Chapter Seventeen

The drive was two hours from the airport to the small riverside town of Solomons with Kisa driving, Seto in the passenger's seat, and Mokuba right behind him. The name had sounded familiar when Kisa'd told him about it, but he couldn't bring any images of what a town with such a biblical-sounding name should look like. He could come up with a few guesses, like perhaps the headquarters of some religious fanatic cult or a town only in name, with miles upon miles of farmland between it and civilization. None of these, however, seemed to feel right.

They traveled through the capital, down the beltway, where the hustle and bustle were swallowed by forests. There were miles of it, more than he had seen in many years. Every so often the acres of green were broken up by fields of corn or soybeans, of small towns that seemed to pop up as if from nowhere and disappear just as quickly.

A little coastal town eased out of the trees long before they ever saw water. There were strip malls with half a dozen shops or so, each decorated with a nautical theme; wooden anchors, crashing waves, seagulls, and crabs, their pincers large and menacing. Between churches nestled every quarter mile or so along the road were homes that had been turned into kitschy tourist traps advertising crystals, decor (with more crabs, of course), and souvenirs that proudly proclaimed the town and all its apparent greatness.

Seto couldn't see the appeal. As far as he could tell, there was nothing there.

Kisa slowed as they approached the waterfront and Seto looked out the window to see what all her excitement was about.

The river was greenish-brown. Seto found it unappealing, but that didn't stop locals from sailing on it or wading into it from a little cape they passed right before the boardwalk. The sun shined on it and the water changed to a deep stormy blue that betrayed its usual brackish color. It reminded him briefly of Domino Bay and how the water there displayed a similar effect in the sunshine.

The smell was… familiar. Rich and heady. Earth, sea, and empty crab shells. Boats littered the marina, bobbing with each wake from passing boats. Seto rested an arm on the open window as one sailboat eased off the dock and came about. The wind caught its sail and it was off, cutting through the waves and leaving a wedge of churned water behind it.

The day was warm for October. An 'Indian summer', Kisa called it. The last hurrah of summer before autumn took hold. Families wandered the aging grey slats of the boardwalk, enjoying the sunshine and crisp air. Children ran about a small playground, leaving sticky ice cream fingerprints in their wake. Kisa followed the waterfront, past a restaurant over the water and down another line of docks attached to a neighborhood that looked out over where the river met the bay. Old colonial-style homes, some brick, some wood-shingled, were interspersed with Victorian architecture and yet more little churches with little graveyards. The air was thick with the smell of fresh-cut grass.

It was a quiet place. Where father's fished with their children. Where families gathered on porches or decks and sat around drinking lemonade. It just felt like that kind of neighborhood.

Kisa parked on the side of the street outside a two-story Victorian home painted powder blue with white shutters and a trellis of roses climbing up one side. The same trellis Seto remembered climbing up. It was more grown over than when he'd been young, but there was no doubt.

There were flowers everywhere, of more colors and kinds than he'd ever seen. A pair of rocking chairs sat at one corner of the wrap-around porch flanking a matching table.

Kisa turned off the car and turned to Seto, a faint half-smile on her lips. "We're here."

"This is it?" Mokuba looked through his window at the house. "Really?"

"This was my mom and dad's house. Aunt Moriko moved in after mom died." She opened her door. "You guys used to live across the street."

Seto's heart was in his throat when he climbed out of the car. He took one last long breath before looking over the roof at the little house.

It was Victorian-inspired, muted yellow, with burgundy shutters and gardens under the windows. There would be three bedrooms, an office in the spire, and a shed in the backyard filled with bags of potting soil and shelves of seed packets and dried bulbs. Against the molding in the kitchen doorway would be markings in Sharpie, along with names. One bedroom would have a dent in the door where a soccer ball had been kicked into it.

Seto's brow furrowed as she stared at the house. How could he know how many bedrooms it would have, the state of the spire or the shed? How could he know about the lines on the molding or the dent in the bedroom door?

Assumptions. It was a tidy little neighborhood, fit for raising rambunctious children. Families often felt the need to mark their children's progress by defacing their property. It was common. But why a soccer ball?

A breeze blew in from the river at his back. Seto held his hair with one hand.

Kisa came up behind him and rubbed her fingers up his spine. "What do you think?"

