CHAPTER 58

When I get home from school the following Tuesday and check the mail, there is a thin envelope with my name on it. The stamps are from Japan. The letter is in Japanese and it takes me a moment to understand.

It’s a rejection letter.

I didn’t get in.

I didn’t get into UCLA.

And I didn’t get into the University of Tokyo.

“Oh, well,” I say quietly to myself. “I didn’t want to go anyway.” But it’s not true. I’ve been looking at the scrapbook more and more.

I don’t know how I’m going to tell my dad. He’s going to be crushed.

I wait until after dinner that night.

“Hey, Dad, want to play chess?” I ask, wanting to get him alone. I can’t tell him in front of my mom, since she never even knew I applied. It would break her heart to know I’d applied without telling her, and then disappoint her to know that I hadn’t gotten in.

“Sure!” he says, beaming at me. “It’s been a while.” He doesn’t know how often I play with Mika.

We go into his study and he gets out his old marble set. The figures are carved like Japanese Samurai.

I take a deep breath. “I didn’t get in.”

He looks up at me, his eyes kind. “I know, sweetie. You told us.”

“No, not just UCLA,” I say, my voice cracking. “I didn’t get into the University of Tokyo.” I stare very hard at the chessboard. Just one more thing I didn’t do, couldn’t do, that Mika would have.

“Oh,” says my dad, as I move my knight. I wait for him to say what he said about UCLA, that they are all idiots. Wait for him to reassure me.

“Well, it is very competitive,” he says.

I blink.

“And they are very … traditional,” he goes on. “But that’s a shame.” Then he does this weird fake laugh. “Maybe Koji will get in.”

I suddenly realize how much it meant to him for one of us to go.

“I’m sorry,” he says and then all his words come out at once, as if he’s just realized what he should have been saying. “I don’t know what they were thinking. Rejecting you! My daughter! It’s madness, I tell you, absolute madness. Must have gotten stricter from when I went.”

“Maybe,” I say.

“You’ll get in somewhere wonderful. Somewhere great.” And I don’t know if it is my imagination, but he doesn’t sound as confident as he did the last time he told me that.

I’m starting to wonder if I’ll get in anywhere at all.

He moves his bishop and looks at me. “Reiko, is everything OK? You’ve not been yourself this year.” He gives me a sad smile. “Don’t deny it − your mother and I notice. But we thought letting you do what you need to do is best. But now I don’t know.”

“I miss Mika,” I say, the whisper slipping out like a leaf falling, inevitable and fragile.

If I’d said Mika’s name to my mom, it would have been like dropping a bomb, but my dad just sighs deeply, like he’s been waiting to let out that breath for ever.

“I know, Reiko. I know.” He reaches across the chessboard and takes my hand. “We miss her too.” He takes a long breath. “But you can’t blame what happened for everything that has happened since then. And” − he squeezes my hand − “you can’t blame yourself.”

I squeeze his hand back.

“She’d be so proud of you, Reiko. I’m so proud of you.” And then: “But I think she’d want you to talk about her. And I think she’d want you to live the very best life you could.”

I’ve been trying, I want to say. I’ve been trying so hard.

But.

I don’t know who I’ve been living for.

Mika knows something is wrong, but she doesn’t ask me about it. Instead, she flutters around, rubbing my shoulder, playing with my hair. I wonder if she knows I talked about her for the first time in years with our dad. I look at her, look through her.

I wish I could tell her about Seth and the college rejections and about missing Koji’s audition. I wish she was here-here, big-sister-here, instead of here like this. This is the kind of thing I want to tell nineteen-year-old her. A Mika who is older and wiser than me and who would have the kind of advice and the kind of comfort I need.

Fourteen-year-old her isn’t much help. But I only have myself to blame that this is the version I have of her. And that makes my heart ache.

She senses that I need something more than she can give me. “I think you should call Andrea,” she says.

“Really?” I’m surprised because usually Mika wants it to be just us.

“Of course,” she says. “I don’t think I can help you right now, and Dre can.” She smiles at me. “I love you, Reiko.”

So I do what my sister thinks is best, and call Dre.