we stand outside for five whole minutes until i am brave enough to ring the doorbell. my hands shake and falter as if its several degrees colder outside than it really is.
i press the bell once, and when she doesn't answer, i swivel around on my heel and grab addie's arm quickly behind me.
"we should go, okay, addie, she's probably out with someone tonight, i gotta get back to my apartment —"
"asami, no," she says forcefully, dragging me back to the steps. she places her small hands on my shoulders.
"you are not a coward. you never have been. stop pretending you are."
so i stop. i still my hands and ring the doorbell two more times, and on the second one, my mother appears in the doorframe.
"asami," she breathes out in surprise. her eyes gaze over beside me.
"and addie bishop in the flesh, oh my goodness. i'm so—it's very good to see you, both of you. i didn't think you would really come."
"me neither," i say numbly. addie squeezes my wrist.
"it's good to see you too," i amend. my mother nods gently, the corners of her lips forming a sad smile. i follow her reluctantly into the house, addie trailing behind me.
i am shocked to see how much has changed and how much has stayed the same.
the bathroom lights are fixed. fluorescent, white light. addie glows in it. i remember asking for white light bulbs for a birthday one year. and here they were.
the kitchen now scents permanently of togarashi spice, and irreversible marks stain the floors and ceilings. a cookbook lies on the dining room table, covered in a new, smoky brown cloth. it matches chair set.
she is cleaner, now.
i circle the house in mounting awe—the staircase leading up stairs is a pristine though off-white; the carpet threads are remain attached; the walls gleam with new paint, blue and white, alternating in different rooms.
it looked like no one had lived in it for a long time. a house is only a house, until people make it a home.
i continue walking through. i turn left at the top of the staircase, my pulse buzzing soundlessly.
"this is my room," i whisper to addie, standing before a broken door. she glances up at me for permission, and then opens the door herself.
it's like muscle-memory, how smoothly everything falls back into place.
my bedroom, once dedicated to bookshelves and party decorations shoved underneath my clothes in the closet, the home of our small christmas tree from february to november and everything else that had nowhere to go, is now spilling with art. my art, specifically — the canvases i hated, or never finished. sketches from school and haphazard attempts at scuttling. canisters of paint and brushes sit idly by easels, untouched, like they were waiting for me.
"did your mother do all this for you?" addie asks in astonishment.
it was beyond me ever imagine her doing something like this. but then i remember the way we used to be — the softness, the warmth of our quiet house, and i am sure it is her doing.
"this is beautiful," addie sighs.
"thank you," a voice says from behind. i switch my head around to see my mother standing awkwardly by the doorframe.
"i'm going to see downstairs now, okay? i'll be right back," addie says knowingly, and kisses me lightly on the cheek. she grins at my mother and glides beside her, out of the room.
without her presence there to fill it, the familiarity and kindness of the room seems drains from my body. my mother and i do not exist well alone.
but i am not a coward. addie had told me so. i sit down on the bare mattress on my bed and try to smile. my lips feel stiff and fake.
"this room looks really nice. thank you," i say mildly. her expression brightens twice over.
"i'm so glad you like it. it took me a while, because i had to search through quite a bit of stuff to find your paintings, but it was definitely worth it."
my throat dries instantly.
"you—you looked through my paintings?" i ask, flatness taking over my voice.
"i — yes, i did, i thought — i did," she sputters out. "is that a problem?"
"did you read the titles?" i question, referring to the slips of paper i glued to every painting i had ever made, as a sort of explanation to what it was supposed to be. to remind me of the vision.
most of them consisted of related words: blue, sunshine, baby; anger, bitterness, the loneliest girl in the world. reflections of what inspired me to paint it.
"yes, i did," my mother replies regretfully.
and why, i cannot say, but this sets a voracious fire to the parts of me i had quelled for so long.
"do you like finding reasons to hate me, is that what it is?" i say to her stonily. "is that why every time we see, you insist on talking about, or reading about the things that make you dislike me? do you enjoy making things worse between us?"
"asami, no, that's not what — that's never been my intention," she says lamely, reaching out to graze my shoulders. i step back a foot.
"don't touch me," i spit. "don't act like you love me just so that when i leave you can make me cry again. i know you don't like me, mama, so why do you keep acting like you're trying to?"
a large silence comes between us. my mother breathes heavily, as if the weight of my world was on her shoulders.
"asami, you don't know how hard it is for me to be like this to you," she says sorrowfully.
this makes me laugh, this awful, void sound. my mother begins to cry.
"you don't understand, asami," she mutters through tears.
"then explain, mama! make me understand," i ask rancorously.
she wrings her hands together and averts her eyes at the ground. "alright. i will."
"when i was younger, i had a sister, you're aunty. jasmine. she was two years older than me. she reminds me of you, not just because she was a great artist, but she was also very head-strong, and firm in what she believed in."
she looks as if she wants to say more, but instead twists ring on her finger.
"did she like women like me too, mama?" i continue in irritation. she nods embarrassedly.
"she never really liked boys, and i assumed it was because none of them were good enough for her—jasmine held herself so beautifully, so intimidatingly. but then, when i was fourteen and she sixteen, there was this set of siblings that moved right next to us, aaron and beatrice. i was practically in love with the boy, but he preferred jasmine. and jasmine was in love with bea, though no one could stand to believe it at the time.
they would be with each other for hours every day, in the house, outside, at the mall. we went to different high schools, but they might as well have been enrolled in the same one, they knew so much about the other's life. jasmine told me one day that bea made her so happy she could die, and then announced that they were dating. and i asked her, jasmine, what about mama and papa, how will they feel? and she told me our parents already knew, that she didn't need to worry about them. that it was the world she needed to worry about."
she stops to swallow stiffly and wipe at her eyes, finally training her gaze into me.
"jasmine took bea to her school dance, and on the way back, bea was verbally and physically abused by a couple of students in the year above her. it happened on a regular basis, people calling her names, insulting her for looking like a boy, of all things — but it was especially bad that night. bea was so traumatized she moved away, which broke jasmine's heart beyond repair. but even this was not so bad, until people transferred the hate they had for bea onto jasmine. my sister did not take it very well.
she, um, she stopped eating, a week after people started following her home after school — they'd follow her all the way onto our street, yelling obscenities, threats. she tried to kill herself once," my mother says piercingly, "and when that didn't work, she turned to alcoholism. and when that didn't work, she shot the person who ruined her life by beginning the rumor in the chest three times. this solution earned her thirty-five years in prison."
i stare in wide-eyes horror at my mother, reciting the story with a kind of rawness that implies she hasn't told it to anyone before. it makes it all the more painful.
"mama, i'm so sorry—"
"no, asami, i am sorry. this world does not take kindly to people like you sometimes, but it was not my place to prepare you for it by punishing you for being who you are," she says agonizingly. "everyday of my life i regret slapping you, or saying all those things that drove you away — i just didn't want you to end up like jasmine."
"i'm not like her, mama, look at me," i say. "i'm happy. i am okay."
"i know, love, i know you are," she responds tearfully. "i just which i could have understood that sooner."
instinctively i stand up and envelope her into an embrace. as foreign as it feels, i know this is how we can be now.
"i'm sorry," she whispers to me. "i'm sorry for hurting you, my only child, when all i wanted was to protect you."
"it's okay," i tell her. "you are okay."
i would be too, now. i can be okay.