Once we were back in Matsue though, you, like the boatman, would not speak to me. We had had disagreements, minor and stemming from the day-to-day nature of living under the same roof, but never a raised word and never a raised hand. I did not even recognize your silence as anger, at first. I thought you were writing about the caves and thus cocooned in the elsewhere of your thoughts. The caves, I must admit, had been worth the difficulties of the journey. The tiny footprints in the sand were exactly as you had been promised. The heap of straw sandals left for the spirits of those children, by the pilgrims who had preceded us, haunted us more. The world of the living and the world of the unseen overlapped in those caves, and as the boat made its way out again we thought about all the tiny ones who would not.

When you awoke, still silent, four mornings in a row, I apologized for your disappointment. I thought that your ire toward me had to do with the missed opportunity to swim in that hidden, sun-dappled pool.

“You lied,” you said.

“Yes,” I admitted.

“I know the Japanese word for ‘ghost,’ Sweet Wife. The boatman said it, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Then why did you say ‘shark’ to me?” you asked.

I lowered my eyes.

“You know me, Sweet Wife,” you continued.

“Yes.”

“I want a ghost more than I want a swim.”

“Yes, Husband.”

“It is a shame not to hear a story, Sweet Wife.”

“It is, Husband.”

I would see the shadow in your eye again, Yakumo, in the village of Kaka-ura, and a year later in the town of Uragō on one of the Oki islands. You continued to believe, even when the crowd there became a mob and a policeman had to be summoned to keep the peace.

A body is a body, gentle and brutal, Yakumo.

With time, your anger toward me departed, and I welcomed the words of Herun-san’s language back to the house in the shadows of Matsue Castle, where it had kept that newly formed, sparsely populated country running smoothly. Yao, the maid, was soon to bid it farewell though, as she did not wish to move with the household to Kumamoto City. We left the bush warbler with her, as he would have died brokenhearted without her. Hinoko had found a feral mate and departed with him months ago.

On the fifteenth day of November, 1891, the 24th year of Meiji, your students, more than two hundred of them, escorted us to the wharf in Matsue, where your fellow teachers were among those who had gathered to bid us safe passage to Kumamoto City. Foster Grandfather, foster Father, and foster Mother were there too, but soon they would embark on the same journey in order to be with us again. Yao was there. Kamata was there. The jinrikisha men who waited in front of the Tomitaya were there. Tsune, Onobu, and even Oman were there. I searched the faces for Nishida-san’s. Only illness would have prevented him from saying his farewells. Even on his better days, his fits of coughing brought with them droplets of blood. I saw them when we three were in Kitzuki that summer.