He thought nothing, or at least that's what he wanted to say. There was something wrong with the house, as if he was seeing it in some uncanny valley where it didn't feel quite right.

The solution to him out of nowhere. "The shutters."

Mokuba frowned, looking between Seto and the house. "What're you talking about? They look fine."

Kisa put a finger to her lips, then continued her gentle encouraging caresses. "What about them?"

Seto shook his head. The answer was just on the tip of his tongue.

Waves lapped the shore. A blowing wind whipped past, sending row after row of purple irises waving on the sun side of the house.

But there weren't any irises there anymore. Instead, there were neat rows of daisies and daylilies flooding the planting beds. The clash of colors was horrific, they would have sent her into a tizzy.

Who was 'her'?

He could almost see it, as if from a dream. A horde of children spilling into the street, kicking around a ball while someone stood at the shutters, freshening up the rich blue paint.

Seto covered his mouth. He leaned against the car as the strength seeped from his legs.

"Seto?" Mokuba sounded worried.

"They were blue." Seto's voice trembled. "The shutters were blue."

Kisa smiled. "Aunt Moriko threw a fit when the new owners repainted them. Said your mom would've raised unholy hell for changing her house after your dad spent so long building it."

Mokuba stared at the little house. "We lived there?"

"Believe it or not." Kisa took Seto's hand, squeezed it. "I can see if Aunt Moriko can convince the owners to let you look around. They're not friends of the family, but if we tell them the situation it shouldn't be a problem."

Seto had to swallow around the hard lump in his throat. "I don't think-"

"You think too much." She gave him a little shove before rounding the car to the trunk. She opened it, perhaps harder than she'd intended when she winced as the springs gave a violent creak.

Mokuba muttered under his breath. "She got you pegged."

Seto scowled at him. "If I would be allowed to finish. What I was going to say was that I don't see how that would do any good. Yes, I know what color the shutters used to be. That is enough for me."

A suitcase thumbed to the pavement by Kisa's foot. "Is it?"

Seto wanted to say 'yes', but his tongue wouldn't form the word. He wanted it to be enough, but, as he stood there looking at that little yellow house, it wasn't. He wanted to know if he was right, if his memories weren't just fabrications. How much was real and how much wasn't. He had a feeling he wouldn't know for sure until he saw it with his own eyes.

The front door of the blue house opened into a foyer, claustrophobic, with a staircase on the right-hand side. There was a formal dining room through the door on the right, before the stairs, and a living room to the left. Greenery hung in front of every window, draped over the tops of cabinets, and filled every corner. Smells wafted through the open door at the end of the hall ahead.

Mokuba sniffed the air and his stomach gave an audible growl.

Kisa stifled a laugh before calling into the house. "Aunt Moriko! We're here!"

A voice called back. "I'm in the kitchen, sweetheart!"

There was a clang and the sliding of metal on metal, then the sound of an oven door banging shut. Kisa left her bag in the hall and motioned Seto and Mokuba to follow.

"Was yer flight okay?" her aunt said. "Airports nowadays, takes forever to get anywhere. I hope yer friend brought their appetites. I got enough to feed an army."

Kisa turned into the kitchen. "Are the girls still at school?"

"Rin's upstairs with her homework. God willing, she actually does it this time. Miku's got rehearsal tonight. Gotta leave to get her in a few. The show's this weekend. She's all hyped up about it."

Seto crossed into the kitchen, followed closely by Mokuba.

There was just as much green in the kitchen. The L-shaped counter was faux marble, the stainless steel appliances were polished to a shine, and a little table sat in the breakfast nook off to the side with five chairs squeezed around it. Kisa was at her aunt's side. The woman was small and thin, with a head of short white hair. She was flicking rolls into a wicker bread basket with the practiced ease of someone used to handling food fresh out of the oven with her bare hands.

"What's the show this time?" Kisa snatched a roll off the top of the pile.

The snap of her aunt's hand on her wrist made both men flinch. "Put that back."

"Aw, come on." Kisa put the roll back. "You've got tons."

Her Aunt Moriko turned and they could finally see her face. She had wrinkles around her mouth and the corners of her eyes, as if she spent the vast majority of her life smiling.

"Mind your manners," she said. "It's not every day you bring friends home. Just as long as they ain't those rough and ready types you been hangin out with."

