Chapter 15: What Fumiko Never Said

The next night Yuzu did not come to bed.

Sakura found her at midnight in the dark kitchen.

Yuzu sat on the floor with her back against the cold steel and the green cloth in her lap.

She sat down beside her, and said nothing.

After a while Yuzu spoke to the dark.

"My grandmother made one dish every New Year's Eve, her whole life. River trout with sansho miso. It was always wrong."

"Wrong how?"

"She never said. She'd taste it and shake her head and throw it out. Then she cooked it again the next year."

Sakura's chest hurt.

"She was doing the sauce half and the grill half. By herself."

"Fifty-six times." Yuzu pressed her palm over her mouth.

"I stood beside her for ten of those Decembers, and I never asked why."

"You couldn't have known."

"I know. I read the letter." Yuzu's voice broke.

"I will never get to tell her that it wasn't wrong. It was only half a dish."

Sakura took her face in both hands.

Yuzu's eyes were red and swollen and furious.

"I miss her," she said. "I miss her so much, and I'm so angry, and I don't know what to do with my hands."

"I know what to do with them."

Sakura stood and held out her hand.

Yuzu took it, and Sakura led her through the dark halls to the attendant room, and slid the door shut.

She did not turn on the lamp.

She undressed Yuzu by the light of the paper window, one button of the chef's jacket at a time.

She had never done anything so slowly.

Yuzu stood very still, shaking a little.

"Lie down," Sakura said softly. "Let me take care of you."

Yuzu lay on the futon on her back, naked and small, with her arms flung over her head.

Sakura undressed too, and knelt over her.

She kissed her mouth, and her jaw, and the salt tracks on her cheeks.

She kissed the scarred forearms, one burn at a time, the old white ones and the pink new ones.

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