Maybe This Time
"Hush little baby, don't say a word. Momma's gonna buy you a mocking bird."
"And if that mockingbird don't sing!" a shrill, giggling voice burst out.
"Shh…" Misao cooed, nodding. She continued as the small boy beside her flopped back down into his bed. "Momma's gonna buy you a diamond ring…"
Misao stayed still at the bedside for five more minutes before gently lifting herself up to head out toward the hallway.
"Mommy," the childish voice cut into the pitch darkness.
"Osamu-chan," Misao put her hands on her hips and said in a scolding voice. She knelt as Osamu twisted around in the bedding, struggling to get comfortable.
Finally he lay on his side, propping his round face up with one hand and stared up at Misao with those large blue eyes.
Misao looked down, ashamed that sometimes she could not even meet her own son's gaze. It was just too painful. It was too much like his father.
"Osamu-chan, you aren't making mommy very happy," Misao tried futilely, but the reprimand came out weak and raspy.
Because the reverse was true. Osamu was the only thing keeping Misao happy. He was precious to her, more precious than anything. The only clue that Soujiro was something other than a ghost, that what they'd had was real.
"Mommy, I was just thinking," Osamu replied reasonably. "That what if…this time daddy came back? You always say 'one night when you're asleep, daddy will come back and you'll meet him.'" The little boy did an awfully good impression of his mother. "So what if tonight, he does?"
Misao was silent for a moment, but rather than let her darling son see her weakness, she calmly brushed his inky bangs away from his face and kissed his forehead. "Goodnight," Misao said in an even voice that did not betray how close she was to tears.
How long now, had they been married? The beautiful kimono that hung in her room looked brand new, but it had been five years, almost to the day, since she had worn it.
Misao approached the intricately embroidered silk cautiously, the lantern in her room slowly burning itself out. She gazed up at the soft peach-white fabric and let her eyes trail over the design of the kimono. Large hillsides with blooming sakura trees rose from the hem. The trees were in soft shades of almost every color—pinks, blues, greens, gold—but red dominated the design. Two white gulls could be spotted rising up over a stream of crystal blue.
Was this really something she had worn? Had that happy woman been her? About to take her true love as a husband and live the rest of her life in bliss.
It was too long ago. It was a different Misao. A Misao who existed in some other universe where her son had grown up with two happy, loving parents. Where the first thing she saw in the morning was her husband, smiling.
Because he had always smiled, hadn't he? Even when he said goodbye.
Plop…plop…plop.
Soujiro sits pensively on the porch of our small flat, catching raindrops in a clay sake cup.
I see him there and my exhaustion turns to happiness. I am glowing whenever I am near him, so I approach him calmly, squeezing his toned shoulders before sitting down next to him.
"Is Osamu sleeping?" he turned to me and asks.
I marvel at his eyes, and the truly shocking brightness I see there. I never thought Soujiro, my Soujiro, could be this happy. I don't think he thought it either.
"Yes, I just put him down," I answer, a free smile offered on rosebud lips. I never have to think around him, and smiling comes so naturally.
Soujiro nods and turned back to the sight outside. Everything is getting drenched, everything is getting washed away, but we don't have to worry. I think it calms him, seeing the rain wash away everything. I think it helps him, if only a little.
Plop…plop…plop.
I know there is a part of my husband that sees himself as ugly, disgusting and sinful. It's a glimpse he catches ever so often when walking past a clear pool or a mirror. He sees it and he smiles in its face.
I only wish that he could see what I see, but he doesn't. It's hard to think he never will.
Plop…plop…plop.
I voice my concern. "Soujiro…I'm afraid of what you might be thinking. Please don't torture yourself. We have Osamu now, and we have each other."
He tilts his head up. "I'm sorry Misao," he says in a perfectly level voice. "You should be inside resting."
I shake my head. "No, I'm fine." I say it more quickly than I should, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.
I am fine, but I don't know if my Soujiro ever will be.
I scoot closer to my husband and lay my head on his chest, pulling him in to me. "I love you," I say quietly, and relish the way his hand feels, stroking my tousled hair.
"I love you," he answered, and smiles.
He is always smiling.