"Auntie, you like Tomoko."

"She's the exception dear, not the rule." There was a huge smile on her face when she turned to face Seto and Mokuba. "Now, then. Who… wants…" She stared, mouth hanging open for the span of three heartbeats, then her hands flew up to her mouth. "Boys… Oh my God."

She was across the kitchen so fast Seto took an involuntary step back. Kisa's aunt grabbed his face, rough wrinkled fingers twisting his head this way and that as she took him in. "It is you, isn't it? Has to be. You have her eyes, by God, and you-" She rounded on Mokuba, who looked ready to run before she took his shoulders. "Boy, you could be her."

"Shove off, lady!" Mokuba twisted out of her hands and retreated down the hallway. "What's wrong with you? You don't just go touchin' people like that."

Kisa had a hand pressed to her mouth, shoulders shaking with the effort to not laugh. "I think you're scaring them."

"I'm scaring them?" Her aunt rounded on her, hands on her hips in a very familiar way. "Girl, have you lost your mind? Walkin in here, makin me think I seen a ghost. You could've given me a heart attack."

Kisa rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. Your heart's stronger than mine. I just wanted to surprise you."

"Congratulations, you succeeded." Her aunt pointed a finger at her. "You can go pick up your sister for your little stunt, and bring their bags in when you get back. Can't help but notice you left'em out in the car. Lazybones. And while you're at it, you can set up the downstairs too. The air mattress should be-"

"That won't be necessary," Seto said. "We have rooms reserved at the hotel near-"

"I'm not letting Noriko's boys sleep in some musty old hotel room. You've slept over plenty before, you can do it again. And don't you tell me you're too old for it. That hotel ain't nothin but a dope den with a fresh coat'a paint. I ain't gonna let you waste your money."

Kisa leaned against the counter, arms crossed around her middle, watching the exchange with an air of contentment.

Her aunt frowned at her and jerked her head towards the hall. "What're you waitin for? Go get yer sister."

"Yes, ma'am." Kisa pushed off the counter and sidle past Seto with a playful smile.

"I'll tell you where to put your 'ma'am', young lady." Her aunt put a hand to her forehead. "That girl, I swear. Drops a few more years off my life just to prove she can. Anyway, what can I get you, boys?" She crossed over to the refrigerator. "I've got sweet tea and coffee I can put back on the heat. Is a little strong, but perks back up with a nice shot'a whiskey." She threw a wink at Seto. "For you, of course. Not offerin' my best booze to a kid."

"That won't be necessary Mrs…"

Her head shot above the edge of the fridge door. "I changed too many'a your diapers for you to be callin' me 'Mrs.' anything. It's Aunt Moriko or Auntie M to you."

"Seriously?" Mokuba's voice made them both turn. "This isn't a joke?"

"Don't see how it could be." She grunted, hauling a large pitcher of amber liquid from the fridge. "Changed just as many of yours too. Can't imagine you remember that much, though. You were still a little thing when ya'll left."

Mokuba eased back into the kitchen. "You really know us?"

"You think I wouldn't know Shin'ichi and Noriko's boys when I see them?" Kisa's aunt nudged the door closed with her hip. "Give me a little credit, I'm not that old."

Seto felt something hard and tight in his chest.

"Those are our parents?" Mokuba asked. "You knew our parents?"

"Course I did." She set the pitcher on the counter. "Went to school together, all three of us, after your gramma moved Noriko out here in the 80s."

There were tears in her eyes when she looked at them. She made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a huff and went back over to them. She put a hand on both of their shoulders, fingers pressing firm, but kindly.

"Just look at you," she said. "You've grown so much. I never thought- and look at what day it is-" She threw up her hands. "You boys go sit and relax. I'll fix you up something to drink. We'll eat when the girls get back." She pushed them towards the open wall where the kitchen spilled into the living room. "Go on."

She left them in the doorway to go to where an old corded telephone stood mounted to the wall.

Mokuba hissed out of the corner of his mouth. "What the hell just happened?"

Seto turned to the living room, with its plush earth-toned armchairs and hardwood coffee tables. "I believe we've been shanghaied."

Mokuba choked on a laugh. "Did you just try and make a joke?"

"Perhaps."

