for her.”

“You don’t have to leave Edo,” Sano said. “Lord Ienobu is going to pardon everyone who fought in the war against him.”

“You mean, you’re pardoning us.” Yoshisato’s eyes glinted with amusement; he was among those who knew what had happened to Lord Ienobu. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody that you’re the real shogun. But I am leaving. It’s for the best.”

“I came to offer you a position in the regime.”

“You don’t need to buy me off. You’ve nothing to fear from me-I won’t swear out a vendetta against you. Yanagisawa’s death was really his own fault.” Bitter sorrow twisted Yoshisato’s mouth. “He had a grudge against you, and he just couldn’t let it go.”

Sano was impressed that Yoshisato had the insight to realize it and not simply blame Sano. “I’m not trying to buy you off.” Sano was trying to assuage his guilt about hurting Yoshisato, whom he now respected more than ever. “The regime needs talented, capable men like you.”

Yoshisato’s thin smile said he saw through Sano’s ploy. “I’m honored, but no thanks.”

“Please consider it,” Sano urged. “Your life as a gang boss is bound to be violent and short.”

“And my life at court wouldn’t be?” Yoshisato uttered a sarcastic laugh that sounded eerily like Yanagisawa’s. “I saw what politics did to my father. They brought out the worst in him. I’m not following in his footsteps.”

Sano remembered Lord Ienobu saying that Yoshisato had no stomach for politics. It hadn’t been true then, but now Yoshisato had made up his mind and wasn’t going to change it. And perhaps he was right: Politics and power could destroy, and Yoshisato might have more in common with Yanagisawa than mannerisms. Blood was blood.

“Let me at least do something for you,” Sano said.

“All I want is this: Just leave me alone. I promise not to hurt you. Whatever I do, look the other way.”

That was a lot for the boss of a criminal gang to ask, but Sano said, “Very well.”

* * *

When Sano returned to the Mori estate, Akiko ran ahead of him through the guest quarters, exclaiming joyously, “Papa’s back!”

More nervous than when he’d faced the assembly at Edo Castle, Sano entered the chamber where Reiko and Masahiro, and Midori and her children knelt by an oblong wooden box wrapped in white cloth and a table that held smoking incense burners. Sano already knew Hirata was dead; he’d heard it from Marume, whom he’d just visited in the sick ward. The others were silent while Sano stood by the coffin, bowed his head, and said a final, unspoken good-bye to his friend. A sense of peace alleviated Sano’s grief. Death was better than living trapped with a ghost inside a paralyzed body. Sano and Hirata had already said everything that was necessary. Sano raised his head; his gaze met Reiko’s.

Her eyes reflected his uncertainty and discomposure. Sano was hardly aware of walking with her to their chamber; everyone else seemed to recede from them while their surroundings changed as in a theater set moved by hidden stagehands. Sano spoke first rather than let her say what he dreaded hearing-now that the crisis was over, she was going to leave him. As he explained what had happened at Edo Castle, his gaze moved between her impassive face and her bandaged arm, which symbolized all the ways in which he’d brought her pain.

Why had she defended him against Yanagisawa? Surely not because she cared about him, but because he was her children’s father, because of duty toward him, not love.

When he was finished, Reiko spoke in a toneless voice. “You and your honor won.”

She seemed dismayed rather than gladdened by his reversal of fortune. She saw his victory as a victory over her. That was how she thought he saw it. But nothing could have been farther from how he really did.

His honor had stood up to every test. By faithfully serving it, he’d gained power beyond imagination. But the spoils of his victory were devalued by what he’d lost-the woman he loved in spite of all their differences, the wife who’d risked her own life to save his. He felt as defeated as if he, not Yanagisawa, had been killed in their fight. The dam that contained his emotions crumbled. Anguish flooded Sano. He wished he had been killed, rather than live without Reiko. All he could do was give her what she wanted, what he owed her after ignoring her wishes for so long.

“I’m moving back to Edo Castle. If you don’t want to come with me-if you don’t want to be my wife anymore…” Sano blinked and swallowed; he was going to cry. But although it devastated him, he would let Reiko go. “I’ll give you a divorce. Pick a place you’d like to live, and I’ll build you a house there and support you.” Sano’s heart broke as he thought of the children. He couldn’t take Akiko from her mother, and Masahiro surely wanted to be free of his father’s demands. “Masahiro and Akiko can live with you. None of you will ever have to see me again.”

Reiko stared as if at a tornado whirling toward her. Sano was too distraught to analyze her reaction. Tears ran down his face; sobs heaved his chest. He was as good as shogun, and he must pay the price. “You’ll never again have to take second place to my honor.”

Honor was all he would have when his family was gone.

“Is that what you think I want?” Reiko cried. Horror was written so clearly on her face that Sano couldn’t miss it. “No, that’s what you want-never to see me again!” She was crying, too. “It was too much to hope for, that you would still love me after I’ve criticized and blamed you. Why should you, just because I still love you?” Her expression scorned her own hope. “Don’t worry-I won’t fight you this time.” She held her head high, wiped her streaming eyes on her sleeve, and gathered her pride around her like a torn cloak. “I’ll go.”

“What?” Sano said. “No! That’s not what I want!”

Confused and astounded, they stared at each other. Reiko said, “Do you mean-” and Sano said, “I want you with me. Because I love you. I want us to start over.” She gasped, smiling through her tears, and nodded. Overjoyed that she still wanted to be with him, astonished that love had survived their ordeals, he felt as if he had the world at his command.

Sano slowly moved toward Reiko; she slowly moved toward him. Her eyes reflected his caution as they came close. After years of avoided contact, they’d forgotten how to be lovers, but their bodies remembered. Reiko’s waist fitted into the curve of Sano’s arm. His cheek rested against her hair, her cheek on its familiar place against his heart. They were careful not to touch the wound on her arm, his palm. Eyes closed, they wept as they held each other.

It was a line crossed that Sano had thought they would never be able to cross.

As happy as he was that they could make a fresh start, Sano didn’t want it founded on the illusion that love erased everything that had kept them apart. He had to be brutally honest with Reiko, with himself. He sniffled, cleared his throat, then said, “I have to tell you: There are people who don’t want me controlling the regime. I can’t promise you and the children safety or prosperity or peace.”