Milton looked down at the photograph of the child. Yamato was younger, he thought, but not by much. Kenji might have lost his mother, but he still had his dad. Yamato was not so fortunate. His father was dead and his mother soon would be, one way or another. Milton doubted whether there would be any reason for Takashi to keep Yamato without the controlling influence that the child could exert over Sakura. The best Yamato could hope for was to reach adulthood with his wits about him and then try to escape the wreckage of his upbringing. But Milton knew that the child would need incredibly good fortune to make it even that far.

Daitaro sighed. “We all have a rock bottom, right? When things can’t get worse. That’s mine. It took something as bad as that to realise that I had no control over my drinking and what the consequences would be if I didn’t do something about it. My boy could’ve been dead. Or orphaned. I went to my first meeting the next day and I’ve been every day since. And here we are. One day at a time, right? I feel better now—like I have a plan. I feel like maybe I’ve got a chance. Look—I don’t know you, and I know you’re probably not interested in what I have to say, but it feels like I have to say it anyway. I doubt the reasons you stopped drinking have changed. We get challenges to our sobriety all the time. I wanted a drink last week and it took a meeting for me to see why that was a bad idea. Maybe instead of sitting here in a bar with a whisky—maybe you should find a meeting, too. There’s one in Shinjuku later tonight. I could tell you where it is?”

Daitaro looked at Milton expectantly. Milton looked down at the glass and the brown liquid inside and exhaled. He ran his finger across the sobriety chip. He thought of Sakura and Yamato and knew that they needed him, and that he would be no use to anyone if he allowed himself to take a drink. He flipped the wallet with the picture of the boy closed and slid it back across the counter. He reached into his pocket for his bankroll and peeled off enough notes to pay for the untouched whisky.

“Pour it away.”

“What about the meeting?”

“Maybe tomorrow. We’ll see.”

111

Takashi looked at Sakura. His niece had her head down, looking at the floor by her feet. He found his thoughts jumping to his brother. Thinking of Hachirō caused the same flicker of anger that it always did, and he took a moment to compose himself before he addressed her.

“Look at me.”

She raised her head. She had been weeping, her eyes red.