Feet on cool wooden floors and a shiver and chill. Frost blurred the windows and hands reached for a robe to cover the naked flesh bared to the morning. Slipping into old loafers, footsteps quietly neared a small table. Lifting a vinyl record, breath blew the dust off of the top and lowered it onto the disk. Amidst the rich golds, reds, and greens, the smooth raspy sound of Billie filled the space. Her eyes closed as the smell of pine and cedar drew closer, strong firm arms sliding around her waist. 

"Thinking about your grandma?" Smiling against a mess of bedhead, she nodded quietly. 

"Today is the anniversary of her emancipation from Mukden." 

*** 

So long after her passing, it was strange that she was starting to dream about her. It had been so long since she had, not since she had been a child. Six years old. It had taken her so long to stop dreaming about her and all of a sudden now, here she was again, playing in her dresses and trying to walk in her shoes all over again. 

*** 

"What are you doin' in here Asami?" Eyes that conveyed being busted looked up at the most beautiful woman she'd ever seen, save for her own mommy. 

"Nothin'" Pursing her lips, the woman crossed her arms, over a silky beige number, like something from the 30s. 

"Don't lie." Hair long and curly, the grey-free strands fell from over one of her shoulders.

"So, you found it." 

"Found wha-" The closet in her room had turned into Grandpa's office, door ajar. And she, had the voice of a little girl, but she was fully grown. 

"It was only a matter of time until you did. There was always somethin' about you Asami." 

"What'ddya mean?" Offense. 

"You too much like me, girl. Your grandpa kept tellin' you that."

"That's why he loved me so much." Her eyes were warm and clear as a crystal as she looked at all the journals, scattered pictures and ripped out pages. 

"Well, what's your verdict?" Turning her eyes onto the woman, she blinked her very obvious confusion. 

"My verdict?"

"When your Aunt and Uncles found all this cooped up in here, they shunned your granddaddy. Told him to go to hell and hoped he died nice and slow." 

"They couldn't have said that, Grandma. He was their father." Her eyes were now sad. 

"He took it hard. It nearly destroyed him all over again."

"Again?"

"He's died so many times in his life. It's not fair for anybody. At some point, you should be allowed to live. Should be allowed redemption." She contemplated her words. 

"What are you gonna do with all this?" 

"What?" 

"Our lives. Our stories. The hell we went through. What are you going to do with it?" Lifting her arms up to hug herself, she answered real quiet. 

"I don't know." 

"Well, baby, whatever you decide.. put it to good use. Don't let it all go to waste." She was about to speak again but when she turned around, her grandma was gone. 

*** 

Again. Again. So many deaths in his life. And yet the one that he never revived himself from hit him in the most vile way, completely without mercy. As good and grown as she was, she feared she'd forever be haunted by his cries, his screams, and the utter destruction that resulted from his grief. 

*** 

1980

University of Vermont Medical Center 

11 am 

"Sir, we will call the police! Please, settle down!" 

"Dad, please!" Who existed before them wasn't a man. It took the form and face of their grandpa but it released sounds she'd never before heard a human make. A deep rippling howl, filled with agony and torment. Teeth bared and breath hissing, he reached for and threw the chair he'd been sitting on against the adjacent wall. 

"Bring her back." He snarled, eyes incoherent in their frenzy of rage. 

"She's dead, Mr. Matsuda, we cannot bring her back!" 

"You lying pieces of shit! Bring her back! Now!" 

"Dad! Stop it!" 

"Get your fucking hands off of me! Beatrice!" He called but there was no response. The woman he called out to laid there in her hospital bed, relaxed and calm as if she had just fallen asleep. She made no move, not a sound. There was no rise and fall of her chest. Everything was just...still. 

"Daddy! Stop it!" Ann screamed before sinking to the floor, arms hugging herself. 

"Dad..." Eli and Joe both... tried for the sake of their sisters to keep composure. 

"What good are doctors if they can't save people?" The man finally loosened up enough in the arms of his sons that they finally let him go. 

"What the hell was the point? What good are they, Bea?" The sound of Ruby consoling Ann filled in the cracks of silence. Blank eyes stared into nothingness, saw nothing as the cluster of them filed around her bedside. Sniffling and choked breath and nearly silent whispers. Saw nothing still as their children left the room, leaving the two of them alone. 

That damned beeping machine no longer made any noise, the patterns and jumping lines were now two singular flat lines. Throat full of unshed tears, he tried to take a breath and bring himself to his feet. Each step closer to her bedside felt as if someone was stabbing him in the gut and by the time he finally stood above her, his gaze was blurred by tears that fell at will. 

"You told me..." Too overcome with emotion, he allowed the words to fall off his tongue and tears to drip from his chin for a moment before trying again. Sucking in a breath, he leaned down over her, hands crushing the sheets on either side of her head. 

"You promised me. You promised me that you would stay...with me. You told me that you would never leave me..." Drops of pain marred the serenity on her face and dared to disturb her beauty. 

