I’m back home and I’ve spent more time than I’d like, holed up with Tamesaburou in the “library”. It’s a good day for it – the change of seasons has made Hanako-san start on her big cleaning projects, and it’s good to be able to escape the groans of the children, who are now old enough to be pressed into service. The rain is holding off, for now, so at least they’re outside.
I didn’t come home with great news. Well, other than that our sister and the new baby are happy and healthy. But… Saitou-san.
And I came home to worse news. I offer to go back, to Tokyo or even Aizu, but he has that skinny kid up there instead.
He’s buried in legal papers, but with the laws so new… the old shogunate government was more restrictive on the rights of women, but children born outside of a marriage still had honor, if their father granted it. And divorce was simple, at least in theory…
But now in this new era, mistresses and bastards -still happen- but are shoved into the shadows. Divorce -still happens-, but it’s regarded as a lower-class institution – good families in the Meiji era stay together, in honorable harmony, for we are not a decadent nation – well, at lest not among the common folk.
I look around the room. I’m as surrounded by the Shinsengumi as one can be. I wonder back to what Saitou-san said… that Okita-san would have been better for her. That he did love her. I don’t know about that… I had no idea, and frankly, no interest in those things back then. After Yamanami-san… well, I didn’t idolize them as much as my brother did. The one man who took time for me, in that time, and looked upon my scholarly interests as a good thing…. well, we all knew why he was gone. I could -like- Kondou-san but still deplore that he let it happen. I don’t feel the need to correct Hanako-san’s vision of Hijikata-san, or anyone’s, really. We each have our own story. Hijikata-san can be both the villain in Yamanami-san’s story -and- the hero in hers. Sometimes, many things about a person can be true.
But would she have been happier, in the long run, with Okita-san? In those years after… she seemed to truly mourn him. But Saitou-san seemed upset that she didn’t go with Okita-san, in the end? He was sent away, to then-Edo, for his illness, at the end. It’s then I remember oneesan talking to okaasan… “he doesn’t need me. Not anymore… not ever.” Okaasan saying something about how her family needed her… but back then, I didn’t care to listen more.
Why doesn’t Saitou-san know everything anyway? Aren’t couples supposed to know everything about each other? And they -share- the past…
Maybe Hanako-san knows something. Okaasan told her a lot, when she nursed her in the end. And Hanako-san has always been a canny observer… I grin a little. Youngest children hear everything, after all.
“What’s so amusing?” I hear my brother’s voice from across the table.
“Oh, nothing.”
He shakes his head. “If Saitou-san is up there right now, registering the girls… I don’t know if I can un-do that – after all, he is their father. But if this Takagi makes a claim for his sister…”
“Hideneesan can come here!” I tell him.
“-She- can, but if a judge orders her to hand over Ai-chan and Makoto-chan… she can’t bring them. The police in this system have the responsibility to enact rules the government and its judges set. Even Saitou-san would be bound to them…”
“So she runs! She did it before!” I’m a little horrified that Saitou-san would just hand over his daughters with oneesan… but she did say that his work comes first.
He sighs. “At that point, she’d be a criminal – a kidnapper. And her assets… well, they could be seized. I think I have a way I can re-write the trusts to make them for our nieces to shield them, but then instead of the government seizing them from a fugitive, the girl’s legal guardian – Saitou-san and his wife – would have all rights to them. I can maybe set some rules, like not letting the assets be sold until they come of age – but her brother could probably work around that, if they wanted.”
I’m quiet. I’m -horrified-.
After a moment, I speak. “So she goes on the run – a wanted woman with no assets or support – or hands them over?”
Tamesaburou lights up a cigarette. This must be bad… “that’s why I’m having all of this investigated. -Why- this case. And with Saitou-san still alive, it’s all conjecture that his wife could act unilaterally to take them. And maybe this case in the end has nothing to do with his sister’s life – maybe the family were close to his, or important in Aizu… or maybe Saitou-san’s wife isn’t the sort to hurt children. Or maybe this time, she’s willing to divorce them… and it can all go as we all -wish- it would. I just don’t know.” His eyes are dark. “I don’t like not having a plan out. I need all of the information.. and right now, I don’t have it.” He closes his eyes and exhales a stream of smoke.
I look down at the table. “Then what -can- we do?”
“Wait.” He takes another drag.
It’s in that moment… I turn to -them-. Are they out there, looking after my sister, after Saitou-san? All of them… those talented but -complicated- men. Back in Ito, at the end of one of those long nights in the safe house, my sister said something about bending time and space to be with him… it made my head hurt when she talked of that, but maybe… maybe they still have some power, too. Please… I feel myself begging them – those ghosts… –please-…
But what can be done? We backed Saitou-san into a corner, after all. We’re as much to blame as anyone, should my sister’s life unravel.