She looks me up and down, as if I wasn't ever supposed to get out of that bed. But without a word she is halfway to her bedroom, her backpack tossed onto the counter with a third of the contents spilling out.
I wish she would stop looking at me like all of this is my fault, I mean... it is for the most part, but I'm her mother, I want her to be able to see what I see. I see this strong and beautiful girl that has more strength in her than anybody I know. And here she sees me muddled and broken down, when this isn't who I am. This isn't, this is me getting hurt, not me at any other time. This Iis me dying inside and letting a little trickle of that pain seep out into the world. This is me cracking, breaking. This isn't me broken.
I do my best to let her fully settle in before I even think consider striking up any kind of conversation. And besides that, I have no idea - what so ever - what I am going to say. I know that this has to be heartfelt, but I'm not sure why she's hurting. I know that there are several reasons, undoubtedly, why she is in such pain and frustration. But I want to know specifically what pushed my little girl into such deep waters, she doesn't deserve to drown like this.
Finally, I take my long trek down to her room. At least Tadashi thinks I can do something... or I'm his last resort. So many things could go wrong, I just can't think of anything that can go right.
My index knuckle taps three times on her door. She doesn't say anything, or at least I don't hear anything, so I ask gently to come in. To my surprise, she actually responds.
"No." That's a great conversation stopper, but we haven't even had a conversation to stop yet. So I push my words and the door, barely peeking my head into her room. "I said no." I can literally hear the irritation in her voice as she turns over her shoulder and picks up her round eyebrows.
"Kyoko, sweetie, we need to talk about this." She glances at me in the doorway, but then returns to pretending to be busy, milling about her bedroom. Six years old and she has to go through this... She reaches for her phone, trying to distract the both of us. "No," I say softly, entering the room. She's sitting on her bed now, texting. As politely as I can, I slowly take the phone out of her hands and set it on the desk next to us. "No," I say again, equally as soft, "we've been putting this off, both of us have."
I place my hand on the back of her shoulders but she refuses to look up, and her dark blonde hair conceals her face. "I don't have anything to say." This is the kind of excuse where you can tell, there's a lot on her mind but nothing in her mouth. I breathe in nice and slow, the last thing any of us need is for me and my big mouth to make the situation worse. So maybe I don't dig deep, maybe I better just try and mend the tear right now. She might not be ready or quite frankly old enough to have a solid view on death, or a firm grasp on the concept itself. So I make my response as simple and mild as possible.
"I'm not going to ask you to say anything, but I'd like it if you'd listen." Now that's the problem with grief, sometimes words are your enemy, they tell you what you need to hear but destroy what you need to feel. These are dangerous waters to be in. Kyoko, unfortunately, is a victim of circumstance, and she has to succumb to whatever mud Tadashi or I have to tread through, the least I can do is hold her hand through the murk.
Hesitantly she breaths an "I'll try". My immediate inclination is to correct her for saying that, make her face the fact that she either will or she wont. By the looks of it, that's the response she was craving for whatever reason. The words make my head hurt a little, just the way she said them.
"We both will," I say under my breath, hoping she doesn't hear me doubting myself and quite frankly this conversation. I manage to disguise it with a kind of sigh, I don't think that she heard it in the first place, which is fine by me. I pray that this is the last time I mess up this conversation. "I know that you think, that you think what happened to your grandfather is my fault, but..." There's no way around saying it, all I can do is put it as softly and sweetly as possible. The truth is killing us both. "He was a sick man..." I take another slow breath in and do my best to continue without my voice giving way.
"No he wasn't, he was kind and listened to me, he cared. You lied about that." I listen to her, I do... Right? He's never, not a glimpse of him was kind or caring. Maybe he did care, but his way of doing that was wrong. I don't know what to say, what to do, she has me pinned. Quickly, what my mother told me about him comes to mind when I first found out about him with Tadashi. It was that long night, it seemed like everything was at odds, and nothing could be smoothed over. But she told me how I was too young to recognize his bad side, and that he was smart enough not to show that to a little girl. This is the thinking that I have to maintain, I'm sure of it.
It's not an easy topic, I'll tell you that. So whatever comes out of my mouth now, it's coming. "Kyoko, I would never lie to you, not ever." I try and focus on that for a moment. "I care too much about you to lie to you. But he just, his brain worked differently than ours does." This is the hard part, explaining that mentally there is, I mean, was really something wrong with him. I'm not saying he's stupid, I'll give him credit, he was a genius to be able to create the things he created and commit what he committed. "He thought that the way to solving problems was to force people to agree with him," once again she cuts me off.