"Were you lying, Beatrice? Did you lie to me?" His bottom lip and chin started to tremble and he hung his head now, fingers now fisting the sheets. 

"What am I supposed to do now?" His voice asked, barely there. 

"What the fuck am I supposed to do now?" He suddenly yelled, throat now so tight it hurt to speak. 

"I...I can't...I can't live without you..." Now a whisper, he pressed his forehead against hers, eyes closed and leaking.

"How... can you expect me to do this without you?" Opening his eyes to fresh pain, he lifted his hand from the sheet and gently caressed her face, skin still warm. Blood not yet having turned cold. For the last time, he traced her lips with his thumb, gently parting them. Closing the gap between them, he kissed them, relishing how soft they were. 

"My beautiful girl...my Beatrice..." Kiss drunk, he tried to breathe love and life back into her by way of his lips, crumbling finally upon her own finally becoming stiff and cold. A single forlorn wail enveloped the room, followed by hyperventilating breaths and uncontrollable sobbing that turned into rough broken screams. 

*** 

She never again saw him smile after the farewell at the hospital. In a way, she had witnessed two deaths at such a young age. The death of her grandfather's heart, the vanishing of his soul too like her grandmother had turned into ash. The man who had laughed until he cried, until the funny bird feet tickled the corners of his eyes died. The man who had hope, faith, and the desire to live had died in that hospital room. Grandpa's journal during this time was empty. For years, he never wrote one word. His crushing depression and isolation pushed away his remaining children and his increasingly erratic spurts of memory loss and poor judgment made them think he was going insane. And maybe he had. Retreating inside of his mind to cope with everything. 

Now, however, it made sense. It made sense why Aunt Ann and Uncles Joe and Eli stopped coming to visit. Stopped participating in his care. Completely cut contact and severed all family ties and responsibilities concerning him. They had to have discovered his office. The house was free for the gander before she dropped out of college to move in. He'd lock himself in his room, drink himself into a coma, and smoke cigarettes, even though by then the doctor had given him his last warning to quit. They must have ventured in upon cleaning up and going through Grandma's belongings.

Her mother must have seen everything too. But, unlike her siblings, Ruby felt conflicted. She for the longest time tried to deny everything until it served her no purpose to do so. The pictures of him didn't lie. The newspaper clippings didn't lie. His own admissions confirmed everything as truth. Even so, she... she couldn't ever bring herself to completely hate him. She once lamented for not having the courage of her siblings. But now, now she felt different. She felt like she did.

Ruby Riko Matsuda had a bond with her father that perhaps none of their other children had. It had been etched and woven into the very fabric that made her who she was. She, could not by any means, abandon him. No matter how much she may have wanted to. She just... couldn't. She understood her mother more than she knew. And now, now she had an idea of just what to do. How she could make sure that all of their sacrifices would not go to waste. 

*** 

"Are you aware of how much money the old man left her? And you're letting her waste it to do this?" 

"That old man was your father."

"Old bastard. I hope he's burning in hell." 

"Joseph!"

"Don't act like you didn't see it either Rub. You saw what he did to those children, to those men and women. He fucking buried them alive!" Ruby was silent, eyes leaving the enraged gaze of her brother to fall upon her daughter, who stood talking with the contractor. 

"He left her all this land too."

"You have no right or reason to feel jealous Joe. You were the one who abandoned him, not the other way around." 

"The least the son of a bitch could have done was leave you some, Ruby." He did, but that wasn't any of their business. 

"No matter how you feel about him, when talking to me, respect him, or else I'll beat the shit out of you. Both of you. I'm still your oldest sister." Both of them shut up and she sighed, sifting her fingers through short curly black strands. 

"Asami doesn't need your permission or your approval. Have a problem with what she's doing, stick it up your asses and keep going. She was there for him. You weren't." Giving them both a fierce glare, the woman walked down the encampment to join said daughter. 

"How's it going sweetie?"

"Good. They'll be here sometime next year."

"Okay, that sounds great."

"In the meantime, I'm gonna have them level the land and decorate it to make it look like what you and I remember." Smiling, her mother brushed a curl away from her cheek. 

"I wish I had've had the courage to do all of this before now but..."

"What matters is that you have it now, Mom. That's all I can ask for." 

"I'm proud of you, Sami. Grandma and Grandpa would be too."

"You think so?" 

"Most definitely." 

*** 

Time was funny like I said before. Time, the mysterious construct of minutes and seconds and nanoseconds. It somehow always sped up when you didn't want it to and seemed to slow down when you needed it to. Time is the mind and the mind is time. My mind scares me. I feel like I'm forgetting her. Forgetting the one thing that gave my life meaning. I can't forget her. I can't let time take her away from me again. I don't know much but I know that I've spent my life trying so hard to atone for my mistakes. She was my reward. My reward for trying...and...and...I forgot my car keys. Not sure where I put them. But I remember that my name is Ichiro Matsuda. And I was married before. Married to one woman for 50 years. Her name starts with a B. B-something. B...B...B what? What comes next after B? She must have been my wife and I must have loved her. A lot. 