I close my eyes and start to drift away, but then he pulls back and I hear a small gasp.
I sit up and blink at him. We aren't touching anymore, not even our knees.
"Misao," he says, and that's the moment that I know. I know something is about to happen, but at the time I ignore the feeling.
"Misao, I can't content myself to this life, knowing my past," Soujiro continues.
I bite my lip. I would give anything for him to stop. His words scorn me, they cut me into pieces. He isn't trying to hurt me, I know, but he is.
"Yes, you can," I say in a whisper. I never knew whether he heard me.
"This monster does not deserve you."
I draw back to salvage my burned skin. This monster…he is worse than Himura, but how much worse I guess I never realized.
Because from the start, Himura had someone to care for him. Someone who wanted him to live. But for Soujiro, there was no one. No one shed a tear for his sake until he met me.
"I know I can't change what I am or what I've done, but I can't…"
He smiles. His smile is encompassing, blocking out any trace of emotion.
"You can't do this," I say, shaking my head. He stands up.
"Kamiya-san will help you take care of Osamu," Soujiro says. "Until I return."
I don't know if this is meant as a comfort to me, or as an excuse for him. He knows he can't leave me like this. He knows that.
I close my eyes. So why is he…
His lips brush mine, and for a moment it is so real, so powerful. But then he draws away.
A ghost's kiss, a shadow. He is condemned to his fate, and I to mine. For loving such a man…
I can hear his footsteps, even with the pouring rain all around us. The clay sake cup remains, collecting drops of water.
Plop…plop…plop.
"Thank you Misao."
And then he is gone. Osamu wakes up and begins to cry, but I am already crying myself.
And the rain continues to pour.
"Goddamn you Seta!" Misao said in a fierce whisper, kicking over the dwindling flame of the lantern. She was shrouded in darkness. "Goddamn."
She stood there for who knows how long before pitter-pattering footsteps made their way down the hall.
"Misao?" a kind voice called into her pitch-black room.
Misao turned to answer. "Kaoru-san—Aoshi? What's all this about?"
She didn't sound angry—just surprised. True, her flat was only a ten-minute walk from the dojo, but for what reason were Kaoru and Aoshi stopping by?
"Aoshi thought you could use some company tonight," Kaoru answered brightly, and then waved Misao out into the hall.
Aoshi had always been too intuitive about Misao. She frowned, but shuffled after her friend.
Kaoru and Aoshi had married several years before Misao, and the married life suited the two of them, in ways that Misao thought to be contradictory. She never thought either she or Kaoru would be any good at being a wife, but Kaoru had risen spectacularly to the challenge.
It was more than just wanting to ward off Megumi's taunting or please her husband—Kaoru seemed to enjoy being a wife. She still taught kenjutsu and cooked horribly, but Aoshi still regarded her as the finest of wives, and his loyalty to her was almost overwhelming.
The three of them crowded around the small table in the front of the flat—it could hardly be called a dining room, but it served its purpose.
"Have some of this lovely pomegranate Sano sent us," Kaoru coaxed, spilling out many of the ripe, ruby-red seeds into a bowl.
Misao looked down at the glistening seeds and shook her head.
She remembered eating pomegranate with Soujiro, tossing up some of the seeds for him to catch in his mouth. He'd been awful at it, but she was rather good.
"Are you sleeping?" Aoshi asked, looking Misao squarely in the eyes.
She didn't both trying to look away. She had learned as a little girl that Aoshi's gaze was too intense—too captivating.
"Yes," she lied firmly. "The past couple weeks I've been sleeping fine."
Misao's insomnia was on and off—"off mostly" was what she'd led everyone to believe. But night times were harder. Everything was a whisper, the sleekest of shadows. When the world was illuminated by the stark rays of the sun, life didn't seem so hard. Not when there was laughter to accompany light, and light to accompany laughter.
At night, light and laughter slept, and left Misao.
"You seem like someone else…"Aoshi said.
Misao stared. It seemed like such a strange thing for him to say. She was someone else, but he'd never noticed it before. She'd always been his Misao…little darling Misao, who would follow him anywhere, but that was gone. That Misao had died—she wasn't sure when.
