Chapter Two
A Rebellious Daughter
Mrs. Anna Mizukiyo sat down and began eating the rice Izumi had so lovingly prepared. She took no thought to thank Izumi, or God, for her meal. Anna had noticed the omission, however, for the voice of her childhood in America came rushing back, as if it had been yesterday.
"God bless this food ... (in a whisper) did I say it right, Daddy?"
How happy were those memories! Then her mind sped to the day she announced to her parents that she was getting married.
"Guess what? I'm getting married!" Her parent's faces turned grave though, when she told them who she was going to marry.
"Anna, he's not a professing Christian. We forbade you from ever seeing him again. And not because he's Japanese, (her father added, seeing the words on Anna's tongue), but because he openly defies God by his speech and actions. He 'is loud and stubborn'; his 'feet abide not in [his] house'." (Proverbs 7:11)
"But Daddy, I love him! and he loves me, I know he does! He wouldn't have asked me to marry him if he didn't!" Anna's father sat down on the sofa beside her and looked into the blue eyes of his only child.
"Anna, what did Christ say true love was?" He picked up his Bible and turned it to John 14:15 and 24. "If ye love Me, keep My Commandments... He that loveth Me not keepeth not My sayings: and the word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father's which sent Me."
"Daddy, where does it say in the Bible that I can't marry someone who isn't a Christian? Where?" Anna's "where" had an unmistakable ring of defiance in it. Her father patiently read Second Corinthians 6:14.
"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?"
There was a pause of silence before he spoke again. "Anna, you know this verse by heart. I'm not reading it to you for the first time. To marry a non-believer would be sin. For 'To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin'. (James 4:17) You know better." Anna shook her head.
"I don't see how it's sin to marry someone I love!" As she said this, Anna left her parent's home, and turned her back on everyone who truly loved her. The next day she got married and left America, to live with her husband in Japan. Anna tried to suppress these painful memories, but they came crashing through her consciousness as a giant wave pounds the sand.
Anna thought of the day Izumi was born. She was so proud of her baby! Anna could still see the abundance of beautiful, black hair crowning Izumi's tiny head . And those wide blue eyes! Nurses from every department of the hospital would come, and gaze at the beautiful Japanese baby with blue eyes. Every feature of Izumi's face was Japanese, except those clear pools of blue staring up at her mother. How special Anna thought her new baby was!
Then Anna remembered her husband's reaction to his new baby daughter.
"Onna no ko," (Japanese for "girl"), he muttered angrily, "what do I want with a girl? I must have a son! I am the eldest son of my father, and someday, all he has I will inherit. I must have a son to pass on the honored name of my family, and keep the inheritance in my name!" Anna had never seen him so angry before. It frightened her. The days that followed Izumi's birth were check marked with vivid memories of beatings and abuse. It had never stopped, really. The day Izumi was born, her husband stopped pretending he loved her. However, Anna would never admit this, even though she knew it to be true.
"He loves me," she would argue. "After all, we have been through a lot, and he has never left me. He would have left me if he didn't love me. That proves it!"
"Seventeen years," she sighed. "can it really be so long ago?" She took another bite of rice. "Someday, I want to go back to my home on Three Mile Bay, New York. I believe Dad & Mom left the house to any children I might have. That's what it had said in the will, when they died. Knowing my parents, they were 'praying' for my children, and thought they would need a place of refuge or something." At that thought, Anna angrily slammed her rice bowl down on the lacquer table. "As if Izumi needed refuge!"