In All Honesty
By Saltwater Romance


When you have nothing left, what do you live for?


Prologue.


My mother was one of the most wonderful person on the Earth.

Yes, a lot of children besides me respectively, could cry out the exact same thought as mine, but my mother was different from the others; she was so unique that she stood in solitary among the masses as she had done through the course of her life despite her sweet demeanor.

No, my mother couldn't be found in the textbooks of today, dying as a nobody and without recognition for the lives that she touched and inspired.

She bore only one child to the man that would continue to love faithfully for the rest of her life. Her features were as delicate as a cherry blossom reaching its full bloom on a warm Spring afternoon, simply breath-taking and seemed to pause at the age of twenty-five, not aging a day after, which led to her forced second marriage that left the pride of her heart behind to defend his homeland, and the ashes of her noble beloved in Cuu-Long, the river that watched as the Europeans stole his life in self-fish vanity, as she relocated to the land of the Rising Sun.

She was introduced to a new environment, new language, new customs, new social status, and even worse, a new life. In spite of her disadvantages, she had made the best of her time with God, who blessed her with a daughter (me) to a man whom she hardly ever saw to his polygamous view of marriage.

She loved the salt water that was a reminder of her homeland. She loved the sparkling sea glass that reminded of the early years raising up her first born. She loved the bustle in the morning and the fussing of the children, who weren't even hers. She loved the other wives as her own blood. She loved her second child, regardless of having every right to ashamed of the poor bastard-child, who wasn't a boy. Above all, her greatest reverend belonged to her past lover, who no one dared to compete for his spotlight.

Every night, she would kneel on her bedside and pray to the rosary before she went to bed. Except for that one miss night when she came to visit me instead of her usual routine.

She appeared next to my bedside with a ghost-like quality, hot tears running down her paling cheeks, her hair was let loose for the first time since I had known her, and she kept chanting, 'I'm sorry' over and over again until her blubbering died in her hoarse throat. I was more than clueless and anything less than awake, so she didn't bother to verbally tell me of her agony. I held her hand loosely, in which she tucked a lotus in with a tight-lipped smile and kissed the top of my head with a gentle murmur of the Hail Mary. Instantly, my eyes widened, all of my senses tingling with knowledge filling up the deafening silence. It was then when we knew. We both knew this was the last good-bye.

The memory whizzed past the me like a summer breeze as my fingertips brushed against the what would have been porcelain skin, if only the years had been kinder to her and hadn't cursed her with the wrinkles marring her face. She looked so peaceful in spite of her violent death. Everyone assumed it was homicide, and the second wife had the motive; my mother had a heart of gold, but no one caught the glimpse of the threatening black that aided her in wrecking havoc upon herself.

A cruel twist played on my lips when my father strode into the ceremony, his charisma was strong and attention was focused on him and his best suit that consisted of the embellished three stars on his broad shoulders on the dull green uniform of the Imperial Japanese Army. I was hit with the wave of desire to call his father out for his bloodstained hands.

The priest began to initiate the funeral. His lips moved, but no words came out. The priest as well as everyone else surrounding the casket didn't know my mother. They didn't care about her, and they all knew it. She wasn't one of their people and for that, they condemned her with their harsh judgment.

I was so young and ignorant of ignorance. I was thirteen and had the best person who influenced my life taken away from me. Hello, my name is Hotaru Imai and this is my story. Stay tune if you want to witness a story of love, tragedy, horror, mystery, and a bit supernatural. If not, I understand.

No one is destined to care about me.


Author's Sidenote: This was written for my English class, and I didn't want to publish it until after I received my grade. Though, the one that I wrote for my English class was longer and didn't have Hotaru as the protagonist.

I promise you, that the story will extend to something better as long as you give it a try.

Review, s'il vous plait!