A Year in June: Chapter 8

            It was the middle of January when Mina decided they should build a patio outside. “Why?” June had asked, “It’s not summer anymore, it’s freezing outside!” Mina just grinned her goofy grin and said that she was restless and needed to work on a project to keep her occupied.

            Minazuki Saito came from a long line of carpenters. Her father owned a carpentry company and Mina, wanting to be a part of her father’s work, started teaching herself about the tools of the trade. Although she excelled at carpentry her traditionalist father refused to allow her to inherit the company. Instead, his life’s work would go to his son, her half-brother. Mina confessed that since she moved out of the house soon after her father remarried so she did not know much about her half-brother, but that didn’t stop her from detesting him for so easily taking what she had tried so hard to earn. “There were times I thought to go there and tell him to go away. To give me what is mine.” She shook her head. “But it’s not his fault. My father made the decision. But still, I cannot go back to my family. Hidoi desune?”

            Mina had left her home at age 19. In the part of Japan where Mina was from, this was an abnormality as most people did not move away from their parents until they were either married or well into their 30s. Even then, it was not at all unusual to find people who worked in the same trade as their parents living together permanently.

            Still, with her carpentry skills, Mina had no trouble finding work once she left her home. She was already a head carpenter at a well-established company when the March 11, 2011 disasters hit northeastern Japan. When she heard about the need for rebuilding tsunami damaged homes she immediately left everything behind to help up north in Minamisanriku. Mina made decisions quickly and decisively; she said she tried not to regret any decision she made. Barely a month after the disaster, she was helping locals rebuild their homes and businesses. Work orders had come in droves over the summer, but in the heart of winter there were few people willing to build through the cold, wind, and snow. Mina was one of those few, but June certainly was not. However, she understood that Mina did not just want to build this porch—she needed to build it. She needed something to distract her from her past, occupy her present, and ward away the future. June also needed to divert her mind from thinking about her uncertain future. So for that reason, and for Mina’s sake, June agreed to help undertake the porch project.

             

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