Chapter 10: The Sealed Suite

On the first of December, at six in the morning, Sakura peeled the lawyer's paper seal off Haruko's door.

It was a thin strip of white paper with a red stamp.

It had held the door shut for three months.

Yuzu stood beside her in her chef's jacket, with her arms wrapped around herself.

"Open it," she said.

Sakura slid the door.

The room smelled of camphor and old tea.

It was a long suite of three rooms, the best in the inn.

A low desk stood by the window and a family altar in the alcove.

A grey cardigan hung over the back of the desk chair.

Haruko had worn it every winter morning.

Sakura stood on the threshold and could not make her feet move.

For three months she had been the okami, giving orders, bowing, smiling and signing.

She had not once been in this room.

Yuzu's hand found hers.

She did not say anything.

She laced their fingers together and squeezed, hard, until Sakura could breathe again.

They went in together.

There were photographs on the altar.

An old woman in a navy kimono, white hair in a bun, smiling at somebody out of frame.

A small black-and-white picture of the same woman at twenty-eight.

She had her arm around a young cook in a white apron.

Yuzu stopped.

"That's her," she said, very quietly. "That's my grandmother."

The young cook was laughing with her whole face.

She had Yuzu's round chin.

Sakura's heart turned over.

"She's so young," Yuzu said.

"They both are."

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