Kisa's aunt's voice flowed in as they moved to sit down. "Kisa, I just remembered… ah, of course, you knew. Head to Lenny's and pick out a cake while you're out. Get a good one too, not one'a those sugar-frosted monsters." She laughed. "Yes, yes. Oh! Do you remember where I put that box? The big one with all the- Downstairs closet, thank you." The levity drained from her voice. "Oh… oh, dear. I see. No, I won't. Alright. We'll see you soon. Buh-bye."

A moment later there was another scrap of metal against metal as Kisa's aunt pulled something else out of the oven.

"You don't joke," Mokuba said.

"I'm well aware of what I usually do or don't do," Seto said, "but I believe this is an extraordinary situation."

Seto selected a chair next to the window and sat down. It was comfortable, more so than even his own bed. He let himself sink into it, legs crossing at the knees.

"You're tellin' me." Mokuba wandered the room, looking from the pictures on the wall to those lined up on the mantle under the television. "This place is weird. Like one of my friend's houses."

"I think you mean normal."

Mokuba shrugged. "I don't even know what normal is any more. You're gettin' laid, trying to crack jokes. Now we're in some stranger's house cause apparently we used to live here. I don't remember any of this."

"You were six. I doubt you would remember much."

"And you do?"

Seto let his fingers slide along the chair's arms. "Not as much as I would like to."

"You remember a little though."

"Only what I've told you. That's why we're here."

Mokuba huffed and turned back to the mantlepiece. "Thought you didn't care about the past."

"I don't."

Mokuba turned an uncomfortably familiar raised eyebrow at him.

"I didn't," Seto admitted.

"Till she showed up."

"Until I learned who she was."

"When I ask, you tell me it doesn't matter."

Seto stretched his fingers. "When, exactly, was the last time you asked?"

"Dunno." Mokuba turned back to the pictures, picked one up. "Couple a years."

"Then why are you bringing it up?"

Mokuba stared at the picture, eyes wide and mouth agape. His eyes darted between Seto and the frame. Once, twice, three times.

Impatience sparked through Seto's veins and he jerked a hand up. "What?"

Kisa's aunt swept into the room, two glasses of sweating sweet tea in her hands. "Here we go. Kisa says you two don't have much recollection of when you lived here."

She offered Seto a glass, and he took it more out of a need to be polite than to drink it.

"That appears to be the case," he said.

"What a shame. We'll see what we can do about that. I can tell you all kinds of stories from when you were a boy. Oh, the trouble you two used to get into. You and Kisa. A couple'a hooligans, the both of you."

She offered the second glass to Mokuba, but he didn't take it. He showed her the picture in his hand.

Kisa's aunt smiled and rubbed his shoulder. "You're sharp as ever." She took the frame and handed him his glass. "This was Yuuka's wedding, the girl's mama. Didn't know then, but your mama was pregnant at the time. No more than a month along. Imagine our surprise when we found out."

She handed Seto the picture. "That's your mama and daddy on the right."

The picture was of a group wedding photo outside a small church, possibly one of the ones they had passed, but it was difficult to tell. Kisa's mother was easy to pick out from the center of the crowd. They looked almost like twins. Her long blue-white hair was done up and pinned in rolling curls. The man next to her was dark-haired and sun-tanned, built long and lean, but standing awkward in his three-piece suit.

Seto's eyes slid to the couple standing to their right and his heart stopped. The man there looked like Seto, though in that same uncanny valley sort of way as the house. His nose was wrong and his hair was shorter, but his eyes had that same stormy grey hue that Mokuba's had. The woman next to him was beautiful. Her deep navy gown matched her eyes. His eyes. Her hair was long and curly, like Mokuba's. She was smiling. Seto thought he remembered that smile, in the grainy still image of a memory that slipped away as quickly as it came.

"Don't they make just the prettiest picture?" Kisa's aunt settled onto the nearby couch, legs folding beneath her as she leaned on the armrest. "God, I remember the day she brought Shin'ichi home. Our mama said he wouldn't stay long, waste a time. City folk can't appreciate the easy life. He'd be back and forth to the city all the time and when he finally got bored-" She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "Outta here like last week's news."

"How'd they meet?" Mokuba asked.

Kisa's aunt patted the cushion next to her and Mokuba sat down. "Noriko went off to the city for a year. Wanted to see the world a little, try her hand at that whole modeling thing. Lord knows she had the looks for it, won every pageant her mama ever put her in, but it didn't work out."

