Free The Mask Carver's Son by Alyson Richman

her shoulder and he knew that he probably appeared clumsy. But, for the first time in their marriage, that did not bother him. He knew she now saw him for what he was. A man far deeper than the wood.
    *   *   *
    According to Grandmother, by her seventh month, Mother’s stomach was as large as a small bear. She carried all of her weight in the front, which grew so large that, when she walked, her back seemed lost in its perpetual arching and her shoulders pushed even farther behind.
    Every morning, however, she continued to rise to prepare her husband’s breakfast. She never tired of heating the pails of water for his bath, no matter how great the strain. It seemed as though each of them had finally discovered what the other needed.
    In the last month of my mother’s pregnancy, she announced that she would like to make a trip to Kiyomizu-dera in order to pray for my entrance into the world and buy a blessed
anzan o-mamori
charm from one of the priests. Grandmother insisted that the three-hour journey from Daigo to the temple would be too exhausting.
    “I must go,” she said obstinately. “Ryusei will accompany me. We will visit the inner shrine, Jishu Jinya, the shrine of the love rocks. We will pray together and ask Ubugami to look over our child. It is the only way.”
    Her parents lowered their eyes, knowing they could not argue.
    “Are you sure you feel up to such an arduous journey, Etsuko?” Father asked with concern.
    “I am sure. Please do not worry. Seeing the temple and praying to the birth deity will calm my nerves.”
    The three of them looked at her, swollen with my unborn form, and nodded in weak consent.
    The next day Mother, too fragile to be carried by chair men, was placed in the palanquin that had carried her as a bride. Her parents, still concerned that she might damage the child, made one last attempt to dissuade her from making the trip.
    “Thank you, Mother and Father, for your concern, but I will be fine,” she insisted. “My husband and I want to pray for our child together.”
    Grandfather shook his head, and Grandmother clutched her wooden prayer beads. The two of them watched as the carriage took them away.
    *   *   *
    When they arrived home late that evening, Mother was as pale as the inside of a Chinese guava. Her lips, no longer the pink of lotus blossoms, suddenly white as ash.
    The rains had begun late that afternoon, after they had departed, and they could find no shelter along the way. The roof of the palanquin had collapsed, and Mother lay drenched and covered in thatched straw.
    Wiping her brow with his soaking wet sleeve, Father helped Mother from the carriage. When she proved too weak to stand, he hoisted her weary body in his arms. He cradled her like a child, the
anzan o-mamori
charm dangling from her hand.
    Grandmother and Grandfather stood in the rain transfixed. They did not flinch even as their silver hair fell like wet grass over their scalps, as their kimonos became so drenched one could see the outlines of their forms. How could it be, they thought, in only eighteen hours’ time, their beautiful child had paled to nothing more than a ghost?
    “Bring her into the center room,” Grandmother ordered. “The braziers are warmest in there.”
    Suddenly, from where she stood, Grandmother noticed a bloodstain expanding from underneath her daughter’s loosened sash. That stain, as bright as fire, spread within seconds over the entire front placket of her kimono. Streaking like bolts of red lightning.
    “I will run for a doctor,” cried Grandfather. “Ryusei, bring her inside!”
    He laid her down on the tatami and brought the brazier closer to her side. He lowered the flame of the lantern, untying the sash of his own kimono, covering her belly so she would not see her clothes saturated with blood.
    In the few moments that transpired before the quilts were brought to him, he held her face in the gentle basin of his palms. He pushed back the damp locks of her