One Last Wish
By Laura Schiller
Based on the movie The Cat Returns.
Dedicated to Yarningchick and fringeperson for their wonderful, delightful, heartwarming fanfiction, which is a blessing for this site and a worthy tribute to Studio Ghibli's amazing film.
It was midnight, and Sano Midori was sitting alone at the kitchen table of her apartment listening to the song of the rain against her windowpane while putting the last touches on the customized ceramic doll she was working on. She cast a longing glance at the coffee machine, but decided against it; any spills right now would be a disaster.
Carefully she picked up the tiny yellow ball gown she was sewing and set another stitch. The doll itself stood naked on her two porcelain legs; she had huge brown glass eyes, a pretty painted face, and a short brunette wig made of bits of Midori's own hair to make it as lifelike as possible
Her hands were cramped from making all the tiny stitches, but she went on. Everything must be handmade as far as possible, Grandmother had said. The work must come from your heart. Please, Midori. I need this.
Grandmother had always had a rich, strong voice, but these days it had gotten thin and cracked from the aftereffects of chemotherapy. Midori couldn't say no to that voice – nor to the pale, drawn face on the clean white hospital pillow, with the machines beeping and humming all around – and so she had gone to her studio and set to work immediately. She had dug in her parents' attic for old photographs, trying to capture the character in the face of Grandmother's younger self. She had listened to Grandmother describe the yellow gown in surprisingly minute detail and made several sketches for reference. And she had worked very hard to keep back an inconvenient fit of tears.
Grandmother knows she's dying. That's why she wants everyone to remember her as a young girl...instead of the way she is now.
Midori remembered it all...things she had taken for granted when they happened and would miss all the more. Grandmother's old house with the sun-bleached, elaborate quilts on the walls, each one telling a different story. Grandmother sitting in the big old brown armchair, crunching her way through a box of fish crackers and telling Midori her whimsical fairy tales about a secret kingdom of cats, and a noble cat statue with eyes like emeralds. "I wish he was real," little Midori had sighed, and a strange look had come into Grandmother's eyes and they had changed the subject.
Grandfather's funeral, just a few years earlier. He had died of a stroke, his second one. Grandmother had burst into tears and refused to throw the shovelful of dirt onto the casket – She always was emotional – and the loss of Sano Ichiro had left a hole in the entire family that still needed patching up.
Midori sewed her memories into the cloth, trying to imagine the girl her grandmother must have been, the girl from the old photographs and the stories. Yoshioka Haru. Child of a single mother, missing her father but seldom complaining. The sort of girl who would take over cleaning duty so her friend could watch a lover's ping-pong game, who would run in front of a truck to save a cat. Clumsy, shy and insecure, with a tendency to sarcasm and a heart of gold.
It was hard to believe that Grandmother, who was so comfortable in her own skin, could ever have been insecure. But then, Midori remembered vividly how plain and gawky and utterly colorless she sometimes felt, even now in her early twenties, and that it was something every adolescent went through. Grandmother had often comforted her in her various emotional breakdowns, with a lavender-scented hug and a bit of advice.
"Always believe in yourself. Do this, and no matter where you are, you will have nothing to fear."
With a sigh of fatigue, she snipped off the thread, unthreaded the needle and put it away into its box. Carefully she picked up the doll and eased her into the gown.
She blinked – the resemblance was uncanny. If not for the size and the blank, lifeless expression, it could have been Grandmother in her prom dress at the age of sixteen.
"Wow," Midori muttered aloud, her own voice sounding strange in the thick silence of the night in her apartment. "So this was what you looked like...Yoshioka Haru. Not Sano Haru, not anyone's mother or grandmother. Just you. I wish I could've known you then."
She adjusted the dress one last time, ran her hands over the brown hair in a gesture of affection, stood up, and yawned. It was high time for her to go to bed. She had a Pottery Guild meeting the next day.
()
She dreamed. She was standing in the middle of a town square ringed with brightly painted little houses, with a crow statue sitting on a tall pillar in the middle. Her eye was drawn to one house in particular, painted green and white, slightly smaller than the others. She bent down to have a closer look – and gasped.
In the window stood two porcelain statues, both as familiar to her as her own face. One was a man dressed in white, with the face of an orange cat and glittering green eyes – and one was the statue she herself had finished only that evening.
They were standing arm in arm, and as the sun began to set, the entire square was bathed in shafts of golden light which slowly centered on their sparkling eyes.
As the light faded away, an even stranger thing happened, though as is usual in a dream, Midori was not astonished in the least. It seemed the most natural thing in the world that the two statues would step apart, soften into life and look at her with welcoming smiles.
"Midori," said Haru. "Meet the Baron. Baron, this is my granddaughter...the gifted young artisan without whom I would not be standing here right now."
"Then I am much obliged to you," said the Baron. His warm, melodious voice was just as Midori had imagined it from hearing the stories. He took off his hat and swept her an elegant bow.
"Uh, you're welcome," said Midori hurriedly, bowing in return. "Best of luck to both of you."
"If you would like to visit us," said the Baron, "Look for a large white cat at a crossroads. We look forward to your visit."
"Goodbye," said Haru, waving, as Midori felt the force of reality tugging at her to wake up...
The telephone was beeping frantically, even though it was only six a.m. Midori let off a string of curses, bumping into things in the darkness of the apartment, until she finally found a light switch and the phone. She flipped it open and pressed 'talk'.
"Hello?"
"Is this Sano Midori speaking?" It was a light, crisp, middle-aged man's voice, vaguely familiar...from the hospital. Midori's throat contracted. bad news? Good news?
"Yes..." It was all she could do to squeeze it out.
"Sano Haru-san passed away during the night...we're very sorry."
Standing there in the empty, neon-lit kitchen with the phone pressed to her ear, Midori found herself staring at the table in disbelief.
A cool breeze was blowing in through a window which had not been open before. Her statue was gone.
"I understand," she said mechanically as her mind whirled through all sorts of possibilities. "Thank you for calling...Goodbye."
Maybe...she thought, with a growing sense of hope flaming up inside her. Maybe it wasn't a dream.
I'll see you soon, Grandmother...and Baron.