"Mom was a model?"

"For a little while. Then she decided she didn't like people tellin' her what to put in her mouth." She laughed. "Told me, 'can't get a decent crab cake to save my life. Every time I have one, my agent tries to make me throw it back up'. Hated it. Independent soul. Didn't like anybody tellin' her what to do."

"And dad?"

Kisa's aunt patted Mokuba's knee. "Good thing we were all wrong, yeah?" She took on a dreamy sort of look, cheek resting against her fist. "That boy worshiped the ground she walked on. No clue how they met, don't know if it matters. He spent the year after they were married building her that house." She motioned to the window. "Sure he would've given her the world if he could."

"What happened to them?" There was an intensity in Mokuba's eyes. His mouth thinned into a hard line.

Seto didn't miss the look Kisa's aunt threw his way. "Sweetheart, now's not the best time."

"I wanna know." Mokuba turned that intensity on Seto. "Don't you?"

He did, but could he handle it? What happened to them, to Seto and Mokuba, had been buried deep. The thought of unearthing it, of exposing the pain and sadness that no doubt waited for them there, made the sharp point of his fear resurface to prod at his heart.

A door slammed outside, bringing Seto back to himself. Kisa's aunt was watching him, her gaze steady, but unreadable.

"Mokuba, dear," she said. "Go out and help the girls with the bags, kay?"

"You told her to do it."

She smiled, but her voice was firm. "We'll talk about it after dinner. Let me just have a chat with your brother for a minute."

Mokuba's eyes flicked between them. He huffed, pushed from the couch, and stomped out the door. Kisa's aunt chuckled, shook her head, but when she looked back at Seto all traces of levity were gone.

She reached over and patted his arm. "What is it, Seto? You're wound tighter than a senator's wallet."

He set his untouched glass on the coffee table. "I didn't want to believe it."

"Can't lie to your own eyes though, can you? Your mama was like that. Hard-headed. Couldn't tell her nothin' once she got her mind wrapped around it. We all told her the big city wasn't right, but she wouldn't listen. Your daddy though, God bless him, I think he tempered her a bit." She shrugged a shoulder. "But Noriko was still Noriko, even after marriage."

She was right. He couldn't deny what he saw. His father's, his true father's build was so much like his own. Narrow hips and broad shoulders, with brown hair and an angled jaw. His mother's eyes were his eyes. Mokuba looked so much like her with his smaller build, his hair. They were all things he'd gotten from her. Seto had forgotten that and that hurt most of all.

"It's not that." Seto leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "There are things from the last ten years I've put considerable effort into forgetting."

Her expression softened. "You boys had a rough time of it."

"You could say that." Seto stared down at the picture still clenched in his hand.

"They'd be proud of you," Kisa's aunt said, her voice seeming far away.

Seto put the picture down, a sudden sour taste in the back of his mouth. "I doubt that."

She took his hand and squeezed it. There was a warm assurance in her eyes that was familiar. "You stayed together. That is something to be proud of." She waved her other hand in the air. "All the messy stuff's just life working its will. It tests you, tries to break you, but you hold onto this," she patted her chest, "and nothin can pull you down."

Seto scoffed, shook his head. "You're full of wise words, aren't you?"

"Kisa said that I bet. I've been talkin wise in her ear her whole life, bout time she listened to some of it."

Seto pulled his hand back as the front door opened again. "I can't say I have much of that left in me."

Kisa was in front and held the door open with her foot while Mokuba and Miku filed past her. She had a large white box in her arms. Mokuba had his duffle bag across his body and was rolling both their suitcases behind him. Miku had a galaxy pattern backpack over one shoulder and was dressed in a fluorescent pink 60s era bomber jacket.

Once they were inside, Kisa closed the door with her foot. "Where do you want this?"

"On the table, dear, the big one. And Miku-"

The girl stopped in the doorway. "Yeah, Auntie?"

"Go get your sister and set the table. Mokuba, once you got those bags downstairs, start pulling food into the dining room, would you?"

Mokuba rolled his eyes. "Why're you putting me to work? I'm a guest."

Kisa's aunt gave a sly grin, one Seto recognized from Kisa herself. "A guest I could tell all sorts of embarrassing stories about. Now hop to it."

