But despite my inexperience, I had a vision of who I wanted to be. I wanted to earn enough money to live without a husband and build the strength to survive on my own.
“Oh, yes. I hope you can call Taichi ‘Dad.’”
That took me by surprise, and I had a hard time registering what she meant.
Dad.
Was she trying to lessen the psychological burden on her new husband? It couldn’t be easy to suddenly have a new teenage daughter.
“If you don’t, it might get confusing.”
Apparently not.
“Confusing?”
“Because Yuuta’s an Asamura, too. We wouldn’t know which one you were talking about.”
“Yuuta? Who’s that?”
“Oh? Didn’t I tell you? Yuuta Asamura is Mr. Asamura’s son.”
“He has…a child?”
“He’s sixteen, the same age as you. Your birthdays are close together, but Yuuta’s is a little earlier, so he’ll be your older brother. You can call him Big Brother or something if you’d like. But since you’re only a week apart, you’ll be more like twins.”
Twins? I’d never heard of twins who weren’t related by blood.
“You definitely didn’t tell me.”
“Well, I’m telling you now. You’ll meet him later this week. Since they’re both Asamura, you can either call him by his first name or call Taichi Dad. Give it some thought, okay?”
I didn’t remember much after that.
I think we kept chatting until it was time to go to bed. Whatever the case, I was in a daze after suddenly learning that I’d have an elder brother. And I’d be meeting him that same week! I wished Mom had given me more advance warning.
“At least I didn’t wait until the very last minute to tell you.”
“That’s the bare minimum!” I shouted back.
Six months had passed since then.
If I asked Mom if she and Dad were doing all right, I had a feeling she’d probably smile and say, “Yeah, for now,” again.
Their silly lovebird behavior wouldn’t last forever. Mom knew that, and she was prepared.
Still, I thought Dad was a good match for her. It was hard to describe how, but I felt like she’d let down her guard a little since she met him.
As her daughter, I was grateful that she’d finally started to relax. I no longer had to worry about her pushing herself to collapse.
Mom and my birth father hadn’t been a good match. Even after a decade of living together, they never learned to compromise. Dad had a vision of the wife he wanted, and Mom just couldn’t live up to it.
Mom and I continued fixing dinner and chatting about this and that. Dad would be home soon.
Just then, Asamura opened his door. He’d been awfully quiet, so I figured he’d been sleeping or had his nose in a book. He sure loved to read.
“Yuuta!” Mom called out to him. “Would you please turn on the TV?”
“The TV?”
She had him put on a movie to provide some background noise. I couldn’t see the screen from where I stood in the kitchen, but I heard the cheerful voice of a young boy and a seasonal tune, so it was probably a Christmas movie.
Asamura sat down on the living room sofa and started watching the film. I could see his profile from the kitchen, and it reminded me of the first time we met.
I’d made up an idea of who I thought Yuuta Asamura was and gotten really nervous. But when I met him, he’d ripped that image to shreds. As our parents nervously looked on, he’d assured me with his words that he wouldn’t make up any ideas about who I was and expect me to live up to them. That had reassured me immensely.
This was a boy who didn’t expect others to act a certain way. When I realized that, I decided to say something back to him.
“I won’t expect anything from you, and I don’t want you to expect anything from me.”
That was the moment Asamura entered my field of vision, and he’d been there ever since.
Once we were mostly done fixing dinner, Mom told me to sit down and relax.
I removed my apron. Now what?
I went back to my room and saw my vocabulary notepad tossed on top of my desk.
With school out, I didn’t have any homework, and it was too close to dinner to start studying for my college entrance exams. I’d barely have time to begin before we had to eat. About the only thing I could do was to look over my vocabulary notepad.
I plugged my earbuds into my cell phone and put on some lofi hip-hop. Quiet music, like the sound of the rain, started whispering in my ear.
With my vocabulary notepad in hand, I headed back into the living room.
A Christmas movie was playing on the TV, but the words didn’t distract me since I had my earbuds in. And out here, I’d be able to tell right away when Dad got home.
I sat next to Asamura and began flipping through my notebook.
To bounce… “To leap, to spring back”… Okay, I got that one right.
Concern… “To relate to.” Oh, that one also means “worry about something,” doesn’t it?
I stopped flipping through the pages and paused to think.
That’s right. I’d looked up the difference between worry and concern in the dictionary before. Concern had a more positive nuance. You might take steps to prevent something you were concerned about.
It was important to be proactive instead of simply worrying. I didn’t know if we needed to study stuff like that, but I found it interesting.
Consider… What was that again? Hmm… Was it “to think about something”?
The pages of my notebook created a pleasant rhythm as I flipped through them.
I continued to study as Asamura watched the movie by my side.
I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night, unsure of the reason.
Because the lights were off in my room, I must have noticed the pale night-light in the living room leak in through the doorway. It stretched out in a thin vertical line across the darkness.
The door was open.
“I thought I closed it…,” I said to myself, sitting up in bed.
I turned on my bedside lamp and noticed the faint silhouette of a small box by the door.
“Did Santa Claus stop by…?”
Back when I was in elementary school, I’d pretended to believe in Santa Claus and acted surprised by the presents he brought me. But the next morning, I said, “Thanks, Mom,” and Santa never came again.
I got out from under the covers, put on a cardigan, and went to pick up the gift-wrapped box.
It wasn’t very big—it fit in the palm of my hands. I undid the ribbon and peeled off the wrapping paper. Inside was a letter from Mom and a small white box.
It began, “Dear Saki.”
In her characteristic rounded handwriting, Mom expressed her gratitude for my constant support and her concern about my overeagerness to help. It felt a little embarrassing to read such a serious note from my mother. I’d been trying to remain somewhat detached, but when I got to the part about my present, I found myself unconsciously straightening up.
I opened the box and found a bracelet from a famous jewelry brand.
“Knowing you,” the letter continued, “I imagine you’re planning to strike out on your own after high school.”
My heart skipped a beat. I had never said anything to her, but Mom had seen right through me.
“When that happens, I doubt you’d even ask your own mother for money. You’re stubborn like that, after all.”
“Well, I’m your daughter…,” I mumbled.
I looked at the silver bracelet in my hand, then back at the letter again.
“So I’m giving you this gift. I’m sure you’ll be busy with your exams next year, so I wanted you to have it now. If you ever need to, you can sell it. It should get you enough money to keep going for a month or so. And in the meantime, I want you to ask someone for help.”
She was even aware of how bad I was at relying on others.
“What kind of person hands you a gift and then tells you how much it will sell for…?”
I guess the answer was my mom.
In her letter, Mom apologized for giving me something a little too expensive for a high school student to wear but insisted that I indulge her and accept it.