if I ordered us water or told her we fancied a swim.”
Mattie kept watching the plates, thinking that she might like to sketch them. “Did you ever come here with Mommy?”
“No, luv, I reckon not. Tokyo has something like thirty million people. It’s a heap bigger than even New York. And restaurants like this one are on about every corner, so stumbling upon the same place twice would be like finding your favorite needle in a mountain of needles. Plus, we lived in Kyoto and didn’t come to Tokyo but two or three times.”
Nodding absently, Mattie studied the various offerings of sushi. Rectangular cuts of pink, red, white, and orange fish occupied most plates, though piles of roe, octopus tentacles, slices of shrimp, and bottles of beer and sake were also moving from her right to her left. She was surprised to see that a man two chairs down from her had a stack of almost a dozen plates in front of him. How could someone so small eat so much? she wondered.
As Mattie studied the man, Ian watched her. Since Kate had died, Mattie didn’t talk as much as she used to. She still asked lots of questions but seemed more interested in answers than conversations. Once Mattie had been nine going on nineteen, so eager to tell her parents how the world worked. But now, a year and a half after her mother’s death, she seemed to have lost interest in sharing her knowledge.
“I reckon it’s no help being an octopus in these parts,” Ian said as a nearby customer devoured some tentacles. “Having eight arms didn’t do him much good.”
A smile spread across Mattie’s face. Her smile was like a sunrise, warming him. “Don’t be silly, Daddy,” she said. “You’ll embarrass me.”
“Embarrass you? The lass who used to run around naked on our deck?”
“Daddy!”
He leaned over to kiss the side of her head. “Ah, you’re best off to ignore my yammering.”
The waitress brought them water and Ian thanked her. Mattie continued to watch the food flow past. She picked up her chopsticks, remembering when her mother had tried to teach her how to use them. Her mother had taught her so many things—how to ride a bike, how to plant tulip bulbs, and, most important, how to draw. They had often gone to Central Park and sketched together. Sometimes her mother read her a story and Mattie drew what was happening in it. At first her sketches weren’t more than simplistic collections of uneven lines and colors. But as the seasons played hopscotch, Mattie’s creations became more complex and refined. With her mother’s encouragement, she learned to draw with emotion, to put her hopes and loves and happiness into whatever she was trying to bring to life.
Mattie glanced out a window into the chaos called Tokyo. The city was an infinite assortment of moving parts. She saw elevated trains, thousands of people moving like rivers, and lights of every color that blinked, pulsated, and seemed to be alive. Suddenly Mattie missed her room. She was disoriented in Japan, and even with her father beside her, she felt alone.
“Daddy?” she asked.
“Yeah, luv?”
“Do you think Mommy really sees us? Even with all these people around?”
Ian pursed his lips, her words echoing his own thoughts. “Your mum always saw you, Roo. She always watched over you.” He sipped his water, trying to keep his voice steady as memories of Kate flooded into him. “One night, only a few months after you were born, I came home, quite late, from work. You were in your crib, and she was asleep on the floor, still reaching through the crib’s rails to hold your hand. You two looked like a couple of angels.”
“We did?”
“You were a couple of angels.”
“Did you take a picture?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been a dimwit a thousand nights of my life and that was one of them.” Seeing that Mattie was huddled low, as if cold, he moved his chair closer to hers until their legs touched. She was wearing a T-shirt with one of her earliest sketches on it—a shirt that Kate had ordered—and it was wonderful, but hardly warm. “I’m dead cert that your mum’s watching you now,” Ian said, putting his arm around her.
“I miss her so much.”
“I know. So do I.”
Mattie reached for his free hand, a tear tumbling from her eye. “Daddy, will . . . will I always be sad?”
He brushed away the tear. “No, luv. You won’t. That’s why your mum