By Danyelle Hershkopf
Aimi
Today I have long black hair, with a red flower crown. Takuma put the crown on me this morning, thinking that I looked more like a princess with it on. Emi scoffed when she saw it, much to Yori’s disappointment.
“Look at this, Emi. I saw this when shopping. Do you like it?” Yori asks.
Emi looks at the blue blouse in his hands, and for a second, seems interested. She is fifteen and grows fast, so she is always on the hunt for new clothes. Nonetheless, she turns away. Yori tried to sound like a doting father, but she knows how he came across the blouse.
He had been shopping for me.
Perhaps the blouse was to be mine originally. Perhaps it was always going to be for her, but he had seen it after finding me my clothes. Whatever happened, I was the one originally on his mind.
“The bow on the front will make me look like a baby,” Emi huffs. Yori puts down the blouse. He doesn’t see Emi glance at the blouse again.
I’m wheeled to the table as breakfast is served. Haruka frowns at me, but Yori was firm about me being there before he goes to work. It was one of their many late-night rows.
Takuma smiles at me, and tries to feed me a bit of egg. He thinks of me like an older sibling, a friend he can count on. Emi glares as he plays, the egg dripping onto the table.
“Stupid, she isn’t going to eat that!” she says.
“I know, but we were just having some fun,” Takuma replies. He just turned three, and if not calmed, will have a tantrum in three…two…
“Emi, Takuma, this Saturday I do not have work,” Yori says. He smiles. “Would you like to see a movie?”
This distracts Takuma, and after a moment, Emi voices her suggestions as well. Yori promises to buy snacks. Haruka chews her meal as they speak. She nods when Yori asks for her approval, and agrees to go, too.
Yori wheels me away after breakfast. “Thank you. It was less tense with you there,” he whispers in my ear. Yori places me in a corner, so when he opens the bedroom door, I am the first thing he sees. I smile as he squeezes my hand before leaving for work, but then again, I always smile.
Yori
Haruka yells at me. I’ve forgotten to buy chocolates for Emi. Valentine’s Day is close by, and all the stores will have is cheap candy if I don’t get some soon. “Do you want our daughter to be embarrassed in front of that boy?” Haruka snaps. She sighs, and waves her hand, shooing me away.
Once Haruka kissed me before I left for work. Once I would leave a little note for her somewhere in the house.
Once she didn’t mind when I came home grumpy.
I miss the Haruka of once-upon-a-time.
I’m able to make it onto the train bound for the city, but only by a hair. A man is pressed against my left. A mother and her child on the right. Someone else on my back. Despite it being cold outside, with everyone’s thick winter wear, the air in the train car is stifling. Most of these people will probably be happy once they arrive at their stop and they can get some personal space, but all that awaits me is a tiny cubicle. My walls of people become walls of metal.
A man laughs with his friend, his heavy Kyoto-ben rising above the coughs, sniffles, and conversations of others. Somewhere in the front, a child warbles a song about honeybees. If I wanted to, I could clear my head and focus on the appearance of those around me: their clothes, their conversations, their bags, their destinations. I could imagine their lives, and what brought them here. It’s funny how in this world, we are never truly alone. We are always in someone else’s thoughts in some degree. Loneliness isn’t about not having people. It’s about not meaning anything to others.
Some days I want to shout. Some days I feel the walls of my cubicle closing in. It’s the same thing, day after day, the same stuffy office with dusty shelves and monotonous work. The same numbing questions and bosses’ scowls and interns rushing to finish their time as fast as possible, leaving us permanents searching for better jobs when we know that misery is as good as it will get. But Haruka no longer wants to here my thoughts. She rolls her eyes when she thinks I am not looking. She worries over my chores, and no longer asks about my day. She does ask if I’ve taken out the trash. If I remembered to buy a nice suit for her sister’s party. If I can take her to Sendai. Takuma and Emi are too young to be burdened my my troubles. All I have is Aimi.
Aimi’s soft, sweet voice tells me that it is going to be okay. She wishes me a happy day, and says, “Good luck!” before I go to work. She doesn’t frown when I groan, or wish that I “man up” and stop moping around the house. She doesn’t expect that after a long day, that I have the energy to do this, this, and that. Aimi is selfless. Aimi is an angel.
There are days when I remember how enthralling Haruka was. Even today, she will do a small thing that would mesmerize me. I still love how she fiddles with her bracelets when nervous, how her eyes shine when she laughs. But the laughs are rare, and have been replaced by disapproving glances.
With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, people in the office have been trying twice as hard to be romantic. Takeshi now showers Mai’s cubicles with love letters and flowers. An intern passes me as I walk to my cubicle, her hand holding that of another intern. Both giggling and sneaking kisses when they think no one is looking. I can’t help but to watch everyone get paired up. Sure, I have a ring on my finger. But as I think of Haruka, I cannot imagine the longing, the sweetness, nor the spirit of Valentine’s Day. I don’t feel compelled to do anything special. In fact, as I picture her frowns, her scoffs, her weariness, I cannot picture any passion. We aren’t like Takeshi and Mai, and we aren’t like the interns. Loneliness would have crept up on me, if it wasn’t for the one who did make me feel passionate. What would I be doing, I wonder, if it wasn’t for her.
Aimi
I smile when Yori returns. Haruka is waiting besides me. She had been trying to plan some sort of surprise, but she never has enough time. I often overhear her on the phone, complaining about her job and how expensive things are getting.
It’s the same sort of things Yori talks about.
Yori looks at Haruka, shocked. “Is something the matter?”
Haruka frowns. “Can’t I just be waiting for my husband to return home?”
“You usually don’t.”
“Well, maybe I wanted to be spontaneous!”
