joys had been stolen from him? He would try, of course, but feared that he would fail. He’d never been as strong as Kate, and she should have thought about that before asking the impossible.
“Can we wait, Roo, until after tomorrow?” he finally answered. “How about that? You and I will do a Captain Cook tomorrow, and the next day we’ll open the canisters.”
“A real Captain Cook?”
“Sure, luv. A real look around. Let’s explore Tokyo. Let’s have some fun. And then we’ll read your mum’s notes.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Mattie replied, trying to smile, aware that her father was worried about the canisters. She knew that he thought he could hide his feelings from her, but she’d seen too much of his suffering. She’d pretended not to, but he couldn’t fool her. Not when she watched him stare at her mother’s photo, not when he paused in midsentence as a smell or sight reminded him of his loss. And especially not at night, when he went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and cried.
Mattie understood her father. She understood him because she’d seen his face in happier times. She knew how he liked to laugh, to tickle her, to play jokes. Now he rarely did such things and didn’t do them nearly as well as he once had. On occasion she’d glimpse his old self, but these glimpses were as infrequent as her own feelings of happiness.
“I love you, Daddy,” Mattie said, placing another plate of tuna in front of him.
Ian managed to push his thoughts of Kate aside, at least for the moment. “I love you too, Roo. I love you so bloody much, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
THE MATTRESS FELT LIKE A BOARD BENEATH Mattie. She stirred, turning away from her father, who was wearing his plaid pajamas and had finally fallen asleep. Their first full night in Japan hadn’t been a restful experience, especially for Mattie, who had never been overseas and who wasn’t used to such a drastic time change. She felt physically exhausted, yet her mind raced, churning with a speed that she couldn’t control, try as she might.
Even though the hotel room didn’t appear much different from what might be found back home, the small space made Mattie anxious. The writing on the door was strange—ancient and unknown. The toilet, she’d discovered in the middle of the night, had a heated seat. A sliding, frosted-glass door separated the bathroom from the sleeping area. Two steel stools sat in the corner. Mattie thought that the entire room, except for the toilet, couldn’t have been more uncomfortable.
Careful not to wake her father, Mattie moved out of bed. She unzipped his immense traveling backpack, picked out her jeans and an old soccer T-shirt, and dressed. Upon entering the miniature bathroom, she slid shut the door and turned on the light. Her hair, which fell well below her shoulders, was a tangled mess. She picked up a plastic hotel comb and began to pull at the knots. Within seconds, she was reminded of how her mother had brushed her hair. They’d sit outside when the weather was nice and look for things for Mattie to sketch. And as they looked, her mother would run a damp comb through Mattie’s hair until each strand was untwisted from its neighbor.
Mattie gazed into the mirror, longing to glimpse her mother behind her, but seeing only the white bathroom wall. Her eyes started to tear and she set down the comb, turning from her reflection. She didn’t want to see herself standing alone, crying in a strange place, and so she left the bathroom. Noticing that her father was still asleep, Mattie opened her blue backpack—a smaller version of what he carried. She removed a piece of paper the size of a playing card, which she’d drawn on several years before. Her sketch was done in colored pencils and showed a little girl in a dress holding hands with her mother. Mattie had written “I love you, Mommy” beneath the image. Her mother had taken the drawing to a store and had it laminated. She’d carried it with her until she’d become ill. Then it had lain on a table beside her hospital bed. Mattie had kept the picture ever since her mother’s death. Sometimes she put it under her pillow. Sometimes she used it as a bookmark. It was never far from her.
Thinking about the happy faces on her drawing, Mattie looked around the stark room and began