Silent Honor by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online

and how much they meant to her, and prayed for the next year to fly by very quickly. She watched the mountains of Japan slowly drift away, and she stood for hours on the deck, just watching her homeland shrink on the horizon.
    When Yuji and his parents returned home, the house seemed painfully empty without Hiroko. She had always moved among them so quietly, so efficiently, as she went about her chores, and helped her mother without saying anything, but one always sensed her presence. And now suddenly without her, Yuji realized how lonely it was going to be, and he went out to meet his friends so he didn't have to think about it.
    Masao and Hidemi stood looking at each other then, wondering if they'd been wrong, if she was too young, if they'd made a terrible mistake sending her to California. Masao particularly had second thoughts, and at that moment, if he could have, he would have brought her home to them and told her to forget St. Andrew's College. But this time it was Hidemi who was sure, who knew that they had done what they had to do, that it was best for her. Hiroko was only a year younger than she herself had been when she married Masao. Hiroko would learn many things, make many friends, and then she would come home to them again, and dream of the year she had spent in California. Masao was right. It was a different world, a world in which one needed to know more than just traditions, a world in which arranging flowers and pouring tea would no longer be important. It was a world that, one day, would belong to the young, to people like Hiroko and Yuji. She had to be prepared for it, to learn the lessons she would need when she came home again. It would be a year well spent, and as Hidemi thought of it, she looked at her husband and smiled.
    “You did the right thing,” she said generously, knowing that he needed reassurance. He was feeling terrible. All he could remember was the agony in his child's eyes when he left her on the ship and hurried down the gangplank.
    “How can you be sure?” he asked unhappily, but grateful that she had said it.
    “Because you are very wise, Masao-san,” Hidemi said, bowing to him, and he reached out and took her hand and pulled her slowly to him. They had shared nineteen years, and they had been happy ones. They respected each other, and loved each other deeply. It was a love that had strengthened over the years, and that had weathered storms. And in their time together, they had shared many different decisions, but none as hard as this one. “She will be happy there,” Hidemi said, wanting to be sure of it, and believing everything Masao had told her.
    “And if she isn't?” he said, feeling old, and suddenly very lonely. But no lonelier than his daughter.
    “Then she will grow strong. It will be good for her.”
    “I hope so,” he said softly, as Hidemi took his hand in her own, and they walked slowly out to the garden. They couldn't see the sea from where they were, but they stood in the direction they knew it was in, and as they thought of her, Hiroko stood on the deck of the Nagoya Maru and bowed low to the horizon.

Chapter 4
    T HE NAGOYA MARU docked in San Francisco on August first, after a two-week voyage. The sea had been smooth, and the weather had been good, and for most of the passengers the crossing had been uneventful.
    The Nagoya Mara had carried mostly families, and a number of older people who didn't want the livelier route via Honolulu. The passengers were primarily Japanese, and many of them were going on to Peru and Brazil. But there had been a number of Americans as well, like the woman who had shared Hiroko's cabin. She had kept to herself, and spoke very little to the other passengers, and only to Hiroko when they were both getting dressed or passed each other on the way to the bathroom. Hiroko had nothing to say to her. She had nothing to say to anyone. She was numb with grief and homesickness all the way to San Francisco, and more than a little