*** 

That was the last entry in his journal that she read before she closed the massive book. It had been a ride, it had been a journey but it had been life changing. With this... with Takeru, her and even her mother... the world would never forget Ichiro Matsuda and Beatrice Jones.

*** 

"Today, on NEWS11, we will be touring two extremely special properties. Created by one amazing young woman by the name of Asami Miller-Ito, a dynamic museum is now open to the public in the beauteous Essex Junction. For all you history buffs and WWII collectors, this place will be sure to delight even the most avid fan! Linda Stewart, reporting. Linda, how is it out there?" 

"It's absolutely beautiful, Glenda! We're here just up the road in Essex Junction, with the lovely Asami Miller-Ito at what she has named, 'The Road to Redemption WWII Museum'. Asami, what gave you this idea?"

"Yeah, so welcome to the Road to Redemption Museum! I really didn't come up with the idea, I think it had always been inside me to do! My grandfather, Ichiro Matsuda was a soldier who served in the Imperial Army of Japan during the war. His life as a soldier in the Army was so extremely different from the man I grew up knowing."

"How did you come to learn of his past?"

"Well, I grew up here on the property and would always come to visit. My grandfather had this room, an office, that he forbid anyone to go into, except him and my grandmother." 

"And one day, you looked?"

"My grandpa had been fighting laryngeal cancer for a long time and he lost his fight about two years ago."

"Oh my God, wow, I'm so sorry to hear that." Asami smiled softly, her eyes warm. 

"Yeah, it was really rough for me. I was serving as his full-time caregiver so it was a major blow when he passed. During that time, I finally sucked up my fear and entered the office. What I found changed my life." 

"I'm sure it did." The camera panned to the house they stood in front of. 

"Can you tell us about the first house here?" 

"Sure! This was my grandpa's birth home. He was born and raised in Okayama prefecture in a small fishing and trade town called Kurashiki."

"It's incredible. Massive."

"His father was a very successful businessman and war veteran, having served in the First Russo-Japanese war. They lived a comfortable life." 

"Wow. Seems like the military was a call that was attached to your grandpa's life from his birth."

"Absolutely. It meant a lot to him to follow in his father's footsteps." 

"If you don't mind me asking, your grandma was African-American, yes?" 

"Yes, she was."

"Tell me how that happened. How did these two people from two different worlds meet and fall in love?" Smiling, Asami bit into her lower lip. 

"That, Linda, is something you're going to have to find out on the tour!" 

"Arghhh! Guys, I tried to get the scoop but she's not budging." The two women shared a laugh together. 

"So, you've also built a museum of another house. What's this?" The camera panned to an old wooden shack and porch that had clearly been restored. 

"This was where my grandmother was born. It's where she lived her childhood."

"Where was she from?"

"Huntsville, Alabama. Born 1925."

"Just incredible."

"Her name was Beatrice Jones, later Matsuda when she married my grandpa. She was kidnapped and forced into a concentration camp in Shanghai that was known as Mukden Labor Camp. She suffered so much and fought so hard to survive." 

"What a strong woman she was. I cannot even imagine." The two of them walked a bit further before the beautiful woman spoke again, 

"With my grandpa and grandma both having passed, I wanted to do something to honor their memory, tell their story and show people that love is possible, no matter which side you find yourself on." 

"They've left an incredible legacy, that's for sure! What are your hours?"

"We're open Monday thru Friday 9 am to 6 pm Eastern Standard Time. The history, the images, and other materials presented in the museum can be very disturbing to some people so please use viewer discretion. We are a war museum so I need to put that warning out there. We do provide a kid-friendly version of the exhibit, toured by my mother, Ms. Ruby Matsuda. The child exhibit is open 8 am to 2 pm." 

"Asami also offers hiking tours, wood-shop, costume pictures, and painting for the kiddos as well so please bring them out! Before we go, can you tell me what that building is there?" The reporter pointed to what looked like the replica of a nightclub, with sounds of Duke Ellington, Artie Shaw, and Harry James coming from the inside. 

"It's a pretty pivotal theme here at the Museum. I grew up listening to jazz, swing, and big band and so did my Mom. Knowing the backstory of a place like this will make it very special when you happen by it." 

"Glenda, this place has me in awe. Don't wait up for me at the studio, I'm about to dive into the museum and check out their eats. Be sure to check out her grandfather's memoir, titled 'Bride of War' co-written by her husband, Takeru Ito. It's for sale in their gift shop so while you're here you might as well grab a copy. That's it for me folks! Jiving with Asami Miller-Ito at The Road to Redemption Museum, I'm Linda Stewart, NEWS11." 

*** 

Their love would forever be immortalized within the pages of the book and the scratch of the record player. A continuous spectrum that spanned throughout the years; on quiet nights in Autumn when the player inside the jazz club would mysteriously turn on and the shadows of a man and a woman dancing could be seen through the windows. Could have been rumor and fable. But then again, she supposed that was another story for another day. She'd let you, the reader, determine what was the truth.