“It’s from Tokyo – from Saitou-san – they had a girl!” Yuunosuke calls out, waving around the telegram.
I take the yellow sheet of paper from my brother. “Daughter… nearly 9 pounds… both Hide and the child are healthy…” I sigh in relief. Having been through that four times with my Hanako, it’s… difficult. There’s so much pain, and even with her army of sisters to support her, and who’s helping Oneesan now? Saitou-san’s niece is there, but little Makoto-chan? Well Hide-neesan was already a good helper by the time she was that age, but Makoto-chan seems to have the carefree life of a child.
She had said something about delivering at a clinic… how much that must have cost!
“….so I can leave tomorrow…”
I’m brought out of my thoughts by the voice of my brother. “To go -where-?” I ask.
“To see Hide-neesan and the baby! I can get away from the school for a few days, and besides, don’t we need to get something there to her now, that she has a girl? It’s a shame that Makoto-chan hasn’t been able to use it…”
“Use what?” I feel as if I’m five steps behind the conversation.
“Hide-neesan’s hina-ningyō set! You mentioned it when you came home from Tokyo! It’s just sitting out in the storeroom, right?”
“Yes, but – “
“And if I take it, I can bring it as my luggage, which is much cheaper than shipping it!” Ah, he knows just where to hit me, doesn’t he?
“Yes, let’s get that thing out of here!” my wife encourages. “Besides, now with two girls she’ll really need to do it properly. Oh, and I can’t send some of my tea!”
Yuubo shoots me a –look-. Had my wife not been in the room, I would have assured him that the smell of the stuff, even dry and in its packets, would drive off any potential seat-mates….
“So it’s all out there?” I ask. “Do we need to pack it up?”
It’s then I hear the sound of feet outside the room, and then beating a path up the stairs.
“It’s Sachiko-chan,” my wife frowns. “I think she’s taken some of the dolls.”
—-
I go to find Sachiko-chan.
“You want it, don’t you.” She frowns and stands in front of the cabinet in her room, that she shares with her older sister. This room used to be Hide-neesan’s. She always left it tidy, but now it bears the marks of two sisters who don’t always get along having to share it.
“Well now there’s two little girls who need their own set, and this one is meant for them. It was their mother’s, after all.”
My younger daughter pouts. “Otou-san, but we don’t have it all yet. And Kioko-neesan said that the ladies are all –hers- and I just get the ox’s cart! She said the oxen were slow and smelly, like me.” I see her chin wobble, and tears start to slide down her cheeks. She then wipes her face with her sleeve, and I can see her try to shake it off, just like I remember Hide-neesan doing. And like Hide-neesan, tears leave my little girl red and blotchy.
“What’s so bad about the ox’s cart? Aren’t there two in your auntie’s set?” Sachiko-chan nods. “The first one…” I try to remember. Hide-neesan set a big store by them, and tried to tell me and Yuubo all about them, but… I didn’t care for dolls.
“One is the goshoguruma,” I hear from behind me, and I see that it’s Hanako. “It’s an ox cart used to move the court nobility from palace to palace – they were too fine to walk, you see, and horses were for warriors.” She comes to sit down by Sachiko-chan. “The other is hanaguruma, which is supposed to be full of flowers – there’s nothing in the cart now because I believe Hide-san put fresh flowers in every morning. Are those really so bad?”
I smile over at my wife; thankful she was able to step in. But she keeps her focus on our daughter. “Now, princesses and their ladies are all well and good? But a fine lady cannot go without her ox cart – not in a junihitoe! All in the mud… or stuck at the summertime palace, when everyone else is going to the winter palace, and missing out on all of the poetry and gossip?”
Sachiko-chan is quiet. I can –see- her thinking.
“So, the ox’s cart isn’t so bad, because it can’t be smelly if the ladies ride in it. But can’t I have ladies too? Just the one?”
My wife just looks at her for a moment. I like seeing this… my wife gets along better with Kioko-chan, as Kioko-chan is just like her family, and Sachiko-chan has a great resemblance to my sister. “Well… you know, I never had a single hanamatsuri doll of my own? Not with your six aunties – and my oldest sister took off with most of the set before I was even old enough to enjoy them! So I made my own.”
Sachiko-chan looks at her with wide eyes. “How?”
“Well, there wasn’t money for anything fine,” she says, and I can see some of the bitterness in her smile, for I know that there wasn’t much money for just about anything, sometimes. “I used paper. Drew my own.” She kisses the top of Sachiko-chan’s head. “I can help you, if you’d like.”
“Really?” And then it’s that smile…
“Yes. And…. perhaps Otou-san would buy his daughter a set of watercolor paints, to thank you for taking such good care of auntie Hide-san’s hanamatsuri set?” That gets an enthusiastic nod, and Hanako sends her downstairs to work on her chores.
She opens the cabinet and takes out the purloined princess. “All that just for this….” she looks at the smiling figure. “But I understand. The wish to have something special, of one’s own.”
I go over to her and look at the doll. “Is it supposed to smirk?” I never much looked at them, because, well, they were dolls….
“Well those Heian princesses were said to be a little naughty,” my wife laughs. “The ox-carts were also used for going between palaces for trysts, you know.”
For a minute we forget that we’re in our daughter’s room, but when we come up for air… “So…. if I get an ox cart and write some poetry, what would be my chances tonight…?”
Hanako escapes my embrace and winks at me from the door. “Hmmm…. we’ll have to see how bad the poetry is!”
(OOC – Yuunosuke will be arriving in Tokyo the day after Hide gets home)