Free The Samurai's Daughter by Sujata Massey Page A

feeling he’s a sleaze.”
    â€œEnough already!” I couldn’t risk hearing more, so I hurried up the stairs, unsure of why I felt so agitated. We weren’t rich. My parents had made a canny real estate investment in the seventies, but that was all. My mother drove an Infiniti, not a Lexus. My father clipped coupons. And my parents had made a bizarre gesture of taking in a foreign lodger for $100 a month.
    We were a seriously odd family. Perhaps seeing my background, Hugh would decide I was more trouble than it was worth.
    But when Hugh crept into my room later that night, whispering endearments and engineering me into a position that wouldn’t rock the antique bed, I realized that I didn’t need to worry.
    He loved me, as I did him.
    It would just take the rest of them some time to catch up to us.

7
    Christmas morning. It was six, the hour I always awoke as a child. In the old days, I couldn’t wait to get to the needlepoint stocking my Baltimore grandmother had made for me. But today, I knew that Hugh would be sleeping in, given his jet lag, and I didn’t want to open my stocking alone, so I headed for the kitchen to make coffee.
    My father had beaten me to the task. He looked up from his usual seat at the kitchen table. “Merry Christmas.”
    â€œTo you as well.” I didn’t meet his eyes, just poured myself a cup of coffee.
    â€œWhy didn’t you come to talk with me yesterday evening when you got home? I had no idea how long you were out in the streets.”
    I dropped four sugar cubes in my coffee. “Couldn’t you have asked Mom?”
    â€œI did eventually. But I wanted to apologize to you myself for saying what I did about the marriage. It’s not that I’m pushing for it, I hardly know the man at all—”
    â€œYou mean—you don’t like him?”
    â€œI do, chiefly because he seems to care a great deal about you. In fact, I’m sure that you could convince him to turn down this assignment.”
    â€œYou don’t understand! He leapt at it as a way to go back to Japan—to be with me.”
    â€œWhy couldn’t he return to the company he used to work for? He apparently had a good time working for Sendai, a top zaibatsu company—now he’s seeking to bankrupt a company just like it. Manami’s father works for a zaibatsu, as do most people’s fathers, husbands, and sons. Can you imagine how an attack on a zaibatsu will play in the Japanese papers?”
    â€œI certainly can.” My private thoughts from the previous day came back to me. My father had made some very logical points. And in fact, I’d had my doubts about the law firms’ motives being completely altruistic. I’d argued that to Hugh, and now I was defending him to my father. Whose side should I be on? I couldn’t decide. “Let’s lay the matter to rest for the holiday, okay? I don’t want to go through this with Mom and Hugh again.”
    I heard footsteps coming down the stairs—my mother’s light tread, followed by a heavier one and the sound of laughter. I went to the stereo and turned on the old recording of Amahl and the Night Visitors . Christmas was on.
    Santa had filled everyone’s stockings with fruits and homemade truffles. My parents were stunned by the opera tickets Hugh had given them; my gifts were smaller—a first edition of Snow Country for my father and a 1920s purple silk kimono for my mother—but they kissed me and said the gifts were perfect. I explained to Manami that the black cotton turtleneck I’d given her should enable her to pass for a real San Francisco hipster; she nodded and said it would keep her warm, anyway. Hugh had given her a map of San Francisco with all the bus routes outlined on it, since I’d told him she couldn’t drive. My parents gave Manami a generous gift certificate to the Gap, and Hugh a new cell phone with our home number