Chapter Two: Horror Movie

My mother let me watch horror movies on TV, even though they gave me nightmares and my father said I had no place watching such "garbage." I think it was one of her ways of getting back at him, since she had to be the home-maker and he was at work all day. This is a necessary prelude to what happened one day, which is that my father took my mother down to the basement where not even I could hear, to the place where my mother planted her seeds and then helped the plants grow under a false sun light, and I was afraid he was going to kill her like in all the horror movies. Basements weren't good, I knew that much.

He'd as much as said he hated her, after all.

I crept toward the basement door and crouched, trying to listen, but the basement was sound proofed. No noise emanated from beyond. I couldn't feel any earth-shaking crashes or thumps. I went to sit down on the couch in front of the TV, flipping through the channels like a six-year-old expert, swinging my feet, a strange anxiety filling me.

At last, the door flew open and I jumped up - my mother wasn't dead, but her eyes were red and tears were streaming down her face. My father rarely showed emotion, but today he looked sad as he stood beside her. They were a united front for the first time in my memory.

Maybe, I thought wildly, they were going to get rid of me. Maybe that would fix all their problems. Would I have to go to an orphanage?

"I know this has all been very hard for you, Riyeko-chan," said my father. "So I think you deserve to be the first to know. I've filed for a divorce." It sounded like defeat.

I struggled back in my memory for what that meant. "So… you're not going to be married anymore?"

My mother choked out an involuntary sob, which answered my question for me. A sense of false calm came over me. Someone had to be calm, in this situation. "It's okay, I'm sure you'll both find other people," I said, and a strange look came over my mother's face. Not her usual anger, but something beyond that. It looked remarkably like hatred. She came forward, her hand raised - I flinched back - and then she paused and a calm settled on her features, a calm that was frightening with her tearful pallor and wild hair. She looked like pictures I had seen of vengeful ghosts.

She turned silently, walked up the stairs, and shut her bedroom door. I looked with big, fearful eyes at my father.

In the slightest, minutest way, he gave a shrug.


I had wanted him to tell me everything was going to be alright, but he did not, because everything was not going to be alright.

The calm I presented for my parents was a front. I wanted to scream inside. I wanted to cry. I wanted to hug both of them and beg them to stay together.

I didn't. I knew it would be of no use.


My things were packed into a fancy little pink and tan designer sports bag, and I was sent to stay with my grandfather. He welcomed me with open arms, greeting me with cheer. He made me fancy breakfasts and let me play with anything in the store, let me count money at the shop register and made sure I had fun all day long.

But it was all wrong, somehow. The home above the shop was cramped and pushed together, my bed small and plain and my bedroom tiny. The shop was loud and crowded and so was the street. We were in a far different district from where I had grown up. And Grandpa wasn't Mommy and Daddy. He was fun, but he wasn't my parents.

"Grandpa," I asked him one night over a board game after dinner, "will I have to get used to all this?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, frowning.

My eyes stung again. I bit my lip. "Am I going to have to stay here now that… now that Mommy and Daddy are separating?" My face worked to keep from crying.

He pulled me into another hug and I sniffled. "It's not that they don't want you, Riyeko-chan," he said in a low, concerned voice. "They just don't want you to see them so upset while they figure stuff out. It will all be fine in the end. Trust me."

I paused. "I'm sorry," I said in a watery voice. "All I ever do is cry."

"Little girls are supposed to cry when bad things happen to them," he said. "One day, you will smile again."

I sat up straight. "But I don't want to be the kind of girl who cries all the time!" I frowned.

I thought the frown would make me look like Daddy, but he surprised me by laughing softly. "Well, perhaps you are your mother's daughter after all," he said.


And so the waiting game began. The wait to see what my parents had decided - what my future would be. Who would I go with? Mommy? Daddy? Would I switch between them both? What would happen to our house?

I had no answers, and that frustrated me. More than that, it frightened me.

For one whole month, I was frightened.