They share a moment while Terry is showing her the antique Japanese artworks on display in the embassy, and after some reluctance, she agrees to allow him to call on her.

After having a fight one night when a general says that Terry should be proud that he may have a son to die for the emperor, they make up and she reveals that she is pregnant.

Soldiers enter and search the house, and while they don't arrest him, it is clear that he and his family are going to have a rough time as long as they stay in Tokyo.

As the village listens to the emperor's voice for the first time, the speech starts: We are fully aware of the innermost feelings of all of you, however, have resolved to pave the way for peace for all generations to come.

By enduring the unendurable, and suffering what is insufferable, let the entire nation unite as one family, from generation to generation, and cultivate the ways of rectitude and nobility of spirit.With the war over, Terry asks Gwen to return to her home of Johnson City, Tennessee to put Mako in an American school while she is young and can lose her prejudices against America.

Days later, after Gwen agrees to Terry's final wish for her and Mako to depart for America, he sees her and their daughter off at the dock.

The memoir narrates the life of Gwen Harold (1906–1990), an American from Tennessee who in 1931 married Hidenari "Terry" Terasaki (b.1900), a Japanese diplomat.

Terasaki held various posts in the Japanese foreign affairs department up to 1945 when he became an advisor to the emperor, and was the official liaison between the imperial palace and General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Allied Commander.

During the scene in which the Japanese ambassador tries to persuade Gwen to call off the marriage, he seems to hint at a possible conflict between the two countries.