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saying good-bye to the fish.
    When we walked around the side of the house, we passed a stable with a tall fenced enclosure built around it. No horse was visible at the moment, and from the look of the compound, there had been no four-footed occupant in the place for some time.
    Behind the house, a car and trailer had been backed up to an open door. The faded green-and-white Suburban looked as though it had been picked up at a surplus vehicle auction from either the U.S. Forest Service or Immigration. It was a huge old rig, much the worse for wear. A decaying bumper sticker asked, HAVE YOU HUGGED YOUR HORSE TODAY? Hitched to that hulking wreck, however, was one of the classiest horse trailers I've ever seen. Impeccable black lettering on the cream-colored metal side announced HONEYDALE APPALOOSA FARM. And on one of the open back doors, in smaller but equally black lettering was the trailer's own pedigree: PHILLIPS TRAILERS, CHICKASHA, OKLAHOMA.
    The contrast between the battle-worn Suburban and the pristine trailer was so striking that it almost made me laugh. Clearly, the horses' riding comfort was of more importance than the comfort of any human passengers.
    I sidled around to the opened end of the trailer and glanced inside, half expecting to see the rump of a horse. Instead, the interior of the trailer was stacked high with furniture and boxes. I understood as soon as I looked inside. Considering their financial difficulties, it would be far less expensive for the Kurobashis to move their household goods in a borrowed horse trailer instead of a rented van or U-Haul. Once the trailer had been cleaned out, of course.
    Kimiko stopped in front of me so abruptly that I almost ran her down. George and Big Al blundered to a stop behind me.
    "Wait here, she ordered. "I'll go get her.
    Kimi Kurobashi hurried through a wooden arch into a small, peaceful Japanese garden. She crossed a fountain-fed pond on a miniature arched concrete bridge and paused beside a carved stone bench where a woman sat tossing something to several enormous orange-and-white carp that circled lazily in the sun-dappled water.
    The woman looked up startled and began to rise as Kimi came forward, speaking in rapid-fire Japanese. I couldn't understand a word that was spoken, but I was sure from Kimi's tone that she wasn't pulling any punches. A look of shocked dismay passed over the older woman's face as she heard the news. Dismay gave way first to denial and then to total anguish as the full meaning of the words finally struck home. Her face crumpled. She faltered backward while Kimi reached out to steady her. Together they sank down onto the bench.
    Even from where we were standing, it was apparent that the daughter was very much a younger, fresher version of her mother. There was the same determined set to the chin, the same delicate molding of eye and cheekbone, although the lines on Machiko Kurobashi's face were beginning to blur a little with age. Her hair was steel gray and cut short, but I could imagine that it had been long and black, full and lustrous once. In her day, she must have been a striking beauty, just as her daughter was now.
    They sat on the bench for several minutes, while Machiko Kurobashi wept silently. At last the older woman took off her glasses and wiped her eyes. Despite Kimi's objections, the mother rose and started toward us.
    She was wearing an old-fashioned blue cotton dress with a zipper down the front that reminded me of the everyday dresses my mother used to wear, housedresses she called them, that were good enough for working inside the house but not for going to the grocery store or for entertaining even unexpected guests. Machiko seemed to share my mother's housedress philosophy. She self-consciously brushed crumbs from her lap and checked the zipper as she walked toward us.
    She was older than I had thought at first, older and frailer. Coming closer, she leaned heavily on her daughter's arm with one hand and on a twisted