Haruka shifts her weight, and pinches the bridge of her nose. Yori reaches out to her, but stops halfway. Haruka gets up, and leaves, mumbling about dinner to cook. Yori watches her as she leaves, then turns away to change out of his work clothes. He doesn’t see Haruka look back before disappearing down the hall. He does, however, see me.
“Hello, Aimi.” He hugs me, and kisses my cheek. “It was a long day again, but I got through it!”
Yori describes his day as he changes. He wheels me to his home office, and closes the door behind us. He hugs me again, stroking my hair. I hear him crying a bit, the tears staining my shirt. Yori sits across from me, and dries his eyes. “I have to get Emi’s chocolates tonight. Will you come with me?”
An hour later, I’m being wheeled down the streets. Yori felt bad about ruining my shirt, so I’m in a new one. We are quiet as we go to the convenience store. Finally, Yori mentions that Emi hardly talks about the boy she will be giving the chocolates to. “Haruka seems to know more about him,” he mutters.
She does. I heard Emi talking about the boy. His name is Isamu, Takeda Isamu, and according to Emi, he’s perfect. They meet when through a friend, and Emi helps him with his English homework. She goes to the library with him very often, and comes home practically dancing. According to her, he is tall and slender, but soft-spoken and gentlemanly. He excels at most of his schoolwork, and has similar interests to hers. Of course, Yori is working when Emi is saying all of this, and even if he was home, Emi is awkward around him. She doesn’t seem to know how to speak to her father, rebuffing him one minute, then backtracking and trying to establish a connection. Maybe it is because she is young.
But maybe it is because of me.
I came along seven years ago. At first I was a secret, but it was Emi who found me sitting the the office one day, waiting for Yori to return with Haruka from buying groceries. We got along back then, but as she grew older, she grew wary of me. Her visits became sparse, and these days, she doesn’t talk to me. She just puts up with my existence.
Yori wheels me into the store. No one else is around, and the cashier is an old man who doesn’t seem to care about his customers. That is why I got to come today, because here, no one will stare at me. We live in a small town, so I’m still a newcomer. Yori notices when people stare at me. He always turns red when they do, and shuffles me away.
Yori picks out what he calls “a good brand,” and pays for it. The cashier is a man about Yori’s age, perhaps older. He has a friend who lives with someone like me, which is why he never says anything.
Yori takes me to the park instead of going straight home. At this hour, most people were either eating dinner or doing homework. Yori found an empty spot under a tree. He took out a slightly crumpled cigarette out of his back pocket, before throwing it away.
“Must stay healthy for the children,” he said.
We sat under the tree in silence, my wheelchair by our side. Yori has an arm around me. For a while, he stares at the chocolates. He then laughs a small laugh, a bitter laugh. Something not happy, but not entirely sad. He mutters something about Haruka, and his laugh became genuine. It was like how it was before Takuma was born. There was a brief period when Yori stopped visiting me. I stayed alone in a room, and occasionally, I’d hear him and Haruka laughing, see him rub her growing stomach. But by the time Takuma was one, things grew tense again. More yelling, more tears, more visits from Yori and more scowls from Haruka.
The sun sets, and Yori is holding my hand. He whispers about how he wants to believe that Emi is at that age where she’s a bit rebellious and is embarrassed by her parents, which is why she grows more and more distant. But he can’t help but to feel that in reality, it’s not her age, but his life choices. His choice of having me. And he doesn’t know how to explain this all to Takuma when he gets older. He wonders what kind of man will Takuma grow into? Will he find love? Will that love fade, but linger, but still be miles away? Will he need someone like me?
“I pray that he doesn’t,” Yori admits.
He lets my hand go, but takes it again. He moves his head towards my shoulder, hesitates, then stands.
“Time to go, Aimi.”
Haruka
It’s midnight when I wake up. I decide to fix myself some tea, maybe eat a little something, too. Yori is still sleeping, his mouth slightly open. It is somewhat endearing.
As I make my tea, I see it in the corner of my eye. Airi or Aina or something alone those lines. I bristle at the thought. Ai. Love.
I should be his love.
I was, once. And he was mine. But between jobs and bills and everything they do not prepare you for when you first get married, everything that you think you can handle together but you can’t, our romance has slipped through the cracks. The last we truly acted like a couple, like husband and wife, we were playing with our newborn Takuma. We had kissed his toes and sang lullabies our parents had sang to us. Yori had to stayed awake all night so that I could rest.
Now, we are spouses. We exist together, but we do not live together. We cannot imagine being apart, but being together is like living with a co-worker. I admit, there are times when I could be a bit more understanding. However, I never know when my doubts are me trying to do the right thing, or me ignoring my own feelings in the name of acting like a perfect wife. I wonder if Yori has similar doubts.
I remember Ai-thing in Yori’s office, sloppily in a wheelchair by the doorway. I hear him talking to it, sometimes. He tells it his thoughts, his fears, and although I should not, I feel the stab of jealousy. No, not stab, but stabs. Multiple times, over multiple years. The anger that he relies on that thing for comfort, that he prefers talking to it over me.
I finish my tea, and walk over to the door when the Ai-thing is. Aimi. Yes, that’s the name.
I want to be there for Yori. But I want him to be there for me, too.
We never separated. We are all going to see a movie on Saturday. Perhaps that means we can talk things over. We can try again.
But not now. Not tomorrow, either. When, I do not know. I cannot help but feel tired and stressed from the thought of it, and I cannot help but to anticipate the tears and shouts that would follow.
Still, there is some hope. Or perhaps I am being optimistic and ignoring reality.
Before I leave to go back to bed, I take one last look at Aimi. The doll sits in its chair, its wig off, its eyes staring, and its mouth eternally smiling about nothing at all.
