He doubted me, Yakumo.

Kazuo then wanted to know why I was nowhere else in your book. He asked this of me as if it were proof that I did not exist, that this body was not of bones, of flesh, and of his same blood. He pointed to the pages where you wrote about the sea caves, a locale that he and his siblings knew well from the stories that I also had told them, particularly when they had misbehaved or been ungrateful for the blessings of their lives. When Kazuo was very young, he had wept inconsolably over the tiny straw sandals, as you had done when you saw them with your own eye, Yakumo. Kazuo at fifteen now demanded to know why Papa wrote that a jinrikisha man, not Mama, had been Papa’s traveling companion on that boat.

“I am the jinrikisha man.”

The correction came from these lips before I could stop it, Yakumo.

Kazuo laughed out loud. Then he apologized to Mama for the disrespect.

He took a moment to consider the claim and asked if Mama was Papa’s “companion” at the Yaegaki Shrine.

“I am the companion.”

“Were you the ‘charming Japanese girl’ who told Papa about how a doll can acquire a soul?” he asked. “She is in the chapter about Kitzuki, the one that Papa dated the twentieth of July, 1891.”

“I am the charming Japanese girl.”

Yakumo, you had misremembered. You and Nishida-san arrived in Kitzuki on the twenty-sixth of July. I arrived two days later. “Our honeymoon” was what followed.

Kazuo was not satisfied. He went through the pages of your book again, reading them anew.

“You were Papa’s ‘attendant’ and ‘interpreter’ at Hamamura?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You were Papa’s ‘companion’ and ‘friend’ in Uragō?”

“Yes.”

“‘Akira’ who traveled to Matsue with Papa?”

“No.”

Yakumo, you included Manabe Akira, the Imperial University man, who had traveled with you to Matsue in the pages of your book? I am certain that he was pleased to be remembered for the companionship that he had provided you. Such courtesy would have pleased me too, Husband.

“‘Kinjuro, the ancient gardener’ in Matsue?” Kazuo asked.

I smiled upon hearing that long-ago name. “I was not, but I was the interpreter for Papa and him,” I answered. “Kinjuro,” I said, “was the gardener at the house in the shadows of Matsue Castle, but he was not ancient. He was in the prime of his life, and probably why the maid Yao did not want to leave Matsue behind.”

“Why did Papa write that Kinjuro was bald and his head looked like ‘a ball of ivory’?”

“Did he?”

“Yes.”

“What was Papa writing about, Kazuo?”

“Papa asked Kinjuro about souls and how many of them the gardener believed that he had.”

I did not remember that exchange, Yakumo, but I did not want Kazuo to doubt you. A sting worse than nettles, I know.

“Kazuo, on the subject of souls, whom do you believe, an old man at the end of his life or a young man, hale and handsome?”