Simon Green agreed. “I’ll go to Bertha Sinclair as soon as the Easter holiday is over.” “Maybe Mr. Kipling could help?” I suggested.

“Yes, I think that could be arranged.”

After Simon Green had left and everyone else had gone to bed, I went into the kitchen. I could not sleep. It was too late to call Win (he had been in Connecticut visiting a college with his mother), and even if it hadn’t been, I could not begin to explain about the events of the day.

I got a glass of water from the tap and sat down at the table. The kitchen seemed oddly bright. The room was different than it had been that morning. There were more colors somehow, and my mind felt overwhelmed with sensation. There were so many things for me to solve now that Leo had returned.

I clasped my hands and bowed my head. Thank you, God, for returning my brother to me. Thank you. “I believe and trust in Him,” I whispered.

At that moment, Leo came into the kitchen, wearing his pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt. “Annie,” Leo said. “I thought you were up.” He sat down across from me at the table.

I told him that I hoped I hadn’t woken him.

“You always wake me,” Leo said. “Just like that night with Gable Arsley. I always listen for you.”

I smiled at him. “Leo, how did you and Noriko get back to America?” “By plane,” Leo answered. “Simon Green came to get us.”

I still had so many questions but I didn’t want to overwhelm Leo with them. “Leo, can you explain something for me? Yuji Ono told me that your wife was from a fishing village and that she had been killed along with you. He never said that she was his niece.”

Leo shrugged. “Noriko is from a fishing village,” Leo said. “I went to stay with her family around October after Yuji Ono said it wasn’t safe for me with the monks anymore. Noriko is the daughter of Yuji Ono’s half brother.”

Yuji Ono had had Leo moved? He had certainly never mentioned anything about that. And if that were true, it didn’t necessarily make sense with Simon Green’s depiction of Yuji Ono, i.e., that Leo had been unsafe in Japan once I’d refused Yuji Ono’s proposal. And whose ashes had we been sent?

And why had Yuji Ono lied about seeing Noriko’s dead body? I shook my head. I needed to talk to Yuji Ono but he was still unreachable, and he hadn’t tried to contact me.

I took my brother’s head in my hands and kissed him on both cheeks. “Leo, let me ask you something. Do you think Yuji Ono is a good man?”

“Yes,” Leo said. “But I haven’t seen him in a very long time. Around January, he went into seclusion. Noriko thinks he might have caught a sickness during his travels. No one in his family knows, and Yuji Ono is very private.”

I grabbed Leo’s hand. I was still surprised to see the silver band around his ring finger. “Leo, are you very much in love with Noriko?”

“Yes!” Leo said. “I love her more than anyone I ever met except for you and Natty.” “Why?”

“Well, I think she is the prettiest girl in the world except for you and—”

I interrupted him. “Me and Natty, I know. And I agree. She is very pretty. What else, Leo?” Leo’s face grew solemn. “The thing is, Annie, she doesn’t treat me like I am stupid. You probably won’t believe this but she thinks I’m really smart.” There were tears in the corners of Leo’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Annie. I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused you last spring. I know everything you did for me. Yuji Ono said you even went to jail for me.”

I told him that I’d do it again. He was my brother and I’d do anything for him. “Leo, Yuri’s dead now and Mickey’s gone. But we’ll need to arrange something with the authorities so that you and Noriko can live here in peace.”

Leo nodded.

“You might even have to go to jail for a little bit yourself.”

“Okay,” Leo said with such equanimity that I could not help but wonder if he’d understood what I’d said. “As long as Noriko can stay here with you and Natty. You’ll have to take care of her.”

“Of course, Leo. She’s my sister now,” I said.

The world was a remarkable place, really. I had started the day with one sister, and I had ended the day with a sister, a sister-in-law, a brother, and a half brother.

I had started the day with no faith and now my heart was full.

IN EXCHANGE FOR ANOTHER modestly sized bribe to the Campaign to Reelect Bertha Sinclair, Leo was given a seven-month sentence to the Hudson River Psychiatric Facility and two years of probation. He’d be out in time for Thanksgiving.

The third Saturday in April, Mr. Kipling, Daisy Gogol, Noriko, and I drove Leo there. He kissed his wife (wife!), waved to the rest of us, and that was that. Noriko cried the whole three-hour trip back. We tried to comfort her but she spoke almost no English, and we spoke no Japanese, so I doubt we were much help.

Coincidentally, that evening was prom. I hadn’t wanted to go, but Win had convinced me that we should, if only to redeem the previous year’s disaster. “Do you think they’ll even let me on campus?” I had asked him. He reminded me that technically I had not been expelled this last time.

I had not bothered to shop for a dress so I went digging around in Nana’s and my mother’s old clothes. I picked out a navy blue dress with capped sleeves, a high neckline, and a low back. I thought the dress fit well, but upon seeing me, Noriko screamed, “No!”

“No?” I asked.

“Bad,” she said as she unzipped the back. “Old lady.”

Noriko went into Leo’s room and returned with a white dress. The dress was covered in lace and might have been a decent length on Noriko, but would be short on me. I would look like an insane bride. “You wear this,” Noriko said. She was smiling. It was the first time she had smiled all day, and I thought of my promise to Leo to take care of his wife. I really didn’t care about the matter anyway so I agreed to put on the dress.

I looked in the mirror. The dress was a bit tight on top, but otherwise, it fit surprisingly well. Noriko came up behind me to adjust the sash, which tied in the back. “So pretty,” Noriko said.

I shook my head. Natty came out of her room to examine me. “You look…”—Natty paused —“mad but attractive. Attractive mad.” She kissed me on the cheek. “Win’s going to love it.”

Win met me at the apartment. He attached an orchid corsage to my wrist. I waited for him to make a joke about my crazy dress but he didn’t seem to notice that anything was amiss. “You look beautiful,” Win said. “Let’s hope no one gets shot this year. It’ll be hard to get blood out of that dress.”

“Technically, I think it’s still too soon for that kind of joke,” I told him. “Oh.” He asked, “When will be the right time?”

“Probably never,” I told him. “Interesting jacket choice, by the way.” The jacket was white with black piping. Summery. Tacky.

“By ‘interesting,’ you mean you don’t approve? Because people in glass houses, by which I mean people going to prom dressed like brides, shouldn’t—”

“I didn’t say that. It’s, um, unexpected.”

He said that his old tux jacket had gotten misplaced at the hospital the year before. I told him I was pretty sure it had been cut off him. “That explains that then,” Win said. “This jacket’s my dad’s. He had white-tie and black-tie options. I picked white so no one will mistake me for anyone else.”

At prom, my classmates seemed pleased to see me and the administration tolerated me. The theme was “The Future,” but the organizing committee’s world-building skills were lacking, and they hadn’t really come up with a way to depict said theme in decorative terms. There was a handful of decorations with reflective surfaces and clocks, and a large digital banner that said WHERE WILL YOU BE IN 2104? Their vision of the future was vague at best, and I found the whole thing rather anxiety-producing. I had no idea where I’d be next year, let alone twenty years from now. Truthfully, the first answer to occur to me upon reading that banner was, Dead. In 2104, I’ll probably be dead.