The Misao that sat in front of him was no less full of love, no less persistent and no less daring. But this Misao was not just a girl—she was a woman grown, a mother, a wife.
She would have stayed darling Misao if she could, but in the trade she had gotten something that her life would never be complete without. She'd gotten her little boy.
"I'm fine," she finally said in a flat voice. She was used to these interrogations, as she called them. She knew she was blocking people out, keeping them away from her anger and her loneliness.
It was the only way she knew to stay sane.
"Himura can I give you a hand?" I trot willingly over to him as he hangs the clothes to dry.
"Misao-dono," he greets me. "I actually wanted to have a talk with you."
"You did?"
I am puzzled. Kenshin has never wanted to have 'a talk with me.' I wonder briefly if I have done something to upset him, but he seems perfectly cheery.
He flicks the soapy water off his hands and leans back on one knee. I plop down next to him, cross-legged.
"When I fought Soujiro those years ago, he never told me what had happened to him before meeting Shishio," Kenshin begins, and I suddenly understand. He wants to talk about Soujiro.
"I assume he told you," Kenshin goes on.
"Yes. He said—"
"I'm not asking to know," he cuts me off, holding up a hand. "That is something Soujiro entrusted to you."
"Yes, but I'm sure that—"
The hand is up again. I fall silent.
"The horrors of Soujiro's past are things that I can only imagine," Kenshin says. His voice has taken on a dark quality. I don't like it, but I listen intently. "I don't believe Soujiro had ever shared this with another human being—but he told you."
I nod, a slight nod, ever so slowly.
"Did you ask him about it?"
"No," I know this is the answer he is looking for, and it is also the truth. "He told me one night. He wasn't emotional at all, he said it like a fact."
"Soujiro has never had anyone but himself to rely on—this is a mindset he has held true too since he was a small child. But he shared his pain with you, and that is something astonishing. That he not only opened himself up, but to actually reach out to someone…" Kenshin pauses here, looking thoughtful.
I take in a breath. "I didn't realize…"
Why do I never understand these things? Am I so self-centered that I can't understand what it's like for someone like Soujiro? That the simple act of listening is possibly the best help he could get? The idea seems bizarre.
"I know you didn't," Kenshin says quickly. "That is why I told you."
I look away for the first time since our conversation began.
"You are the one thing keeping Soujiro grounded right now," Kenshin goes on, and starts to stand. "Whether you realize it or not. And it was probably a good thing that you didn't. One day Soujiro will be able to help himself in the way you helped him…but for now, you are what keeps him sane and holds him firm to the ground. Please don't forget that."
He turns away from me and I know our conversation is over, but there are so many questions I still have.
Himura is depending on me to save Soujiro. Whatever it was that Himura did that day on Mt. Hiei, it was enough to break through Soujiro's long-forged barrier, but not built a new life.
That was something Soujiro would have to do himself, one brick at a time. And it seems that I have turned out to be a very important brick.
"I won't," I promise. I don't care that Himura can't hear me anymore, as I am across the yard. It is a promise to Himura, to myself and to Soujiro. I won't let a single one down.
Misao sighed and looked down at the denied pomegranate. "I'm sorry, I'm just a little tired," she confessed in a moment of weakness.
Aoshi and Kaoru exchanged glances, but Kaoru then offered a tentative smile to Misao. "Sure, we'll let ourselves out. You go ahead and sleep. It will be brighter tomorrow, that I promise."
Misao thanked them and slowly made the trek down to her room.
She sighed heavily and lay down. She was so tired…so tired but she couldn't sleep a wink.
I close my eyes and try to think of anything but him. All I can think of is the other times…the other nights, just like this, when the pain of his leaving was still raw. It is an ache now, that follows me everywhere. It is an ache I feel when I look into my son's eyes, and see Soujiro staring back. But there is a smile and a feeling of happiness that comes, too, and I feel both hurt and healed at the same time.
Maybe this time when she closed her eyes, she would drift asleep. And maybe this time she wouldn't feel so empty, so hollow when she awoke and there was no sweet smile to greet her. Maybe this time the feelings would just leave, all go away, and leave her in peace.
Maybe this time, laughter and light would be hers.