"What does that have to do with me not seeing him?! You kept him away from me, if anything, you were the one forcing me to think what you were thinking!" I open my mouth but she keeps going. "You didn't give me any chance to form my own opinion on the man, all I ever knew about him came from you, and I was gullible enough to just go with it. For all I knew, you could have told me he was a squirrel and I would have just went with it because I knew that you would never let me see him anyways!" I sigh deeply, that's not what I need her to see right now. I kept her away to protect her, but when Tadashi or my mother protected me from anything before we were married, I wanted to do the exact opposite to get my way. That's not what I want to happen here.
"You're a smart girl, Kyoko, so do you think that they would put somebody in a mental hospital for no good reason?" I look her right in the eye, to make sure her response has merit. She looks away but I place my hand on her shoulder to regain the eye contact. I need eye contact, that's one thing I do know. Eye contact equals attention and sincerity.
"Well... No..." She mumbles, almost ashamed of not thinking that herself. Or if she had thought it already, she has been denying it. For a while so did I... But going there and seeing him reminded me that it was real, that all of it was real. Maybe I should have let her see him...
"He did things that, that I'll tell you when you're older. And I will tell you, I promise, but for now it's better to focus on this, okay?" She nods. "He was just, he was just a sick man." I say, slowly shaking my head. Even I hate admitting that, I wish that he was just possessive and evil, then maybe it would be easier to let go. But knowing that not all of his actions were one hundred percent his fault, that makes this really, really hard.
"Why do you keep saying it like that, he was your dad." She says, huffing the last half of her sentence.
"Something that you have to start to realize is that, my dad left me." I try my best to think of a way to put this in perspective for her without scaring the life out of her. "That's like if Tadashi just one day, left and wasn't here anymore. And not even tell you why, just one day without warning, leave. Now, Tadashi would never ever even think of doing something like that, but that's what my father did. Real daddy's, don't do something like that and then kidnap their daughter and granddaughter years later." They also don't blow places up, so, you know.
"He was sorry..." My heart sinks, she's such a sweet and innocent girl. I almost want to let her think that, but this is the time for truth and I don't want to ruin that right now.
"That's a nice thought, Kyoko, but I don't think he was -"
"He told me that he was sorry." What? What did he say, do, what happened when he took you? That's what I want to say, but I need to stay on target with this, when she's ready to go deeper we can, but for now this is enough for the both of us.
"What do you mean he told you?" Okay, so I couldn't resist asking, but it's related to what we are talking about and not to mention important. I still don't fully know what happened to her, and now is the time for some information I would think. She seems aggravated by the question.
"Words came out of his mouth and they spelled SORRY, what do you think I mean?" And that would be the Hiro in her, thank you, thank you, she'll be here all week. In simpler terms, another swing of sarcasm like that and she will be here all week - grounded.
"It just, it surprises people." I say, still dumbfounded and a little offended.
"You mean it surprises you." She says, putting the words in my mouth.
"Yes, Kyoko, It surprises me." I say, refraining from getting mad. Well, more mad than I am. I'm mad at the world, myself, and this conversation.
"Why are you so judgy?" And now her defenses are up, great. That's just what I needed.
I decide to try and turn this around, make it a little happier, somehow. There's a bright side to everything, we just happen to be on the other side of this "thing". "Oh, I'm the judgy one, huh?" I smile, she seems to lighten up just at the image of me not being harsh. "Says the person that doesn't believe a word I'm saying right now." One perk to having a smart-alec for a daughter, is that I can be a smart-alec right back from time to time.
"I believe you," she says, suddenly more solemnly, "I just, I don't like what you're saying." No kidding, neither do I.
"Okay, well... Look, the way he solved his problems was to steal people. But how about, from now on, when we have a problem, we talk?" She smiles weakly, but a weak smile is as good as any, it's the first form of a smile I've seen on her in weeks.
"It's not his fault, there really was something wrong with his brain, like you said." I feel awful, she's justifying what he's doing, but there wasn't anything right about what he did.
"Lucky for you and I, there's nothing wrong with yours. When I was really little, my mom used to tell me, 'vamos a hablar, gritar y llorar antes de dejar la otra', or 'let's talk, scream and cry before we leave each other.' Kyoko, there are going to be harder things to overcome than losing a person that you hardly know, and we have to be there for each other. And even if you forget that, I'll always, always be here for you." Like it or not, I will be here for her. No matter what. With that she smiles again and I head towards the door. I think I did okay...
"Hey mom..." She whimpers. I turn on a dime.
"Yes?" I'm immediately worried that this is going to take a turn for the worst.
"Vamos a hablar, gritar y llorar antes de dejar la otra." I smile. She is fluent in Spanish, incase you haven't noticed. And I didn't teach her any of it.
"Si nina. Buenos noches, Kyoko." I can't stop smiling now, a soft and warm glow on my face.
"Night mom." That's as good as an I love you. I'll take what I can get right now.