Chapter 7: The Name on the Stone

"Then I'll be there at dawn," Fumika said out loud.

Genzo's eyebrows went up.

He had meant it for her ear alone, and she had answered it for the whole hall.

"Be wherever you like," he said, smiling for the household. "It's your mother's grave."

He bowed to Ibuki and went out to his car with his priests.

Ibuki waited until the car had gone through the gate.

Then he let go of the pillar and sat down on the step very suddenly.

"What did he say to you?"

Fumika told him.

He was quiet for a moment.

"What time is dawn?" he asked.

"You're not coming. You fell over at supper."

"I'm driving," he said. "I can fall over in the car."

He drove them down the mountain at four in the morning, in the dark.

Suzuna had thrown a rug in through the window, and he kept it over his knees.

The Hinase graves lie behind the shrine, under the old camphor trees, on a slope of grey stones.

When they came up the back path, Fumika heard the chisel before she saw anything.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

A mason in a headcloth was kneeling at the family stone with a lantern beside him.

He had already cut away the first character of her mother's name.

He hadn't waited for dawn.

Genzo stood a little way off in his white robes, his hands folded in his sleeves.

The morning worshippers were coming up the front steps to ring the shrine bell, as they did every day.

A dozen of them had stopped at the edge of the graves to stare.

Fumika walked between the stones and stood in front of her mother's name.

The mason sat back on his heels with the chisel raised.

"Move, my lady."

"No."

"Fumika," her father said. "You'll make a scene."

"You made it," she said. "I'm only standing in it."

She turned around to face the worshippers.

There were old women in work aprons, a tram driver in his cap, a girl with a baby on her back.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Bride Who Read the Contract from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.