“Mommy?”
“What, Suzu?” she answered, looking back at me.
It was eleven years ago. Our house was still new. We didn’t have a garage yet, and potted flowers lined the yard.
“I’m not cutting my hair.”
I ran down the hill in front of the house. Mom ran down the stairs on the other side, circled around, and waited for me with her hands on her hips. I hopped away, shouting that I would never ever get a haircut. But she dragged me back mercilessly, sat me down on the garden bench, and tied the salon cape over my shoulders.
“You’re going to look so cute,” she said. Ugh. I hated how the freshly cut ends pricked my skin. She was cutting it above my shoulders because “you’re going to be an elementary student now.” Soon my bangs were way high over my eyebrows. My neck kept itching for a while even after I started school.
I used to play with Mom a lot. We wrestled on the grassy riverbank in the evenings. I would push her as hard as I could, and she would roll over in the grass.
“I won!” I smiled happily. She smiled, too.
I asked her why. “Is it ’cause I’ll cry if I lose?”
She shook her head. “I’m happy my delicate little Suzu is so strong now.” Dad lay in the grass, smiling as he watched us.
Mom made katsuo tataki a lot. She would salt pieces of the fish and thread it onto metal skewers, then blister it right over the flame, skin side first. I would stand on a chair and watch. She patted the dripping fat off with paper towels so the stovetop didn’t get dirty. When the red flesh turned pale, she dunked it in ice water, pulled it off, and patted it dry. She always cut it into super fat chunks. I was just a little kid, so I could hardly pick the huge pieces up with my chopsticks, let alone fit them in my mouth. She would sit there, mug in hand, watching me struggle as she waited for Dad to come home. Back then Dad worked in an office and wore a necktie every day.
Maybe that’s why we had a little more money in those days. Mom bought the newest model of phone. We wanted to test out the camera, so I sat on Dad’s lap and pointed the phone at her. He helped me get her in the frame before I pressed the shutter. She was so pretty, smiling in her white clothes. We printed the picture out, and we still have it at home.
Unlike now, I was an energetic kid who used to run all over the place. I much preferred playing outside to being indoors. If there was a tree, I climbed it. If there was grass, I ripped it up. If there was a bug, I chased it. But I never got sunburned. It must have been in my genes. Instead, freckles covered my face. Scrapes and scars covered my knees. I used to trip over my feet in the woods and on the riverbanks and the hill outside the house. Mom would come running and hug me tight while I cried. Magically, the pain would go away. I was so happy back then. I don’t know how many times I fell down because I loved playing and I wanted Mom to hug me. She’d always come running like it was the most serious matter in the world.
Every day was like summer vacation. I followed Mom around while she did the laundry and cleaned the house. After lunch, we would throw open the living-room doors, lay down quilts on the floor, and take a nap together. Incense swirled through the air to keep the mosquitoes away. When I opened my eyes, Mom was usually not where I expected her to be, but instead busily doing housework. When I think back on it, she never once told me she was too busy. Any time I asked for her, she gave me her full attention.
Since we lived in the mountains, we never went out to eat. Instead, Mom would cook us whatever we wanted. One day, I told her I wanted to eat yakitori like I’d seen in a picture book. I’d never had it before. She made it for me, skewering each piece of chicken and grilling it. For the first time in my life, I saw real yakitori. Not knowing how to eat it, I had trouble pulling the meat off the skewers with my teeth. Mom and Dad just stared at me, like they didn’t want to miss the chance to see me do something for the first time.
Living in the mountains, we didn’t go to amusement parks or shopping malls for fun; we’d just go further into the mountains to a campsite. On sunny summer days, Mom and I donned broad-brimmed hats and crossed the Chinka Bridge. Dad always carried all the camp gear.
The crystal pools at the far end of Yasui Gorge were so blue they left even us locals speechless. The water was so clear we could see our own shadows at the bottom of the river. Swimming in the river felt like being in midair, which scared me a little.
Mom was an excellent swimmer. She told me proudly that when she was growing up, she used to swim in these crystal pools every day in summer, like a water imp. She knew all the joy the river could give. But she never swam anywhere dangerous when the weather was bad, and she never let me do that, either. She used to circle around me as I floated in my inner tube and then plunge downward, showing off. Stuck in my tube, I’d get frightened and call for her: “Mommy, don’t go! ” But she would swim off through the blue water like she couldn’t hear me.
One evening, I was playing with Mom’s phone when I found a weird app. When I started it up, black and white stripes appeared. I asked Dad what it was. He stared at it, gave me a puzzled look, and called Mom from the kitchen where she was making dinner. After dinner, Mom took the phone and turned it sideways. I realized the stripes were the keys of a piano. At her urging, I pressed one. A “do” played.
“It played!” I said, looking at Mom.
“It did,” she said, looking back at me. It was an app she used to compose music.