There was no more discussion. The three dispersed in various directions. Seto's eyes stayed on Kisa as she moved into the dining room and set the box down on the table. She leaned over to move something out of the way and her shirt rode up just enough that a sliver of skin peeked from beneath the hem.

Her aunt hummed, drawing Seto's attention. There was a knowing glint in her eyes. "Don't got much'a that left? I don't know about that." She got up, grunting with effort. "Come on. You do the honors and cut the roast."

The table in the dining room was solid oak, polished to a shine, with space enough to seat eight. Plates and flatware were passed from the hutch at the back of the room, along the line formed by Kisa and her sisters, and into their proper places. Kisa's aunt instructed Seto to place the platter of thickly sliced roast in the center, next to the boxed cake. He glanced at it.

He did a double-take. Words were written across the cake in flowing blue icing.

'Happy Birthday, Seto.'

Kisa was grinning. "What? You think we forgot?"

Seto always made a point to celebrate Mokuba's birthday, but he couldn't remember the last time he even remembered his. Had it been ten years ago, at the orphanage? Had there been a party the staff had been obligated to hold for every child in the system. Had there been one after they were adopted by Gozaburo? He didn't think so.

Seto closed his eyes, tried to think, tried to rationalize. There was a feeling, faint and distant. A pressure on his shoulders, the ghost of hands that had gripped them.

"Happy Birthday, son."

Seto covered his mouth with a shaking hand, backed away until his back hit the wall.

"Seto?" Kisa was in front of him, holding his arms. "What is it?"

He closed his eyes. The cracks were widening. Sound and light and shapes. A torrent of images he barely remembered.

"It's okay," she said. "I'm here."

"Ready everyone? On three."

"Just don't spit on the cake."

Seto flushed. "I don't spit!"

"Not you." His friend had no face, but their head nodded at Mokuba, who was squeezed into the seat next to the birthday boy. "The baby."

"That's enough. You sit back down and wait."

A car door slammed outside. Seto and everyone else's heads swiveled to the window.

"Who could that be?" Aunt Moriko's hands were on her hips as she squeezed by the squadron of kids sitting at the table. Her fingers plucked at the curtain, pulling it aside. "Well, I'll be damned…"

Kisa's mom moved to stand up, little Rin hanging by her armpits in her arms. "What is it Moriko?"

Aunt Moriko was smiling when she turned back around. "Seto, honey, you're daddy's here."

"Dad?" He almost didn't want to believe it.

Seto was out of his chair and running out of the dining room before anyone could stop him. He flung the door open and sprinted into the sunshine. Kisa was on his heels, like always, followed closely by Miku and Mokuba. All the other kids from the party were spilling out of the house too, but he couldn't see their faces.

Seto's dad was pulling a bike out of the trunk of his beat-up sedan. It was the most beautiful thing Seto had ever seen. Blue paint that shimmered in the sunlight, polished chrome, with a light on the front, a bell on the handlebars, and a seven-speed gear shift.

Seto was out of breath when he stopped at his dad's side. "She's mine? Really?"

His dad laughed, deep and rich, and set the bike on the pavement. "Is there anyone else with a birthday today?"

Seto tackled him into a hug, arms clutched around his dad's middle. They tumbled into Mrs. Miyoshi's yard. He heard her yell something about her daisies, but he didn't care. Screw the daisies. His dad got him the bike he'd been asking for for the past two years.

Most importantly, his dad was home early.

His dad hugged him tight and spoke into his hair. "Happy birthday, son. I love you."

"I love you too, dad."

Kisa's hands held his face, thumbs stroking across his skin, brushing away moisture from under his eyes. "It's okay."

"I remember." His voice was strained. "My father… the bike… his voice. Kisa, I remember his voice."

Aunt Moriko rounded the table, pushing Rin aside in her hurry. They all stared at him; Miku, Rin, and Mokuba. Confusion and fear were plain in their eyes. Mokuba's especially. Seto worked so hard to make sure Mokuba never saw him in such a state, to make sure he maintained his facade, his armored exterior.

Seto was herded into a chair, where Kisa pulled him in into a tight embrace. Her fingers brushed through his hair. Warm, firm, comforting. He wrapped his arms around her middle, turned his face into her so no one could see his tears.

He was home. He was finally home.